Life in Nazi Germany Flashcards
All 33 cards in this deck
What were the 'three Ks' in Nazi policy towards women?
Kinder, Küche, Kirche – children, kitchen, church: the roles the Nazis said women should focus on.
Why did the Nazis make motherhood the primary role for women?
They were worried about the falling birth rate, and believed mothers were responsible for the future of the nation.
What was the Law for the Encouragement of Marriage (1933)?
Newly-wed couples were given a loan of 1,000 marks; a quarter of it was cancelled for each child born, so four children cleared the loan.
What was the Mother's Cross (Motherhood Cross)?
A medal given to women for having large families: bronze for four or five children, silver for six or seven, gold for eight or more.
True or false? The Nazis encouraged German women to wear make-up and dye their hair.
False. Women were expected to look natural – no make-up, dyed hair, trousers or smoking, with hair in a bun or plaits.
True or false? By 1939 the Nazis had removed all women from employment.
False. Most women were pushed out of professional jobs, but many still did unskilled and industrial work, especially as rearmament created labour shortages.
What was the Hitler Youth?
The Nazi youth organisation for boys (14–18), run by Baldur von Schirach, which used drill, camping and military-style training to prepare them to be soldiers and loyal Nazis.
What was the League of German Maidens (BDM)?
The Nazi youth organisation for girls (14–18), which taught physical fitness and domestic skills to prepare them for their role as mothers.
How did the Nazis control teachers?
Teachers had to join the Nazi Teachers' League and swear loyalty to Hitler; Jewish teachers were dismissed and others sent on Nazi training courses.
How did the Nazis change the school curriculum from 1933?
Physical training time was greatly increased, Race Studies and Eugenics were added, and history and biology were rewritten to teach Nazi racial ideas.
What was the National Labour Service (RAD)?
A scheme making young unemployed men do six months' manual work on public projects such as tree planting, living in camps for low pay; compulsory for men aged 18–25 from 1935.
How did building the autobahns help reduce unemployment?
The new motorways were a public works scheme that put about 80,000 people to work building them from 1933.
How did rearmament reduce unemployment after 1933?
Businesses took on more workers to make planes, weapons and uniforms; from 1935 conscription also took men aged 18–25 into military service.
What is meant by 'invisible unemployment' in Nazi Germany?
People left out of the official jobless figures – such as women, Jews (who lost citizenship in 1935) and men in the labour service – so unemployment looked lower than it was.
What was the German Labour Front (DAF)?
The Nazi organisation led by Robert Ley that replaced trade unions in 1933; it set wages and hours, and workers could not strike.
What was Strength Through Joy (KdF)?
A Labour Front scheme offering workers cheap leisure – holidays, cruises, concerts, sport and theatre trips – plus a savings scheme for a 'people's car'.
What was Beauty of Labour (SdA)?
A Labour Front scheme to improve workplaces – better lighting, safety, washrooms and canteens – though workers often had to make the improvements in their own time.
True or false? German workers worked fewer hours in 1939 than in 1933.
False. Average working hours rose, from about 43 hours a week in 1933 to around 49 by 1939.
What did the Nazis mean by the 'master race'?
The Aryans – supposedly tall, blond, blue-eyed Germans – whom they believed were racially superior; other groups were labelled Untermenschen (subhumans).
How did the Nazis view and treat Slavs?
They were classed as Untermenschen (subhumans) fit only to serve Germans, and their lands in eastern Europe were wanted for Lebensraum.
How were Roma and Sinti people treated by the Nazis?
Classed as racially inferior and 'workshy', banned from marrying Germans under the Nuremberg Laws, and from 1936 forced into special camps.
How were homosexual men treated in Nazi Germany?
Seen as a threat to the Nazi ideal of the family; thousands were arrested under Paragraph 175 and many were sent to concentration camps.
How did the Nazis treat people with disabilities?
The 1933 Sterilisation Law allowed the compulsory sterilisation of people with hereditary conditions; around 350,000 people were sterilised.
What happened in the boycott of Jewish shops and businesses in April 1933?
SA members stood outside Jewish shops, businesses and offices with signs telling Germans not to buy from Jews; the official boycott lasted one day.
What were the Nuremberg Laws (1935)?
The Reich Citizenship Law took German citizenship from Jews, and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour banned marriage and relationships between Jews and non-Jews.
What was 'Kristallnacht'?
The 'Night of Broken Glass', 9–10 November 1938, when synagogues, Jewish shops and homes were attacked across Germany; around 100 Jews were killed and about 30,000 Jewish men sent to concentration camps.
True or false? Kristallnacht was a spontaneous riot by ordinary Germans with no Nazi involvement.
False. It was encouraged and organised by the Nazi leadership, especially Goebbels, with the SA and SS taking part.
True or false? The birth rate in Germany rose after the Nazis came to power.
True. It rose from about 15 births per 1,000 people in 1933 to about 20 by 1939, and the number of marriages also rose, though most families still stayed small.
Which Nazi youth groups were for children aged 10–14?
The German Young People (Jungvolk) for boys and the Young Girls (Jungmädel) for girls. At 14 they moved up to the Hitler Youth or the League of German Maidens.
What were the Adolf Hitler Schools and the Napolas?
Elite Nazi schools that trained selected boys to become future leaders of the Party, the state and the armed forces.
How did the school curriculum differ for boys and girls in Nazi Germany?
Girls were taught domestic skills such as cookery and needlework to prepare them for motherhood. Boys did more science and military-style training to prepare them to be soldiers.
Why did rising wages in Nazi Germany (1933–39) not leave most workers much better off?
Average wages rose by about a fifth, but food prices rose by a similar amount, cancelling out most of the gain.
What event did the Nazis use as the excuse for Kristallnacht in November 1938?
The shooting of a German diplomat, Ernst vom Rath, in Paris by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Polish Jew.