"Nazi anti-feminism was a kind of secondary racism in which women in the Third-Reich were the victims of sexist-racist male regime which reduced women to the status of mere objects." (G. Block, a female academic historian specialising in German history, "Maternity and Gender Policies", 1994).
How valid is this interpretation of the impact of Nazi Policies on women in the Third Reich during the 1930's?.
The women's role in society under the Nazi's tended to become very simplified under the Nazi's, Richard Grunberger described it as reaching absolute intellectual bedrock in the comment slogan "Kinder, Kirche and Kuche." (Children, Church and Kitchen). As the party told the people the, "Women's Place was In the Home," more and more women entered the workforce, between 1907 and 1933 the female workforce increased by nearly a third from 8.5 million to 11.5 million, this was significantly larger than the net increase in workforce size for the corresponding time. In the post war years Nazi's had give women the vote and the feminist elite including the likes of Rosa Luxembourg helped in their own way to shape the political scene. In fact at one point the ratio of male/female workers in medicine was fourteen to one roughly equal to that among civil servants. .
In its own way the Great Depression of 1929 helped increase the amount of female workers because employers found themselves holding on to cheap female workers while laying off more their more expensive male counterparts and despite what many in the modern day world may think not all women were opposed to the three K's mentioned previously. Again the economic state helped as finding work for many was impossible they settled into their home lives without the worry of finding work and with the support of their government. Along with individuals, the few remaining women's groups were not wholly opposed to the policies. Some extremely powerful lobby groups were linked to the Nazi Party and some were even linked to the Socialist church the Lutheran Church founded in the 16th century.
