Ever since the completion of the Second World War and the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945, many historical works from a variety of fields have sought to investigate particular elements of the Nazi regime. Like many components of the Third Reich, the role of women within Nazi Germany has caused much debate, with historians “not being able to agree” upon what that role was.[1] During the second half of the twentieth century, there have been conflicting accounts on the relationship and role of women within Nazi society. These contrasting opinions largely stemmed from the paradoxical roles that women were placed within Nazi Germany. One view was firmly placed on the notion of motherhood and mass-procreation by ‘ethnically German’ women of childbearing ages.[2] While this was contrasted by the need for women to join the economic labour force in order to fund the German war effort. For much of the twentieth century, historians largely represented women as little more than sub-ordinates in Nazi society. This form of ‘top-down’ history effectively blanketed women in Germany as powerless and dormant victims, who did not hold any influence or power within the party or the state at all.[3] However, with the emergence of more ‘bottom-up’ historical interpretations in the latter twentieth century, a more complex view on the role of women in Nazi Germany has arisen. The work of feminist historians revealed that women were not just powerless victims, but held sufficient agency on the societal level, and within the resistance movement. In addition, women were held in a much higher regard within the inner circle of the Nazi Party than previously considered, and women themselves were noted as being instrumental in the success of many of the Party’s programs. Essentially, women were not simply just subordinate, non-influential individuals, but that they can be considered equally responsible for the rise and fall of the Nazi Party, and the devastation is caused in its existence.
It is important to consider when comparing earlier representations against more revised perspectives, that these initial histories are not necessarily incorrect in their analysis; rather that they failed to investigate the intricacies of the female experience in Nazi Germany.
The initial historiographies of women within Nazi Germany focused on the direct impact of Nazi policies on women. This regarded women as largely passive victims within the regime. These policies discussed by early historians on this topic largely focused on their role in Nazi society as mothers and spouses, and their particular removal from political and academic spheres. They paid particular attention to the efforts by the Nazi Party to undo the gains women made towards social and political rights up until 1933.[4] As historian Charu Gupta stated, “With the coming of National Socialism, the process of female emancipation was reversed, her degradation and depersonalisation became an element of German ideology”.[5] During the life of the Weimar Republic from 1919 to 1933, the status of women within Germany was one of the most progressive in Europe. Stated within the Weimar Constitution of 1919 proclaimed the female right to vote, “equality of the sexes in civic matters,” maternity rights, and spousal equality within marriage.[6] During the numerous general elections in the early 1930s, most political parties named female candidates to contest seats, other than the Nazi Party. Following the ascension of Hitler to Chancellor in January 1933, and after the banning of all other political parties, the number of women within German politics went from 37 to zero after the November 1933 elections.[7] These anti-feminine polices of the Nazi Party were portrayed in contemporary historical works as an oppressive regime abusing helpless, voiceless victims. This ‘top-down’ form of history regarded history largely as what men did to women, and reflects the broader patriarchal sentiments of the time. Heinrich Himmler in 1937 stated regarding the Nazi ideology that it “…cannot be sustained if it is worn by women, because man conceives of everything through the mind, whereas women grasp everything through sentiment”…[8] American sociologist Clifford Kirkpatrick reflected this through his account of how the Third Reich regarded women. He wrote that German women “experienced a great longing for simplicity that made them turn deaf ears to the cool intellectual warnings”.[9] Thus, Kirkpatrick and others of his context, noted this perspective of women being no more than passive victims, void of any significant understanding of the regime they are under.
Early historians considered the Nazi Party’s values towards women as representative of the role women played in Nazi Germany. This understanding includes notions explicated by Adolf Hitler for example who stated in 1934 that, “…a woman’s world is her husband, her family, her children and her house”.[10] These perceptions by the leaders of the Nazi Party were considered by historians as entirely encapsulating the role and function of women within the Third Reich. Historians in the later decades noted this point in their historiographical critiques. Leila J. Rupp wrote for example, “The simple and limited role for women that Hitler and other male party leaders conceptualized has too often been accepted as the definitive National Socialist view of women”.[11] What many of these earlier historical works fail to acknowledge is that these perceptions of women by the Nazi Party or male historians are not the same as the women’s perspective of their role within the Third Reich. More recent works have aimed to challenge the initial perspective of women within the Nazi Party. Specifically, later historians sought to revise the perception that women were simply dormant, voiceless victims of a patriarchal regime. Instead, this new historicism looks to undermine the notion of a uniformed female experience under Nazi Germany, and analyse how women really acted under this regime.
This revision of the role of women in Nazi Germany is a form of feminist history. It looks to examine history from a female perspective in order to highlight the significance of how women affected the past and the role they played in history.[12] Following the second wave of feminism during the 1970s, feminist historians including Claudia Koonz and Jill Stephenson began to critique the previous perceptions made concerning the role of women in Nazi Germany. Claudia Koonz wrote in her 1988 work that early historians had “excluded half of the Germans who made dictatorship, war and genocide possible”.[13] Historians like Koonz heavily condemned earlier interpretations representing women as little more than a part of a “timeless backdrop” of Nazi history.[14] Koonz was instrumental in analysing the role of women who supported and worked enthusiastically for the Third Reich. She argued that German women supported the Nazi Party with “conviction, opportunism and active choice”.[15] This statement is significant, as Hitler claimed in 1933 that, “women have always been among my staunchest supporters” and “we gained more women than all the other parties together”.[16] Although Hitler’s claim is up for debate regarding its validity, Koonz argued that women had a much more significant role in influencing the election of the Nazi Party to power. Historian Cate Haste supported this notion, she wrote, “When Hitler came to power, almost half of those voting for him were women… 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”.[17]
In accordance with challenging the notion that women were no more than passive victims under a tyrannical government, many revisionist historians analysed the extent to which women in Nazi Germany could be held accountable for the crimes of the regime. German historian Gisela Bock argued on one hand that ‘all women’ to some extent were victimised by the Nazi Party, in particular through their extensive eugenics and sterilisation programs; thus, voiding them of significant accountability.[18] However, Claudia Koonz argued that women were not entirely innocent, but acted as ‘enablers’ to the crimes perpetrated by the Third Reich. Koonz wrote, “Far from being impressionable or innocent, women made possible State murder in the name of interests that they defined as maternal”.[19] This means that women were able to create an illusion of a functioning, happy society within a ruthless political regime. Thus, as historian David A. Guba Jr. summarised, “Aryan‘ women and especially mothers were accomplices to the Third Reich and were indirectly responsible for Nazi terror and the genocide of millions deemed unfit to live”.[20] Although Bock and Koonz provided contrasting opinions arguing whether women in Nazi Germany were victims or indirect perpetrators, their works sparked a discussion that was previously not considered in historiography. As Guba Jr. stated, this debate “forced professional discourse to move beyond blanket generalizations and accept the complex and contradictory realities of the Nazi past”.[21]
American historian Eric Johnson and other later historians sought to blast the previous notion that women were passive, apolitical victims of the Nazi regime. Instead, these historians provided new elements towards the understanding into how active women were within Nazi society. Johnson’s 1995 article aimed to dispel the perspective of German women being a “shrinking violet” in the face of the Nazi legal system and threat from the Gestapo.[22] He stated that women in Nazi society were, “…important actors in the Nazi control apparatus at the local level, both as denouncers and as witnesses”.[23] Thus, Johnson noted that German women were not apolitical, voiceless victims like previously considered. German historian Ute Frevert provided a more radical argument by stating, “…women were perhaps better off under Nazism than in the Weimer Republic”.[24] Although Frevert’s statement is up for debate, the fact remains that women “did not perceive the Third Reich as a women’s hell,” and that they actively and deliberately worked within and for it.[25] Women could be members of the Nazi Party but could not represent the party politically. In 1931 the National Socialist Women’s League was established and was initially used to train women in housekeeping.[26] However, in the pre-war years and during the war itself, the organisation led by Gertrud Scholtz-Klink actively encouraged and pursued community self-policing in place of the men who were away fighting. This suggests that women played an active role in policing the Nazi state in a societal context. Johnson estimated that women within Nazi Germany made a quarter of official denouncers and up to one fifth of witnesses in trials for crimes against the state.[27] Stella Kübler is an example of a German woman who collaborated with the Gestapo during the Third Reich. Kübler was a German Jewish woman who worked with the Gestapo in identifying and denouncing the location of Berlin’s Jewish population. Kübler’s promised underground Jews food and accommodation, while simultaneously turning them over to the Gestapo.[28] Her childhood friend Peter Wyden first wrote about the history of Stella Kübler in 1992.[29] The biography ‘Stella,’ demonstrates the inaccuracies of early historiographers in their general labelling of women as passive, disempowered victims, through demonstrating a German Jewish woman who was ruthless and powerful in her objectives for the Gestapo.
Recent historiography has also uncovered how women were involved in other organisations within Nazi Germany. Previously undiscussed by historians, women worked within the Race-Political Office, the Resettlement and Race Office of the ‘Schutzstaffel’ or SS, and the SS-Gefolge (the women’s wing of the SS.) Here, it can be argued that women were also involved in the process of racial purification within Germany. According to British historian Matthew Stibbe, women through their work as midwives and nurses were heavily involved in the state’s eugenics and euthanasia program.[30] Stibbe noted that prior to the war, many women voluntarily complied with ‘The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring,’ of July 1933, naming those with ‘genetic defects’ to the local Health Office.[31] Once the Second World War began, female nurses assisted with the transportation for those applicable to the ‘T4 Program’, as Stibbe stated, “evidence suggests that they (female nurses) performed these duties willingly and under no duress”.[32] This is another example into how women were much more involved in the Nazi eugenics program than what historians had previously acknowledged. Historian Bronwyn Rebekah McFarland-Icke quoted a survivor of the Eichberg Asylum who witnessed a murder by a German nurse in 1942, “pulled the hair of an old woman…and repeatedly struck her head against the floor until the woman was dead”.[33] The work from historians like Matthew Stibbe helped to acknowledge that women were deliberately involved in the Nazi eugenics program and that they cannot be exempt from any responsibility.
Women also held positions within the SS outside the medical sphere. Women within the SS primarily worked in signals and radio communications.[34] However, many women worked in concentration camps as guards and in other prisons. Of the 55,000 guards who served in Nazi concentration camps in total, about 3,700 were estimated to be women.[35] Most of these women can from lower to middle class backgrounds, and many did not have significant work experience or an education.[36] Stibbe noted that female SS guards were found to be as “brutal and sadistic” as their male counterparts, he demonstrated the case of Irma Griese as an example. Known as “the Hyena of Auschwitz,” she behaved erratically and violently towards inmates and instilled immense fear within those she oversaw. [37] Historians like Matthew Stibbe and Christian Leitz argued that women associated with the SS, or those even living near concentration camps were far more active than passive in regards to Nazi policies.[38] Hence, it is incorrect to assume that women were ignorant of the political reality and the daily functions and movements of those involved in Nazi policy.
Women were also heavily influential within the Nazi leadership. Prominent women in Nazi society like Eva Braun, Magda Goebbels and Leni Riefenstahl were immensely influential figures to Hitler and his inner circle. Riefenstahl in particular was a key figure in promoting Nazi propaganda in pre-war Germany with her film 1935 ‘Triumph of the Will.’ In addition, the work of Gertrud Scholtz-Klink as head of the National Socialist Women’s League (NSF) in 1933 created the possibility for women to work for the new Nazi state. By 1936, one third of all German women were members, and by 1938, the NSF reached a total membership of 2 million, this is the equivalent of 40% of the total membership of the Nazi Party at this time.[39] Although Gertrud Scholtz-Klink actively promoted the idea of male superiority, home labour and child bearing, the NSF provided a mean for women to channel their wanting for autonomy and acknowledgment within a patriarchal system. As Claudia Koonz stated, “the NSF offered a counter-balance to the authority of husbands and fathers”.[40] The activities of the NSF also help to dispel the notion of German women as historical non-actors. In addition, the study of Gertrud Scholtz-Klink insists that women were supremely faithful and influential within the higher levels of the Nazi Party. Scholtz-Klink in an interview with Koonz demonstrated continued support for National Socialism and had “fond memories” of the Third Reich.[41] This demonstrates the overwhelming support many Nazi women had towards their party, while the NSF validates their willingness to participate within that regime.
After determining that women had agency within Nazi society unlike what was previously considered, historians then sought to analyse what shaped women’s roles in the Third Reich. A major factor in shaping these roles for women was class and social structure. Specifically, middle to upper class women who were able to avoid state demands for increased female labour during the war. This demonstrates that these women had enough social and political influence within Nazi society so that they could pursue their own needs. Jill Stephenson highlighted how middle to upper class women were able to dismiss the burden of the escalating war effort entirely to the working class women.[42] During the war, the Nazi Party contradicted its past claims of restricting women in the working force and military by demanding women join the armed forces and work in German industry and agriculture. This demand for female labour only became more desperate as the war went on, as Gertrud Scholtz-Klink stated in a decree in January 1943, “The educated women in the women’s league and made available to the Wehrmacht not only have to type and work, but also be soldiers of the Führer”.[43] Essentially, the Nazis were confused regarding what they perceived their role for women to be. This point was raised by recent historians in order to depict how flawed the Nazi Party was with its promotion of contrasting ideals. British historian Timothy Mason noted that the Nazi’s attempt to conscript women into the labour force was disrupted by the belief that, “‘women were part of the population on whom…general hardships should not arbitrarily or continuously be inflicted”.[44] In wanting women to join the labour force that contrasted their willingness for them to be homemakers, the Nazi Party were concerned over alientating their female subjects. In addition with this, the Party was also worried over offending men who may have disproved of the Party requesting their spouses to work for the state. The Nazi policymakers were arguably trapped in what they wanted the role of women to be during the war. As Leila Rupp stated that the Third Reich’s willingness for women to work, “was rooted in the well-founded fear that civil conscription for women would be extremely unpopular, both with men and women”.[45] The confusion and fear surrounding female conscription into the labour force is clearly seen when Rupp noted that the female labour force increased by a slight 1% between the years 1939 and 1943.[46] During the war the female middle class began to felt disenfranchised with the Nazi government and through using their social power, refused to join the war effort. The upper class simply used their “wealth and social status” in avoiding the push for labour. Thus, demonstrating the strength of the status of middle and upper class women within Nazi Germany.
Women were also highly influential in resistance efforts against the Third Reich. The work and role of women within the resistance had also been consistently devalued, if not disregarded by historians. As Australian historian Jillian Wales noted, “Women’s resistance efforts in Nazi Germany between 1939 and 1945 receive little scholarly attention. Indeed the majority of female resisters remain nameless, invisible in history”.[47] This was because early historians interpreted the Nazi’s values towards women resistors as representative of what these resistors were actually like. As historian Monique Moser-Verrey noted, “…women were more often spared than men, it is their low status in a society dominated by men that did not make them sizeable enemies of the regime”.[48] However, female opposition towards the Nazi’s was much more prevalent than previously acknowledge. An example of this is the Rosenstrasse Protest on 1943, where the ‘Aryan’ wives of Jewish men protested the forced deportation of their husbands. A witness noted, “‘the accusing, demanding cries of the women rose above the noise of the traffic”.[49] News of the protests even managed to reach the upper echelons of the Nazi regime, with Joseph Goebbels writing in his diary, “…a large number of people gathered and in part even took sides with the Jews”.[50] Although the SS threatened to fire upon and arrest the women involved, around 1000 people eventually joined the protest and the men were released. It is clear the Rosenstrasse women had a considerable impact on the decisions of Nazi officials, demonstrating that women were also highly influential in resisting the Nazi Party.
Throughout the second half of the twentieth cenruty, historiography regarding the role of women in Nazi Germany shifted from women being no more than passive, powerless victims with little to no social status, to a far more diverse and complex view. An interpretation where women were proven to wield high influence in all levels of society and politics, and where they were involved in promoting and fighting against the ideas of the regime. Historians also began to discuss how the roles of women were shaped within the Third Reich, going beyond pure ideological analysis like their predecessors. The experiences of women within Nazi Germany had been progressively been written from the perspective of the women involved rather than from those of Nazi officials and policymakers. Through the dismissal of women as powerless victims, comes the discussion as to how responsible women can be held for the atrocities conducted by the Third Reich in its existence. This, like the role of women in general has become highly complex in historical analysis. However, this reflects the real role of women within Nazi Germany, that being highly convoluted and difficult to define.
Bibliography:
Books:
Baxter, Ian. Belsen and it’s Liberation: Rare photographs from Wartime Archives. London: Pen and Sword, 2014.
Bernstein, Eckhard. Culture and Customs of Germany. Greenwood Publishing Group. 2004
Brown, Daniel Patrick. The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System. University of Michigan: Schiffer Publishing, 2002.
Dams, Carsten and Stolle. Michael. The Gestapo: Power and Terror in the Third Reich. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Frevert, Ute. Women in German History Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1997.
Haste, Cate. Nazi Women: Hitler’s Seduction of a Nation. London: Channel 4 Books; First Edition, 2001.
Koonz, Claudia. Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family and Nazi Politics New York City. St. Martin’s Press, 1988.
Leitz, Christian. The Third Reich: The Essential Readings. Volume 1 of Blackwell Essential Readings in History: Wiley. 1999.
Lerner, Gerda. The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1981
Longerich, Peter. Heinrich Himmler: A Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012.
McFarland-Icke, Bronwyn Rebekah. Nurses in Nazi Germany: Moral Choice in History. Princeton University Press, 1999.
Payne, Stanley. A History of Fascism 1914-1945. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1995.
Read, Anthony. The Devil’s Disciples: The Lives and Times of Hitler’s Inner Circle. London: Pimlico. 2004.
Rempel. Gerhard. Hitler’s Children: The Hitler Youth and the SS. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1989.
Roland, Paul. Nazi Women: The Attraction of Evil. London: Arcturus Publishing. 2014.
Sigmund, Anna Maria. Women of the Third Reich. NDE Publishing, 2000.
Stephenson, Jill. Women in Nazi Germany. London and New York: Longman, 2001.
Stibbe, Matthew. Women in the Third Reich. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2003.
Wyden, Peter. Stella. New York: Anchor Books, 1992.
Personal Accounts:
Goebbels, Joseph. The Goebbels Diaries, 1942–1943, (ed. and tr. Louis P Lochner, 1st ed. ) Garden City: Doubleday, 1948.
Internet Sources:
“Die Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs. (The Reich Constitution of August 11th 1919” German National Assembly, Weimar, Germany. August 1919. Available from: http://www.zum.de/psm/weimar/weimar_vve.php
Journal Articles:
Bock, Gisela ‘Racism and Sexism in Nazi Germany‘, When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany.’ Signs. The University of Chicago Press, 1983.
Bridenthal, Renate, Grossmann, Atina and Kaplan, Marion A. “When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany.” Science and Society. New York City: Guilford Press 50 (4), 1986.
Cohen, Nick. “Sympathy for Sir Oswald: Old Nazis, New Dangers”. Jewish Quarterly. London: Jewish Quarterly. Volume 43, Issue 3, 1996.
Gupta, Charu. ‘Politics of Gender: Women in Nazi Germany.’ Economic and Political Weekly. Sameeksha Trust, Vol. 26, No. 17, 1991.
Johnson, Eric. “German Women and Nazi Justice: Their Role in the Process from Denunciation to Death,” Historical Social Research. Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences, Center for Historical Social Research. Vol. 20, No. 1, 1995.
Kirkpatrick, Clifford. “Recent Changes in the Status of Women and the Family in Germany,” American Sociological Review (2). 1937
Mason, Timothy. “Women in Germany, 1925-1945: Family, Welfare and Work. Part 1.” History Workshop. Oxford University Press: History Workshop, 1976.
Moser-Verrey. Monique. “The Women of the Third Reich.” Recherches féministes. (Quebec City: Laval University, Vol. 4 Issue. 2, 1991.
Rupp. Leila J. “Mother of the “Volk”: The Image of Women in Nazi Ideology.” Signs. The University of Chicago Press, 1977.
Rupp, Leila J. “Women, Class and Mobilisation in Nazi Germany.” Science and Society. New York City: Guilford Press. Vol. 43, 1979.
Stephenson, Jill. “Women’s Labour Service in Nazi Germany.” Central European History. Cambridge University Press, Vol. 15, 1982.
Nathan Stoltzfus, “The Women’s Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Berlin”. Nonviolent Sanctions. Albert Einstein Institution. Vol. 1, Issue, 3, 1989.
Wales, Jillian. “Women’s Resistance Efforts in Nazi Germany 1939–45: HerStory.” The ANU Undergraduate Research Journal. Canberra: Australian National University, Vol. 5, 2013
Thesis and dissertations:
Guba Jr. David A. “Women in Nazi Germany: Victims, Perpetrators, and the Abandonment of a Paradigm. Bucknell University: History Department. 2008.
Schuring. Samantha. “Mothers of the Nation: The Ambiguous Role of Nazi Women in Third Reich.” Masters Thesis, Lake Forest College, 2014.
[1] Christian Leitz. The Third Reich: The Essential Readings. (Volume 1 of Blackwell Essential Readings in History: Wiley, 1999.) p. 209.
[2] Jill Stephenson. Women in Nazi Germany. (London and New York: Longman, 2001.) p.16.
[3] S. Schuring. “Mothers of the Nation: The Ambiguous Role of Nazi Women in Third Reich.” (Masters Thesis: Lake Forest College, 2014.) pp.1-3.
[4] Renate Bridenthal, Atina Grossmann, and Marion A. Kaplan. “When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany.” Science and Society. (New York City: Guilford Press 50 (4), 1986.) pp. 482-485.
[5] Charu Gupta. ‘Politics of Gender: Women in Nazi Germany.’ Economic and Political Weekly. (Sameeksha Trust, Vol. 26, No. 17, 1991). p. 40.
[6] Articles 17, 19, 22, 109, and 119 within “Die Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs. (The Reich Constitution of August 11th 1919” German National Assembly, Weimar, Germany. August 1919. Available from: http://www.zum.de/psm/weimar/weimar_vve.php
[7] Anthony Read, The Devil’s Disciples: The Lives and Times of Hitler’s Inner Circle. (London: Pimlico. 2004), p. 344.
[8] Peter Longerich. Heinrich Himmler: A Life. (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012). pp. 230-231
[9] Clifford Kirkpatrick, “Recent Changes in the Status of Women and the Family in Germany,” American Sociological Review (American Sociological Association: 2 1937), p. 651.
[10] Eckhard Bernstein. Culture and Customs of Germany. (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004), p.66.
[11] Leila J. Rupp. “Mother of the “Volk”: The Image of Women in Nazi Ideology.” Signs. (The University of Chicago Press, 1977.) p. 362.
[12] Gerda Lerner. The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981) pp. 3-6
[13] Claudia Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family and Nazi Politics (New York City. St. Martin’s Press, 1988), p.3.
[14] Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family and Nazi Politics. p. 7
[15] Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family and Nazi Politics. p. 5
[16] Helen L. Boak. ‘”Our Last Hope”; Women’s Votes for Hitler: A Reappraisal.’ German Studies Review. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, Vol. 12, No. 2. 1989), p. 289
[17] Cate Haste. Nazi Women: Hitler’s Seduction of a Nation. (London: Channel 4 Books; First Edition, 2001). p.74.
[18] Gisela Bock. ‘Racism and Sexism in Nazi Germany‘, When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany.’ Signs. (The University of Chicago Press, 1983.) pp. 400-421.
[19] Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family and Nazi Politics. p. 5
[20] David A. Guba Jr. “Women in Nazi Germany: Victims, Perpetrators, and the Abandonment of a Paradigm.” (Bucknell University: History Department, 2008). p.7.
[21] Guba Jr. Women in Nazi Germany: Victims, Perpetrators, and the Abandonment of a Paradigm. p.3.
[22] Nick Cohen. “Sympathy for Sir Oswald: Old Nazis, New Dangers”. Jewish Quarterly. (London: Jewish Quarterly. Volume 43, Issue 3, 1996). p.26.
[23] Eric Johnson, “German Women and Nazi Justice: Their Role in the Process from Denunciation to Death,” Historical Social Research. (Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences, Center for Historical Social Research. Vol. 20, No. 1, 1995), pp. 33-34.
[24] Ute Frevert. Women in German History (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1997), p.207.
[25] Johnson, “German Women and Nazi Justice: Their Role in the Process from Denunciation to Death.” p.38
[26] Monique Moser-Verrey. “The Women of the Third Reich.” Recherches féministes. (Quebec City: Laval University, Vol. 4 Issue. 2, 1991). p.34
[27] Johnson, “German Women and Nazi Justice: Their Role in the Process from Denunciation to Death.” pp.46-47.
[28] Carsten Dams and Michael Stolle. The Gestapo: Power and Terror in the Third Reich. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 71.
[29] Peter Wyden. Stella. (New York: Anchor Books, 1992.)
[30] Stibbe. Women in the Third Reich. (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2003). pp. 75-76
[31] Stibbe. Women in the Third Reich. p. 75
[32] Stibbe. Women in the Third Reich. p. 76
[33] Bronwyn Rebekah McFarland-Icke. Nurses in Nazi Germany: Moral Choice in History. (Princeton University Press, 1999.) p.216.
[34] Gerhard Rempel. Hitler’s Children: The Hitler Youth and the SS. (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1989.) p.224
[35] Ian Baxter. Belsen and it’s Liberation: Rare photographs from Wartime Archives. (London: Pen and Sword, 2014.) p.24
[36] Daniel Patrick Brown. The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System. (University of Michigan: Schiffer Publishing, 2002.) pp.226-228.
[37] Stibbe. Women in the Third Reich. pp. 77-78.
[38] Leitz. The Third Reich: The Essential Readings. p. 225.
[39] Stanley Payne. A History of Fascism 1914-1945. (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1995). p.184.
[40] Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family and Nazi Politics. p. 232
[41] Renate Bridenthal, Atina Grossmann, and Marion A. Kaplan. “When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany.” p. 22.
[42] Jill Stephenson. “Women’s Labour Service in Nazi Germany.” Central European History. (Cambridge University Press, Vol. 15, 1982). p.258.
[43] Anna Maria Sigmund. Women of the Third Reich. (NDE Publishing, 2000). p.188.
[44] Timothy Mason. “Women in Germany, 1925-1945: Family, Welfare and Work. Part 1.” History Workshop. (Oxford University Press: History Workshop, 1976). p.86
[45] Leila J. Rupp. “Women, Class and Mobilisation in Nazi Germany.” Science and Society. (New York City: Guilford Press. Vol. 43, 1979). p.56
[46] Rupp. “Women, Class and Mobilisation in Nazi Germany.” Science and Society. p.53
[47] Jillian Wales. “Women’s Resistance Efforts in Nazi Germany 1939–45: HerStory.” The ANU Undergraduate Research Journal. (Canberra: Australian National University, Vol. 5, 2013). p.223.
[48] Moser-Verrey. “The Women of the Third Reich.” p.36
[49] Nathan Stoltzfus, “The Women’s Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Berlin”. Nonviolent Sanctions. (Albert Einstein Institution. Vol. 1, Issue, 3, 1989.) p.3
[50] Joseph Goebbels. The Goebbels Diaries, 1942–1943, (ed. and tr. Louis P Lochner, 1st ed. ) (Garden City: Doubleday, 1948), p. 276.
Jack Johnston 