Gaul Atreides (@gaulatreides)

Hitler on feminism: "in reality, the granting of so-called equal rights to women, as demanded by Marxism, does not confer equal rights at all, but constitutes the deprivation of rights, since they draw women into a zone where they can only be inferior. It places women in situations where they cannot strengthen their position with regard to men and with society – but it only weakens them" Hitler on female nature: “Women are the eternal mothers of the nation”; “Women are the eternal companion of men”; “The triumphant task of women is to bear and tend babies”; “Men are willing to fight… women must be there to nurse them” Himmler on sexual polarity: "it is a catastrophe that women's organizations, women's communities and women's societies intervene in a domain that destroys all feminine charm, all the feminine majesty and grace. For me, it is a catastrophe that we other poor male fools – I speak generally, because this does not mean you directly, we want to make women an instrument of logical thought, to educate them in everything possible, that we want to masculinize with time the difference between the sexes, the polarity will disappear. The path to homosexuality is not far. [...] We must be very clear. The movement, the ideology cannot be sustained if it is worn by women, because man conceives of everything through the mind, whereas women grasp everything through sentiment." Nazi policies toward German women: "In an ingenious piece of social engineering, National Socialism gave interest-free loans to young couples provided that the woman withdrew from the labour market. Loan certificates were made over only to the husband." "Inter-race and inter-religious marriages were banned. At the same time tax penalties were imposed on “Aryan” women for remaining single." “Between 1935 and 1940 there were only 14333 applications to terminate pregnancy and 9701 approvals. Under Nazi Germany abortion became illegal for the Aryan population, but was encouraged and freely available for Jewish women.” "Unmarried women were viewed by the law as Staatsangehoriger (‘subjects of the state’), the same legal status later given to Jews and the mentally infirm." "From 1936, women were prohibited from working as judges, lawyers, principals and a range of other professions. Women were also removed from high-ranking or influential positions in government agencies, charities, schools and hospitals, to be replaced by men. University and college places for women were restricted to a firm quota of 10 per cent." "German women were encouraged to wear dresses and skirts rather than trousers." "Make-up and excessive or ‘unfeminine’ hairstyles, such as perms or shorter cuts, were also discouraged." "Pregnancy and motherhood were celebrated. Propaganda praised Kindersegen (women blessed with children) as national heroines. Women who bore multiple children were awarded a medallion, the Ehrenzeichen der Deutschen Mutter (‘Cross of Honour of the German Mother’). The cross was awarded in bronze for a fourth child, in silver for a sixth and gold for an eighth." "During the 1920s, Germany led the world in the development of contraceptive devices, including condoms, diaphragms and intra-uterine devices (IUDs). But the Nazis outlawed contraception – not only to increase the birthrate but also because many pioneers of contraceptive medicine were Jewish." "Nazi propaganda described abortion as a “crime against the body and against the state”." Results: "Hitler’s attempts to court German women and win their loyalty was, in large part, successful. Having been ignored by previous leaders, large numbers of German women came to support Hitler. Some even viewed him as the saviour of German women and families; it was not uncommon for German homes to have a picture of the fuhrer, sometimes surrounded by flowers. Despite their policies and intensive propaganda directed at women, however, Hitler and his government failed to achieve much population growth. The German birthrate had been steadily falling since the 1880s, and while the social policies of the NSDAP did increase it, they did so only slightly: Live births per 1000 people 1880: 39.3 1890: 35.7 1900: 35.6 1910: 29.8 1920: 25.9 1930: 17.6 1938: 19.2" Editor's Note: The fact that the Third Reich was able to raise the German birth rate at all in just a few years is a minor miracle, and suggests that NSDAP policies were more successful than credited by the authors of the article from which this excerpt is drawn.