The Women of Germany

Katie Sonnabend

GWS 220

Essay 1

Wir sind die Frauen von Deutschland

(We are the Women of Germany)

            Germany, a country perhaps most notoriously known for its malicious involvement in World War II, has many historical documents and accounts that primarily portray the behaviors of men in Germany’s political and societal systems. In a country that has been bombarded with governmental and military upheaval for the majority of the last century-with two World Wars and a division of state into West and East sectors for numerous years-it is of little to no surprise that men have been in the foreground of German history. In fact, when thinking of notable Germans throughout history, the likes of Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Friedrich Nietzsche, Joseph Goebbels, Albert Einstein, and Martin Luther-just to list a few-are probably more likely to be mentioned than say Ruth Moufang. Hannah Arendt, or Clara Schumann. Despite this universally skewed fixation on men in the German culture, women have also been a prominent part of the country’s society. From politics to education to family life, women are an important functioning segment of this historical country and have, over the course of several decades, improved their standings within a predominately male run society that has continuously changed. Through bettering their marital standings, changing their sexual exploitation statuses, and striving to gain equality in both the workforce and in schooling systems, German women have begun to remold German society.

German propagandist Joseph Goebbels stated in 1929 that, “The mission of women is to be beautiful and to bring children into the world. This is not at all as…unmodern as it sounds. The female bird pretties herself for her mate and hatches eggs for him. In exchange, the male takes care of gathering food, and stands guard and wards off the enemy.” (Trueman, 2000).

            Around the time when German World War II projects were beginning to come into effect on far spanning platforms, there were programs being established in order to maintain a healthy and expansive military reserve. While women were not initially wanted for work on battlefields and in industrialized positions, there was a high demand placed upon young, “pure” females in Germany-and even in the surrounding territories like Norway-to get married and start a family with “pure” males. The ultimate goal was to produce thousands of German children who would be able to carry on the legacy and desires of the developing Nazi regime. There were even incentives given to women who were married and bringing children into the world. Every newlywed couple was given a substantial amount of money from the government when they were first married and with each additional child born, there was less money that had to be paid back; if enough children were born-a total of four-no money would have to be repaid to the nation (Trueman, 2000). During this time, the sole focus of women was to produce multiple offspring. In fact, many women who had previously held jobs were fired within the few short months after the Nazi Party began to gain power and were instead encouraged to wed and reproduce (Trueman, 2000).

            Although the idea of not having to work and only having to perform the duties of wife and mother may sound glamorous, there were often many hardships inflicted upon women. A program known as Lebensborn (roughly translated to mean “source of life”) was adopted in which racially pure young women were encouraged to engage in sexual relationships with prominent SS officers to produce children of the “master race” (Jewish Virtual Library, 2012). Often times these women were unmarried and would have their children immediately taken in order to start training them to be “perfect” Germanic children and later become part of the regime. Women were often ordered to follow strict policies in order to render the purest and healthiest of children. For instance, women were not supposed to stay within a certain weight class in order to be in prime birthing condition (Trueman, 2000). Furthermore, as this system began to fail, the kidnapping of young children was quite common in order to maintain suitable numbers of soldiers (Jewish Virtual Library, 2012).

            Despite the regime’s best efforts to maintain an expansive military front, it became too difficult to sustain war efforts without the help of women workers. Even though women’s help was not necessarily wanted-nor was it later given its deserved acknowledgement-by 1944, hundreds of thousands of women were involved in helping to maintain the German nation (Hagemann, 2011).  An especially prominent effort made by women during this time was that of civil aerial defense, in which women were trained to operate planes and fly alongside male pilots (Zegenhagen, 2009). For several years following the loss of the war, women were still needed to help restore Germany to a functioning unit.

            Relatively soon after the loss of World War II, there was a partitioning of Germany into the East and the West. The attitudes towards women were somewhat different in each of these two sectors (Gornick, Heike, & Rosenfeld, 2004), as were the daily lifestyles of the people living in them. In the West, there was a regression back towards the stereotypical female role of mother and housewife while women in the East chose to stay in the workplace if applicable with their place of employment when unification of Germany occurred in 1990 (Alder, 2004). As a result of this desire to remain in the workplace and reject the idea of returning to a previous state of motherhood and marriage, the birthrate had significantly decreased in this area, as did the number of new marriages (Adler, 2004). As statistical analysis shows, the total fertility rate, births per one thousand people, and marriages per one thousand people in East Germany is less than that of West Germany in the years from 1990 to 2000 (Engstler & Menning, 2003). According to an article in “The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World”, the average number of children per family is a mere 1.3, suggesting that little has changed in regards to fertility rates in the years since German unification. As Germany has become integrated into one singularly functioning unit though, there seems to be more of an evening out of behaviors and actions expressed by German women, but some statistical data suggests that there are still areas in which West and East German women differ.

            During the time that Germany was split into two separate states, there was a call for equality between men and women. Due to the different roles of women in West Germany compared to East Germany, there was a difference in how equality was perceived by women in both of these areas. In the West where women were subjected to be mere homemakers, and their status compared to men who provided all material necessities for the family was considerably lower; however, even though women in the East were among those in the workforce, their status-although higher than their fellow woman in the West-was still less than that of their male counterparts (Gornick, Trappe, & Rosenfeld, 2004). According to the article “Gender and Work in Germany: Before and after Reunification”, women in the East received lower wages, partook in more of the housework, and did not gain full gender parity. In fact, younger men were even earning more money than some of the older women who had been doing certain jobs for numerous years (Gornick, Trappe, & Rosenfeld, 2004). In the years since unification, women have advanced even farther in the workplace, with 50-59% of women being paid for work (Seager, 2009). However, women still do not receive equal compensation for the same tasks being completed by their male counterparts. In fact, women only earn an average of 78% of what men earn (Seager, 2009). Moreover, men predominantly lead the workplace, as statistical data shows that only 29% of managers are females (Seager, 2009).

            Currently, 66% of German women across the state are employed; however, with each additional child a woman has, the likelihood of her continuing to work decreases-only 14% of women with one child work while women with two or more children make up only 6% of the workforce (Bennhold, 2010). This is partially due to how the schooling system operates in Germany. Children attend class in the morning, return home for lunch, and resume classes in the afternoon. This style of education requires a parent-primarily the mother-to be at home with the children during lunchtime, which cuts into the workday (Bennhold, 2010). In some cases, companies have worked towards trying to establish daycare facilities that are open long hours at little cost in order to allow for women with young children to continue working; furthermore, women have been working towards establishing a curriculum in the school system that would incorporate a lunchtime in order to allow for them to continue working rather than becoming permanent stay-at-home-mothers (Bennhold, 2010). Interestingly enough, this event correlates to the statistical data that women are waiting to get married until later in life in order to fulfill educational, work, and personal goals. In 1980, women were marrying around age 23, but data collected in 2000 shows that women are waiting until age 28 to marry (Seager, 2009), which also correlates with the practices of women in Eastern Germany in the previous decade, who chose to forgo marriage in order to first concentrate on careers.

            For over two decades, Germany has been reunited into one state and several advances have occurred that shows the nation as a whole has come a long way from its past trials and tribulations; nevertheless, there are still areas in which improvements can still be made. During the World War II era, forms of contraceptives and abortions were greatly frowned upon since the country was trying to maintain a large society for military and governmental purposes. By today’s standards however, 51%-75% of German women use some form of contraceptive (Seager, 2009). In 2009, German parliament voted to require women seeking late stage abortions to wait at least three days before fully deciding to go through with the process-a procedure which is completed 600 times yearly in Germany (Deutsche Welle, 2009). From a legal standpoint, German women are allowed to seek an abortion in the cases that would harm the mother during the birthing process, if the mother has health or mental problems, in the instance of rape, if there is a notable birth defect in the unborn child, for social or economic reasons, and simply if the mother requests an abortion (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2001).

            By current German standards, programs such as Lebensborn would be viewed as supervised rape incidences, which are simply unacceptable. Since the World War era, women have begun to alter they way marriage is viewed and have continued to fight in order to gain rights over their bodies, especially in regards to pregnancy and rape. In Germany, there are 101-1,000 reported rapes every six months (Seager, 2009), which equates to approximately 202-2000 cases each year. Fifteen percent of German women have reported being sexually assaulted by their male partners as well (Seager, 2009). This has perhaps attributed to the high rate of divorces seen in the country with a staggering 41% of German couples ending their marriages in the early 2000s (Seager, 2009).

            As was previously discussed, there were times during the two World Wars in which women were needed to help on the battlefield and take over industrial jobs in order to sustain the country. According to research conducted by Joni Seager, German woman only comprise 6-9% of the armed forces currently active in the country. Other notable countries-such as the United States, France, Spain, and Russia-have a considerably higher percentage of women who are actively involved in the armed forces; however, Germany maintains one of the highest percentages of women in government positions with over 25% of elected officials being female. As these percentages continue to expand, and as German women become more active parts of society, it will be interesting to see how the culture and history of Germany changes, once again.

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