Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction by Jane Caplan
- 1 Some origins of the Second World War
- 2 The primacy of politics. Politics and economics in National Socialist Germany
- 3 The origins of the Law on the Organization of National Labour of 20 January 1934. An investigation into the relationship between ‘archaic’ and ‘modern’ elements in recent German history
- 4 Internal crisis and war of aggression, 1938–1939
- 5 Women in Germany, 1925–1940. Family, welfare and work
- 6 Intention and explanation. A current controversy about the interpretation of National Socialism
- 7 The containment of the working class in Nazi Germany
- 8 The Turin strikes of March 1943
- 9 The domestic dynamics of Nazi conquests. A response to critics
- 10 Whatever happened to ‘fascism’?
- Bibliography of publications by Tim Mason
- Bibliography of works cited
- Index
5 - Women in Germany, 1925–1940. Family, welfare and work
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction by Jane Caplan
- 1 Some origins of the Second World War
- 2 The primacy of politics. Politics and economics in National Socialist Germany
- 3 The origins of the Law on the Organization of National Labour of 20 January 1934. An investigation into the relationship between ‘archaic’ and ‘modern’ elements in recent German history
- 4 Internal crisis and war of aggression, 1938–1939
- 5 Women in Germany, 1925–1940. Family, welfare and work
- 6 Intention and explanation. A current controversy about the interpretation of National Socialism
- 7 The containment of the working class in Nazi Germany
- 8 The Turin strikes of March 1943
- 9 The domestic dynamics of Nazi conquests. A response to critics
- 10 Whatever happened to ‘fascism’?
- Bibliography of publications by Tim Mason
- Bibliography of works cited
- Index
Summary
If we say the world of the man is the state, the world of the man is his commitment, his struggle on behalf of the community, we could then perhaps say that the world of the woman is a smaller world. For her world is her husband, her family, her children and her home. But where would the big world be if no-one wanted to look after the small world? How could the big world continue to exist, if there was no-one to make the task of caring for the small world the centre of their lives? No, the big world rests upon this small world! The big world cannot survive if the small world is not secure.
Adolf Hitler, speech to the National Socialist Women's organization, Nuremberg Party Rally, 8 September 1934in the winter of 1939/40 the Nazi regime faced a major internal crisis. The mobilization of resources for war was inadequate in every respect; the German people, in particular the industrial working class, showed no enthusiasm for a war of aggression, no willingness to make further sacrifices in the interests of imperial expansion. Discontent and anxiety were apparent in all walks of life, and the conservative resistance to Nazi rule developed briefly into a serious political and military conspiracy. A large part of Poland had been conquered, but Britain and France were at war with Germany. In the armed forces and among the civilian population morale was low; rationing, blackouts, overtime, shortages of all kinds and the evacuation of people from frontier areas heightened the general sense of foreboding and insecurity.
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- Nazism, Fascism and the Working Class , pp. 131 - 211Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995
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