Pictures of 1930s & 40s German Women

[Heimatschuss]

Hello Larry,

you misunderstood my last post. It was the absence of a phone number on the stamp that gave me the idea it could be post-war.

Embossed stamps were used before WWII though they're much rarer than rubber stamps. For example you can faintly recognize an embossed studio stamp on the lower left of this war-time photo from Riga viewtopic.php?p=1486853#p1486853. Another example is here viewtopic.php?p=1520501#p1520501 .

I think these were mainly used for copy protection (negatives stay at the photo studio in general) but they also lend the copies a certain air of exquisiteness.

Another type of copy protection seems to have been utilized by various Paris photo studios where a glass plate with the studio logo was superimposed on the working copy.
viewtopic.php?p=1571300#p1571300
viewtopic.php?p=1563660#p1563660

Best regards
Torsten

[Trackhead M2]

Sometimes I wonder why these beautiful German women lost the war...

Rod

Because some beautiful British, US, and Soviet women helped ensure they did

Dear Rod,
Are you talking about Rosie the Riveter and all her allied sisters building for their husbands, fathers ,brothers, sons and the guy next door as opposed to slave laborers? In WW 1 German women worked in war industries. The NAZIs old fashioned sexism kept German women from working in war industries which led to the peculiar events detailed in Ryan's The Last Battle. Where German women were a bunch of teutonic Scarlett O'Haras afraid of the fate worse than death at the hands of the Red Army. If they were working, maybe they would have not had the time to sit around scared.
Strike Swiftly,
TH-M2

[Vikki]

Dear Rod,
Are you talking about Rosie the Riveter and all her allied sisters building for their husbands, fathers ,brothers, sons and the guy next door as opposed to slave laborers? In WW 1 German women worked in war industries. The NAZIs old fashioned sexism kept German women from working in war industries which led to the peculiar events detailed in Ryan's The Last Battle. Where German women were a bunch of teutonic Scarlett O'Haras afraid of the fate worse than death at the hands of the Red Army. If they were working, maybe they would have not had the time to sit around scared.
Strike Swiftly,
TH-M2

I just saw this.

Where German women were a bunch of teutonic Scarlett O'Haras afraid of the fate worse than death at the hands of the Red Army. If they were working, maybe they would have not had the time to sit around scared.

This is such an ignorant statement that I’m surprised you dared to make it on this forum. But I'm not surprised that this view still exists. It was the "ideal" view of women put out by the Nazis--and I don't often use that word, unless it's called for to show the difference between "Nazi" and "German", or the difference between NSDAP ideology and the facts on the ground. You've obviously bought the Nazi ideology about women's roles, which was the commonly held view among historians as well--thirty years ago.

Beyond your History Channel-inspired view of the "Golden Pheasantesses", the average German woman bore the brunt of the war's impact on life behind the front. The vast majority of them neither shared the guilt of the war, nor enjoyed the leisure of broodmares, as you suggest. In addition to performing the jobs, both military and civilian, of the men who'd been sent to the front, they were too busy keeping daily life together in the face of being bombed, and regulated, out of existence. Lest I go further on the point here, read my quote from others more eloquent at viewtopic.php?p=1185663#p1185663

You've also obviously not taken advantage of even the information available on this forum about German women. So, below, I submit a brief résumé of those "teutonic Scarlett O'Haras" who "didn't work".

~Vikki



German women as Auxiliaries to the military and paramilitary:

Photos of Female [Military] Auxiliaries: viewtopic.php?f=77&t=66200 (40 pages as of today's date.)

Women Awarded the Iron Cross: viewtopic.php?f=77&t=27808
viewtopic.php?f=77&t=143600
viewtopic.php?f=77&t=128432

Military Auxiliary ID Documents: viewtopic.php?f=77&t=121918

Nachrichtenhelferinnen des Heeres (Female Army Signals Auxiliaries):
* viewtopic.php?f=77&t=129213
viewtopic.php?f=77&t=121118

Marinehelferinnen (Female Naval Auxiliaries):
viewtopic.php?f=77&t=118854
viewtopic.php?f=77&t=116448

Luftwaffe Helferinnen (Female Air Force Auxiliaries):
* viewtopic.php?f=77&t=190450

Luftwaffe Flakhelferinnen (Female Air Force Anti-Aircraft Auxiliaries):
* viewtopic.php?f=77&t=189913

Generalführerin des Helferinnenkorps der Luftwaffe:
* viewtopic.php?f=77&t=188504

Female Luftwaffe Pilots:
viewtopic.php?f=77&t=89686


Nebelabteilung (Female Smoke Troops): viewtopic.php?f=77&t=117283

Bereiterinnen (Female Horse-breakers for the Wehrmacht): viewtopic.php?f=77&t=7502

Organisation Todt Helferinnen: viewtopic.php?f=77&t=168323

SS-Helferinnen:
* viewtopic.php?f=77&t=44635
viewtopic.php?f=77&t=112012


And yes, even SS Female Wardresses (Aufseherinnen- See the Holocaust and War Crimes section for much, much more on this):
viewtopic.php?f=77&t=42637
* viewtopic.php?f=77&t=135271



Women in the Deutsches Rotes Kreuz (German Red Cross):

DRK Helferin Identity Cards: viewtopic.php?f=77&t=109335
Documents: viewtopic.php?f=77&t=124876
DRK Helferin Uniforms: viewtopic.php?f=77&t=130348
DRK Nurses: Tropical Uniform: viewtopic.php?f=77&t=129807

* viewtopic.php?f=77&t=190450



Women in civilian occupations and duties:

The RADwJ (Young Women’s Labor Corp): viewtopic.php?f=77&t=111057

Women in the Reichspost (German Postal Service):
viewtopic.php?f=77&t=116346
viewtopic.php?p=1697049#p1697049

Female Railway Workers:
viewtopic.php?f=77&t=128557
viewtopic.php?p=1696800#p1696800

Straßenbahn-Schaffnerinnen (Tram Conductresses): viewtopic.php?f=77&t=172603

Women in Civil Defense:
viewtopic.php?f=77&t=111453
viewtopic.php?f=77&t=46490
viewtopic.php?p=1344014#p1344014
viewtopic.php?p=1696137#p1696137


NOTE: The original list of threads was done very quickly. Since I think this may be a helpful index, I've edited it to add further threads as I find them, or as members bring them to my attention. See below for dates when links were added. ~Vikki (7 September 2012)

* Added 7 September 2012.

[Vikki]

And here are some pictures of 1940s German women that are quite a less idyllic than either the original poster or Trackhead M2 wanted, but more in line with reality. But of course, none of the jobs are dirty or dangerous. And at least they're not breaking their nails by working. I couldn't find any photos of women standing on queue for meat, potatoes, vegetables, flour, milk, margarine, soap, shoes, clothes, or laundry soap to wash them, salt, sugar, etc. Or, after the bombings began, a place to live. And as the bombing progressed, water, if it was available. Otherwise I'd have inserted them between the ones below.

This is the true face of German women in the Third Reich.

[Max]

People of Eger, in the Sudetenland (now Cheb, Czech Republic), greet German soldiers with the Hitler salute in October 1938


After being released from Allied detention, German POW Heinz Pelschner reunited with his wife, June 1945.

The residents of Neunberg being ordered to exhume and properly bury the bodies from a nearby work camp by the U.S. Third Army. April, 1945.

Woman With Gaskmask, 1943. Photographed by Wolf Strache

Cake handed out on Hitler’s Birthday. April 20, 1934. Berlin

This one is a bit grim
http://collective-history.tumblr.com/po ... aid-shelte

http://collective-history.tumblr.com/po ... d-now-cheb

[Trackhead M2]

Dear Vikki,
Did you notice in my post I mentioned Cornelius Ryan's The Last Battle and not the History Channel? I could have also mentioned James P. O'Donnell's The Bunker in it as well. These are authors of some credibility. How come 2 authors writing years apart: 1 in England and 1 in the USA, after substantial research show such similar stories? Could it be that you are are mistaken? Or are they? Even in Speer's Inside the Third Reich the discussion of the use of slave labor rather than German women is raised. So, while you could find some photos so show women working, I still don't see how come that so many authors seem to paint the same picture. By the way, the ladies shown in Cheb are not likely Germans.
Strike Swiftly,
TH-M2

[Max]

By the way, the ladies shown in Cheb are not likely Germans.
Strike Swiftly,
TH-M2

I presume you are referring to my last post.
Are you saying that they are not German nationals and/or that they are not ethnic Germans?
In either case, what makes you think so?

Prior to 1945, the town was the centre of the German-speaking region known as Egerland, and was part of the Northern Austro-Bavarian dialect area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheb
It seems to me that there a very good chance that they are "German" ; enough to include them in this thread.
But, I will stand corrected.

Cheers
Max

[Trackhead M2]

By the way, the ladies shown in Cheb are not likely Germans.
Strike Swiftly,
TH-M2

I presume you are referring to my last post.
Are you saying that they are not German nationals and/or that they are not ethnic Germans?
In either case, what makes you think so?
Dear M,
Because they do not appear to be happy that they are saluting the incoming German troops. If your "boys" were liberating you from an oppressive government which discriminated against you as not being of the right ethinicity, wouldn't you look happier?
While there were ethnic Germans in the former Czechoslovakia, there were also a lot of non-Germans as well. Not unlike Silesia in Poland.
Strike Swiftly,
TH-M2

[Max]

Well, the woman on the left seems happy enough, and the one in the middle is not giving much away.
The woman on the right is weeping tears of joy.
Max

[Trackhead M2]

Well, the woman on the left seems happy enough, and the one in the middle is not giving much away.
The woman on the right is weeping tears of joy.
Max

Dear M,
Some folks would cheer a public hanging. The middle lady may just be going along to get along. And "Tears of Joy", now who's engaging in wishful thinking? Perhaps, you haff relatives in Chermany, eh? said the Gestapo man to the SOE agent.
Strike Swiftly,
TH-M2

[Vikki]

Max,

Thanks for the photos. They illustrate my point of the extreme circumstances that ordinary German women struggled under and (in the burial detail photo, for example) the idea that they were the only ones left to do what would have previously been called "men's work" both during and after the war.

~Vikki

[Vikki]

Dear Tackhead M2:

Did you notice in my post I mentioned Cornelius Ryan's The Last Battle and not the History Channel?

Yes I did. In case you're not aware of it, Cornelius Ryan has been dead since 1974. That was why I wrote (emphasis added):

You've obviously bought the Nazi ideology about women's roles, which was the commonly held view among historians as well--thirty years ago.

Neither Ryan nor O'Donnell were specialists in the area of women in the Third Reich, or even, as far as I can tell from their writing, particularly aware of even the limited number of primary accounts and other information available on the subject at the time they were writing.

Could it be that you are are mistaken?

No, it couldn't. See my comments above.

~Vikki

[Max]

I think I'm with you on this one Vikki.

More and more girls are joining the Luftwaffe under Germany's total conscription campaign. They are replacing men transferred to the army to take up arms instead of planes against the advancing allied forces. Here, German girls are shown in training with men of the Luftwaffe, somewhere in Germany, on December 7, 1944. (AP Photo)
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011 ... ar/100145/

Two women of the German anti-aircraft gun auxiliary operating field telephones during World War II. (LOC)

Women making barrage balloons in a German factory, circa 1943

Elisabeth "Lilo" Gloeden stands before judges, on trial for being involved in the attempt on Adolf Hitler's life in July 1944. Elisabeth, along with her husband and mother, was convicted of hiding a fugitive from the July 20 Plot to assassinate Hitler. The three were executed by beheading on November 30th, 1944, their executions much-publicized later as a warning to others who might plot against the German ruling party. (LOC)

German women doing their washing at a cold water hydrant in a Berlin street. A knocked-out German scout car stands beside them, 3 July 1945
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Berlin

[Max]

Libertas Schulze-Boysen


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertas_Schulze-Boysen

[Max]

Mildred Harnack



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildred_Harnack