![]() Melita Maschmann was a young German woman who supported Hitler because she believed he would bring an end to unemployment: "Part of the misery about which the adults complained daily was unemployment. Women who worked to keep their families as their husbands lost their jobs, or who saw their standard of life deteriorate, longed for stability and certainty - feelings successfully tapped by Hitler." (6) Unemployment bred uncertainty and discord at the heart of their family lives. German women had experienced the anarchy of street fighting between rival political gangs on their doorsteps. His promise to restore order and end unemployment held strong appeal. "When Hitler came to power, almost half of those voting for him were women. (5) Wolfgang Willrich, The Aryan Family (1930)Ĭate Haste, the author of Nazi Women (2001) has suggested that Hitler was popular with German women. The German National Party, won nearly a million additional votes. (4) In the election in November 1932 the Nazi Party won 230 seats, making it the largest party in the Reichstag. when the masses were unemployed, hungry and desperate". Shirer, who was working in Germany at the time, has argued that politicians such as Hitler "thrive only. Hitler told a delegation who had come to discuss women's rights with him he told them the solution was for every woman to have a husband. (3) Unemployment and the Nazi Partyĭuring the election campaign in 1932, Adolf Hitler promised that if he gained power he would take 800,000 women out of employment within four years. In 1933 women formed 37 per cent of the total employed labour force in Germany. As Richard Grunberger has pointed out: "Skilled women earned 66 per cent of men's wages, unskilled ones 70 per cent, which explains why during the Depression nearly one man in three (29 per cent) was dismissed but only one woman in every ten (11 per cent). The main reason was that female labour was cheaper. Taking into account dependants, perhaps twenty-three million people were affected by unemployment." (2)ĭuring the early 1930s women often found it easier to find jobs than men. "Thirty-three per cent of the workforce were without jobs. Since these figures did not include the "invisible" unregistered unemployed, it has been estimated that the true figure was 7.6 million. The number of registered unemployed in Germany rose from 1.6 million in October 1929 to 6.12 million in February 1932. The collapse in share prices meant an urgent need to repatriate American capital invested abroad. The Wall Street Crash caused serious problems for the German economy. ![]() Germany also had 100,000 women teachers, 13,000 women musicians and 3,000 women doctors. Luxemburg, the leader of the Spartacus League, was murdered by the Freikorps in January, 1919, but other women replaced her at the forefront of politics and by 1932 they had 36 members of the Reichstag. After the First World War women in Germany were given the vote and a feminist elite, led by Rosa Luxemburg and Clara Zetkin, helped to shape the political post-war scene.
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