School for wives in Nazi Germany

• School for wives in Nazi Germany

In 1937, the Nazis opened the "preparation of The School for Wives." Through them we had to pass the girls who marry members of the SS and the NSDAP functionaries. In the schools they were taught home economics, child care and agriculture. Wife - it was the ideal woman for the Nazis, women were forbidden to study in higher education and work in the offices and in the workplace.

In the beginning of August in Berlin in the archives of instructions for conducting studies in the Nazi "The School for Wives" were found. These documents gave rise to talk in the first world of yet another generic feature of Nazism - in addition to anti-Semitism and anti-communism, and it was Antifeminism.

Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler in 1936 signed a decree creating a special training course for women who want to become wives of Nazis. "Bride school", where the girls take the course of his young wife, led Gertrud Scholtz-Klink - the head of the National Socialist women's organization (at its peak, in 1943, in the organization consisted of 7 million Germans.).

In these schools were enlisted by those who wanted to tie the knot with the members of the SS and the liberated workers of the National Socialist Party of Germany. In 1939, the list expanded - includes such potential husbands as officers in it.

The first school was opened in the island Schwanenwerder on Lake Wannsee near Berlin (near the villas Goebbels and Albert Speer). Up to 1944 in Germany, a total of 32 such schools appeared.

The school accepts only Arieka (sometimes makes an exception for the German women with no more than 1/8 of Jewish blood). They did not have to be physical injury and mental illness (not taken to school and those who have a parent suffering from schizophrenia). In schools, the bride took a 6-week course (1939 - two months), during which trained not only economics, but also the basics of genetics and the doctrine of the races, as well as political science and history. 2 were mandatory physical education classes every day. Also be sure to study element was agriculture - only this work was recognized worthy German woman (more on this below).

In addition, brides taught rhetoric, secular manners and childcare. At the end of the course, provided that the assimilation of knowledge, were given certificates entitling them to marry a "model of the Germans." Marrying these graduate committed by neo-pagan rites.

(Chairwoman of the German women - Scholtz-Klink)

Education in these schools was paid - 135 Reichsmarks (400 pounds, or about 20 thousand rubles at current exchange rate). But the money soon, "fought back": When a married graduate school with the "true Aryan" State gave them an interest-free grant of 1,000 marks for 5 years (150 thousand), and the birth of each child of this amount was forgiven 250 brands.

The basis of education of the German wife of then were "three known K": kinder, küche and kirche (children, kitchen and church). And it's not artistic exaggeration - that way saw the ideal of feminine activity of the Nazis. More precisely - the Germans, because the ideological basis that "schools for wives" that the role of women in society was conceived even before Hitler came to power. In 1917, the first "School of mothers" was opened in Stuttgart, where the background of the hardships of World Women centrally taught devotion to the family, the state and home economics.

The Nazi regime was very interested in increasing the population. Hence it followed that the wage-work and training in universities have been an obstacle to the execution of the main function of women.

If the working woman to marry and to voluntarily leave a job, she was granted an interest-free loan of 600 marks. Since 1934, began active promotion of birth: introduce children and family benefits (up to 30 marks for one child, a little more than 4200 rubles), medical assistance to large families are provided at a reduced price. special schools were opened where pregnant women prepare for the future motherhood. Propaganda never tired to extol the dignity and honor of the mother, and those women who have had 8 children, were awarded the Gold Cross of the parent (in addition they were supposed to benefit 500 marks a month - about 70 thousand rubles). Germany was the only major European country where the birth rate has grown very rapidly. If in 1934, came to light just over 1 million babies in 1939 -. For about 1, 5 million children..

And encouraged the employment of women in politics. In 1941, the number of women among the members of the NSDAP was 16, 5% (almost 2 times more than the woman consisted in the CPSU (b) in the USSR).

For unemployed women from the lower classes (workers and peasants), labor camps were organized, in which they were required to work 20 hours a week. The inmates of labor camps have received uniforms, a mandatory attribute of which was an armband with a swastika. The girls began to call "worker" - "Arbeitsmaiden" filling the obsolete word "die Maid" (virgin girl) ideological content. Each letter stands for one of the virtues inherent in the German woman: der Mut - courage, die Aufopferung -samopozhertvovanie, der Idealismus - idealism, die Demut - humility.

After coming to power, the Nazis began to consider the tendency of women to the professional, political or academic career as an unnatural phenomenon. The greatest happiness for a woman was to be her stay in the hearth next to her husband. Not by chance back in 1921 Nazi Party decided that women should not be allowed to high party and government posts. Already vesny1933 year began the systematic exemption of the state apparatus of employed women in it. Dismissed employees not only institutions but also married women doctors, because the Nazis declared concern for the health of the nation such a demanding task that it can not trust a woman.

In 1936 year he has been released from the post of married women who worked as judges or lawyers, as they could contain husband. Drastically reduced the number of women teachers, and girls' schools in the core academic subjects become home economics and needlework.

In fact, it was declared a ban on higher education for women. Already v1934 year in German universities remained only 1,500 students (in 1930 - 32 thousand). Noteworthy is the fate of women deputies last Weimar Reichstag 4 - committed suicide, 10 - were in a concentration camp, 30 it was placed under house arrest, and 43 - were forced to emigrate from the country.

More differentiated policy spending regime for women employed in industry and the service sector. The Nazis did not touch neither 4,000,000. Women who worked "domestic helpers" or numerous group of sellers, who pay for time not completely. In contrast, these activities were declared "typically female". Strongly encourages the work of unmarried girls - with the January 1939 labor service has been mandatory for all unmarried women under the age of 25 years; mostly they were sent to the village or the maids to mothers of large families. Also welcomed by farming: the work on the ground has been declared one of the main virtues of women. allocation program to households gardens was invented precisely Hitler - later she was taken over by the ball almost all European countries (including the USSR - under Brezhnev).

Today is the position of women in Nazi Germany can be equated to the situation of women in the Muslim world. And this is partly true: the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung in the late 1930s wrote that the Nazi ideology is very similar to a modernized Islam (rather Turkish or Iranian-style).