Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T01:24:01.278Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Meanings of Labor: East German Women's Work in the Transition from Nazism to Communism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Elizabeth H. Tobin  and
Jennifer Gibson
Elizabeth H. Tobin
Affiliation:
Bates College
Jennifer Gibson
Affiliation:
Bates College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In Christoph Wetzel's 1988 painting, An Everyday Story, the divided canvas proudly depicts women's accomplishments in the German Democratic Republic (Figure 1). On one side, a woman operates a large piece of heavy machinery in a rolling mill, cool and competent behind the enormous mass of metal and gears. On the other side, the same woman helps her two children prepare for school in the morning. In the act of combing her daughter's hair, she looks out directly at the viewer, her expression asking: “And what are you surprised at?” This painting, displayed as part of a 1995 exposition on art commissioned by government agencies in the GDR, graphically displays that government's ideological commitment to women's paid labor, especially in jobs that, in capitalist societies, are often thought to be inappropriate for women.

Type
Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , September 1995 , pp. 301 - 342
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Auftrag: Kunst 1949–1990. Bildende Künstler in der DDR zwischen Ästhetik und Politik, Deutsches Historisches Museum, 27 January to 18 April 1995.Google Scholar

2. The government wanted portraits of “kinderreiche Familien” (families with a wealth of children). Fathers were optional for the artists, but mothers were required. See Poley, Stefanie, “Die Familie als Keimzelle des Staates,” in Rollenbilder im Nationalsozialismus—Umgang mit derm Erbe, ed. Poley, Stefanie (Bad Honnef, 1991), 149.Google Scholar

3. See Poley, “Die Familie,” 149–50.

4. Schumann, W. and Brucker, L., Arbeit, Arbeiter, Sozialpolitik, (Berlin, 1934), 124Google Scholar, cited in Hachtmann, Rüdiger, “Industriearbeiterinnen in der deutschen Kriegswirtschaft 1936 bis 1944/45, “Geschichte und Gesellschaft 19 (1993): 354–55.Google Scholar

5. The jury awarded no first-place prize. Hanz Schmitz-Wiedenbruch's painting, which received the only second-place prize, separated the young son of the family in a way very similar to Wissel's. Bloth, Ingeborg, “Das Familienblid in der Malerei des Nationalsozialismus,” Hessische Blätter für Volks-und Kulturforschung, vol. 13: Sozialkultur der Familie (Giessen, 1982), 119–20.Google Scholar

6. Koonz, Claudia, Mothers in the Fatherland (New York, 1987);Google ScholarWeyrather, Irmgard, Muttertag und Mutterkreuz: Der Kult um die “deutsche Mutter” im Nationalsozialismus (Frankfurt am Main, 1993).Google Scholar

7. See also Tröger, Annemarie, “The Creation of a Female Assembly-Line Proletariat,” in When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany, ed. Bridenthal, Renate et al. (New York, 1984), 244–45.Google Scholar

8. Höhn, Maria, “Frau im Haus and Girl im Spiegel: Discourse on Women in the Interregnum Period, 1945–1949 and the Question of German Identity,” Central European History 26 no. 1, (1993): 57–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Scott, Joan, Gender and the Politics of History (New York, 1988).Google Scholar More recently a reviewer discussed how historians might apply this idea to individual women's identities, when she stated that discourses on sexuality and gender “both reflected existing social relationships and helped shape the categories through which people constituted their social world.” Hong, Young-Sun, review of Melosh, Barbara, ed., Gender and American History since 1890, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 34 (1994): 571.Google Scholar

10. The literature on women under the Nazis is quite large. For three very different directions, see, Bock, Gisela, Zwangssterilisation im Nationalsozialismus: Studien zur Rassenpolitik und Frauenpolitik (Opladen, 1986);Google ScholarWinkler, Dörte, Frauenarbeit im “Dritten Reich” (Hamburg, 1977)Google Scholar, and Dischner, Gisela, ed., Eine stumme Generation berichtet. Frauen der dreissiger und vierziger Jahre (Frankfurt, 1982).Google Scholar

11. Meyer, Sibylle and Schulze, Eva, Wie wir das alles geschaft haben: Alleinstehende Frauen berichten über ihr Leben nach 1945 (Munich, 1988)Google Scholar and edited by the same authors, Perlonzeit: Wie die Frauen ihr Wirtschaftswunder erlebten (Berlin, 1985);Google ScholarMeyer, Sibylle and Schulze, Eva, Von Liebe sprach damals Keiner: Familienalltag in der Nachkriegzeit (Munich, 1985);Google ScholarDelille, Angela and Grohn, Andrea, Blick zurück aufs Glück: Frauenleben und Familienpolitik in den 50er Jahren (Berlin, 1985).Google Scholar

12. Some good exceptions: Wander, Maxie, Guten Morgen du Schöne (Darmstadt, 1979);Google ScholarMerkel, Ina… und Du, Frau an der Werkbank (Berlin, 1991);Google ScholarMeier, Uta, “Equality Without Limits? Women's Work in the Socialist Society of the German Democratic Republic,” International Sociology 4, no. 1 (1989): 37–49;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWillenbacher, Barbara, “Zerrüttung und Bewährung der Nachkriegs-Familie,” in Von Stalingard zur Währungsreform: Zur Sozialgeschichte des Umbruchs in Deutschland, ed. Broszat, Martin, Henke, Kalus-Dietmar and Wollers, Hans, (Munich, 1988), 595–619.Google Scholar

13. These projects include fascinating stories and analyses based on interviews with women, some of which have offered us inspiration, confirmation of our ideas, or useful points of regional comparison. On the Ruhr, , Niethammer, Lutz, ed., Lebensgeschichte und Sozialkultur im Ruhrgebiet 1930 bis 1960 (Berlin and Bonn, 1983–1986), vol. 1Google Scholar: “Die Jahre weiss man nicht, wo man die heute hinsetzen soll.” Faschismuserfahrungen in Ruhrgebeit (1983); vol. 2:Google Scholar“Hinterher merkt man, dass es richtig war, dass es schiefgegangen ist.” Nachkriegserfahrungen im Ruhrgebiet (1983); vol. 3Google Scholar: Niethammer, and von Plato, Alexander, eds., “Wir kriegen jetzt andere Zeiten.” Auf der Suche nach der Erfahrung des Volkes in Nachfaschistischen Ländern (1985).Google Scholar On the Democratic Republic: Niethammer, Lutz, von Plato, Alexander, and Wierling, Dorothee, eds., Die volkseigene Erfahrung. Eine Archäologie des Lebens in der Industrieprovinz der DDR (Berlin, 1991).Google Scholar

14. Audio-cassette tapes of all the interviews are available at the Bates College Library in Lewiston, Maine.

15. Goebbels, Joseph, cited in Schmidt, Maruta and Dietz, Gabi, eds., Frauen unterm Hakenkreuz (Berlin, 1983), 74.Google Scholar

16. Rupp, Leila J., “I Don't Call That Volksgemeinschaft: Women Class and War in Nazi Germany,” in Women, War and Revolution, ed. Berkin, Carol R. and Lovett, Clara M. (New York, 1979), 39.Google Scholar

17. Hachtmann, , “Industriearbeiterinnen,” 353–60.Google Scholar

18. Hagemeyer, Hans, Frau und Mutter—Lebensquell des Volkes (Munich, 1942–1943), cited in Poley, “Die Familie,” 145.Google Scholar

19. Tröger, “Creation,” 239–41.

20. Rupp, “Volksgemeinschaft,” 38.

21. Women's Arbeitsdienst, based on prewar projects designed to recruit women's labor on a voluntary basis, lasted initially six months, was later lengthened to a year, and toward the end of the war extended repeatedly. Stephenson, Jill, “Women's Labor Service in Nazi Germany,” Central European History 15, no. 3 (1982); 246, 256, 263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22. Hachtmann, “Industriearbeiterinnen,” 357.

23. Stephenson, “Women's Labor Service,” 242.

24. Letter from Knothe, Erika to Tobin, Elizabeth, 18 July 1993.Google Scholar

25. Rupp, “Volksgemeinschaft,” 37–53, and Mobilizing Women For War: German and American Propaganda, 1939–1945 (Princeton, 1978). Hachtmann points out that until 1943, the Arbeitsämter were able to draft only women who had previously worked, 359.Google Scholar

26. Willms, Angelika, Die Entwicklung der Frauenerwerbstätigkeit im Deutschen Reich (Nuremberg, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt-und Berufsforschung der Bundesanstalt für Arbeit, 1980), 77;Google ScholarKolinsky, Eva, Women in West Germany: Life, Work and Politics (Oxford, 1989), 20–23.Google Scholar

27. Letter to Tobin, Elizabeth, 18 July 1993.Google Scholar

28. Despite these memories, she thinks today that such compulsory work for girls would be appropriate, although with better pay and shorter hours. Letter to Tobin, Elizabeth, 18 July 1993.Google Scholar

29. Rupp, “Volksgemeinschaft,” 43; Kolinsky, 23.

30. Ilse von Lowenclau is referring to Goebbels's speech at the Berlin Sports Palace in 1943. He asked, “Wollt Ihr totalen Krieg?” and the crowd responded, “Ja.” Cited in Peukert, Detlev J. K., Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition, and Racism in Everyday Life, (New Haven, 1987), 51.Google Scholar

31. Kolinsky, Women in West Germany, 24.

32. Other historians who have interviewed women from Westen Germany about Nazi girlhoods have also found that Nazi policies toward girls, especially compulsory service and membership in the Bund Deutscher Mädel, could have “liberating” effects. These studies showed that Nazi policies freed girls somewhat from parental control and local patterns of behavior. Einfeldt, Anne-Katrin, “Zwischen alten Werten und neuen Chancen: Häusliche Arbeit von Bergarbeiterfrauen in den fünfziger Jahren,” in “Hinterher merkt man,” ed. Niethammer, , 149–90;Google ScholarReese, Dagmar, Straff, aber nicht stramm—herb, aber nicht derb. Zur Vergesellschaftung von Mädchen durch den Bund Deutscher Mädel im sozialkulturellen Vergleich zweier Milieus (Weinheim and Basel, 1989);Google ScholarMöding, Nori, “Ich muss irgendwo engagiert sein—fragen Sie mich bloss nicht warum. ” “Überlegungen zu Sozialisationserfahrungen von Mädchen in NS-Organisationen,” in Wir kriegen jetzt andere Zeiten, ed. Niethammer, , 256–304.Google Scholar

33. Obertreis, Gesine, Familienpolitik in der DDR, 1945–1980 (Opladen, 1986), 64–66.Google Scholar

34. Tröger, Annemarie, “Between Rape and Prostitution: Survival Strategies and Chances of Emancipation for Berlin Women After World War II,” in Women In Culture and Politics, ed. Friedlander, Judith, Cook, Blanche Wiesen et al. (Bloomington, 1986), 98.Google Scholar

35. Schmidt, Margot, “Krieg der Männer—Chance der Frauen? Der Einzug von Frauen in die Büros der Thyssen AG,” in Die Jahre weiss man nicht”, ed. Niethammer, , 133–62.Google Scholar

36. Langer, Ingrid, “In letzter Konsequenz… Uranbergwerk! Die Gleichberechtigung im Grundgesetz und bürgerlichen Gesetzbuch,” in Perlonzeit, ed. Meyer, and Schulze, , 78.Google Scholar

37. Langer, Ingrid, “Familienpolitik—ein Kind der fünfziger Jahre,” in Perlonzeit, ed. Meyer, and Schulze, , 110–11.Google Scholar

38. Meyer, Sibylle and Schulze, Eva, “Von Wirtschaftswunder keine Spur: Die ökonomische und soziale Situation alleinstehender Frauen,” in Perlonzeit, ed. Meyer, and Schulze, , 92.Google Scholar

39. Rytlewski, Ralf and de Hipt, Manfred Opp, Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland in Zahlen 1945/49–1980: Ein sozialgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch, (Munich, 1987), 78.Google Scholar Historians of women in West Germany disagree about whether this percentage represents many or few workers. Tröger, , “Between,” 98Google Scholar and Frevert, Ute, Women in German History: From Bourgeois Emancipation to Sexual Liberation, trans. McKinnon-Evans, Stuart (New York and Oxford, 1989), 267, imply that after the war women increasingly eschewed paid labor for unpaid domesticity in heterosexual familiesGoogle Scholar. But Delille, Angela and Groh, Andrea, Blick zurück aufs Glück: Frauenleben und Familienpolitik in den 50er Jahren (Berlin, 1985), 22Google Scholar, stress the upward trend in the 1950s. Meyer and Schulze, “Von Wirtschaftswunder keine Spur,” 92–98, emphasize that many women remained employed out of necessity, because no one else was available to support their children, mothers, or other dependent relatives.

40. Schubert, Doris, Frauen in der deutschen Nachkriegszeit, vol 1: Frauenarbeit 1945–1949, Quellen und Materialien (Düsseldorf, 1984), 76.Google Scholar

41. Niehuss, Merith, “Kontinuität und Wandel der Familie in den 50er Jahren,” in Modernisierung im Wiederaufbau: Die westdeutsche Gesellschaft der 50er Jahre, ed. Schildt, Axel and Sywottek, Arnold, (Bonn, 1993), 322–26.Google Scholar

42. Moeller, Robert G., Protecting Motherhood: Women and the Family in the Politics of Postwar West Germany (Berkeley, 1993), 156–60.Google Scholar

43. Ibid., 201.

44. Schubert, Frauen, 79, 103, 105–7.

45. Broszat, Martin, “Introduction,” xxxGoogle Scholar, and Willenbacher, , in Von Stalingrad zur Währungsreform, ed. Broszat, et al. , (Munich, 1988), 595–619;Google ScholarEinfeldt, Anne-Katrin, “Auskommen—Durchkommen—Weiterkommen. Weibliche Arbeitserfahrungen in der Bergarbeiterkolonie,” in Die Jahre weiss man nicht”, ed. Niethammer, , 282Google Scholar. Moeller, Protecting Motherhood, 11Google Scholar and Schubert, Frauen, 59, use a similar framework. Möding sees the break coming when more than half of the women whose interviews she studied married, and nearly simultaneously gave up paid work, Möding, “Ich muss…,” 284–85.Google Scholar

46. Scholze, Siegfried et al. , Zur Rolle der Frau in der Geschichte der DDR. Vom antifaschistisch demokratischen Aufbau bis zur Gestaltung der entwickelten sozialistischen Gesellschaft (1945 bis 1981) (Leipzig, 1987), 19;Google Scholar B. R. Mitchell gives much larger numbers for the total work force in 1946, but the percentage of women in the total labor force remains similar, at 45 percent, Mitchell, B. R., European Historical Statistics, 1750–1970 (New York, 1975), 54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47. Einhorn, Barbara, Cinderella Goes to Market: Citizenship, Gender and Women's Movements in East Central Europe (London and New York, 1993), 32;Google ScholarSchubert, Friedel, Die Frau in der DDR: Ideologie und konzeptionelle Ausgestaltung ihrer Stellung in Beruf und Familie (Opladen, 1980), 21, 85.Google Scholar

48. Gerhard, Ute, “Die staatlich institutionalisierte ‘Lösung’ der Frauenfrage. Zur Geschichte der Geschlechterverhältnisse in der DDR,” in Sozialgeschichte der DDR, ed. Kaelble, Hartmut, Kocka, Jürgen, Zwahr, Hartmut (Stuttgart, 1994), 386–87.Google Scholar

49. Obertreis, 64; Merkl, Ina “Leitbilder und Lebensweisen von Frauen in der DDR,” in Sozialgeschichte der DDR, ed. Kaelble, et al. , 367. Merkl also demonstrates that even this campaign portrayed working women as traditionally feminine and subordinated to men.Google Scholar

50. Obertreis, Familienpolitik, 51–59.

51. Einhorn, Cinderella, 22–23.

52. Poll asking women and men what they desired in the other sex, in Jahrbuch der öffentlichen Meinung 1947–1955, cited in Merkel, … und Du, Frau, 43.Google Scholar

53. Einhorn, Barbara, “Socialist Emancipation: The Women's Movement in the German Democratic Republic, Women's Studies International Quarterly 4 (1981): 440.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54. Meyer, Sibylle and Schulze, Eva, “‘Als wir wieder zusammen waren, ging der Krieg im Kleinen weiter.’ Frauen, Männer und Familien im Berlin der vierziger Jahre,” in “Wir kriegen jetzt andere Zeiten,” ed. Niethammer, 305–26.Google Scholar

55. Niethammer, , “Vorwort,” “Wir kriegen jetzt andere Zeiten,” 12–13.Google Scholar

56. Symmangk worked in industry; Thomas worked as an administrative assistant in a school.

57. Krisch, Henry, The German Democratic Republic: The Search for Identity (Boulder, 1985), 159.Google Scholar

58. Petzold, Joachim, “Die Entnazifizierung der sächsischen Lehrerschaft 1945,” in Historische DDR-Forschung. Aufsätze und Studien, ed. Kocka, Jürgen (Berlin, 1993), 87–103.Google Scholar

59. Smith, Bonnie, Changing Lives, (Lexington, MA, 1989), 299–300;Google ScholarSicherman, Barbara, “College and Careers: Historical Perspectives on the Lives and Work Patterns of Women College Graduates,” in Women and Higher Education in American History, ed. Faragher, John Mack and Howe, Florence (New York and London, 1988), 147–53.Google Scholar

60. Koonz, Mothers, 14, 45.

61. The rest of the narrators pursued the following fields: Suzanne Bartsch studied German and French; Ruth Bäumler studied geography; Elinor Symmangk received two Diplome for art and ceramics from a Hochschule; Annegret Räubner, Elfried Tamme, and Margarite Thomas studied pedagogy.

62. Rytlewski, Ralf and de Hipt, Manfred Opp, Die Deutsche Demokratische Republik in Zahlen 1945/49–1980: Ein sozialgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch (Munich, 1987), 159;Google ScholarStatistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republic, 1989, vol. 34 (Berlin (East), 1989), 58;Google ScholarScholze, , Zur Rolle, 100–1.Google Scholar

63. Rytlewski and Opp de Hipt, BRD, 220; DDR, 159. Statisticians counting different categories and differing educational systems have made comparison quite difficult. Rytlewski's numbers for the GDR may be several percentage points too high.Google Scholar Compare Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1955, 1961, (Stuttgart, Cologne, and Mainz, 1955, 1961), 1955: 92–93; 1961: 105–6.Google Scholar

64. Rytlewski, , BRD, 218, 220–21; DDR, 157;Google ScholarStatistisches Jahrbuch der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik 1989, vol. 34, 58. Vocational schools are more complicated to compare because of the variable inclusion in the statistics of the categories of training for early education and home economics. It seems likely that each country varied the categories of workers included as apprentices, but the official figures are as follows:Google Scholar

65. For example, Schaffer, Harry G., Women in the Two Germanies: A Comparative Study of a Socialist and a Non-socialist Society (New York, 1981), 144–46,Google Scholar or Scharf, C. Bradley, Politics and Change in East Germany: An Evaluation of Socialist Democracy, (Boulder, CO, 1984), 99, 147–48. More recently, Barbara Einhorn described the results of the double burden for all Eastern European women: “long days, exhaustion, feelings of guilt and inadequacy toward their children, lack of career satisfaction,” 114. Einhorn's comparative method tends at times to minimize the differences in women's attitudes and situations between the GDR and other Eastern European countries.Google Scholar

66. Bridenthal, Renate and Koonz, Claudia, “Beyond Kinder, Küche, Kirche: Weimar Women in Politics and Work,” in When Biology Became Destiny, ed. Bridenthal, et al. , 56;Google ScholarArlie Hochschild's interviews with employed and married women for The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home (New York, 1989) found approximately 10 percent overtly wished they could stay home, and she discusses other women who quit jobs they liked, only because they could not manage the double shift.Google Scholar

67. Fishman, Sarah, We Will Wait: Wives of French Prisoners of War, 1940–1945 (New Haven, 1991).Google Scholar

68. In the first years after the war, women in the Soviet Zone of Occupation made up approximately 43 percent of the total work force, in the GDR in 1950: 40 percent and in 1960: 45 percent. Edwards, G. E., GDR Society and Social Institutions: Facts and Figures (New York, 1985), 76–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In the American, French, and British zones of occupation in 1946, approximately 37 percent of the total labor force was female, in the Bundesrepublik in 1950, 35 percent of the total labor force was female and in 1960, 37 percent. Mitchell, European Historical Statistics, 54; Rytlewski and Opp de Hipt, BRD, 78. The major difference shown by statistics comparing female labor in the two Germanies is in the percentage of females working for pay, what German statisticians call the Erwerbsquote. This percentage fluctuates little in the FRG between 1950 and 1980, hovering between 31 and 33 percent. In the GDR, this percentage climbs steadily from 33 percent in 1952 to 49 percent in 1980, Rytlewski and Opp de Hipt, BRD, 78; DDR, 65.Google Scholar

69. Moeller, Protecting Motherhood, 32, 65, 127.

70. Watson-Franke, Maria-Barbara, “I am Somebody!—Women's Changing Sense of Self in the German Democratic Republic,” in Connecting Spheres: Women in the Western World, 1500 to the Present, ed. Boxer, Marilyn J. and Quataert, Jean H. (New York, 1987), 256.Google Scholar

71. Mason, Tim, “Women in Germany, 1925–1940. Family, Welfare and Work.” Part II, History Workshop 1 (1976); 101;Google ScholarStephenson, Jill, Women in Nazi Society (New York, 1975), 49–51.Google Scholar

72. Tröger, , “Creation,” 255–57.Google Scholar

73. Nazi pronatalism was confined to women defined as “German” and considered “racially” healthy, but went beyond the rather unsuccessful Lebensborn program. Because of their alarm at the increase in the child death rate among Germans in the early war years, the Nazis passed the Mutterschutzgesetz and other policies to improve German women's health and child-bearing capacities, Hachtmann, “Industriearbeiterinnen,” 355. The GDR government encouraged single motherhood by extending extra benefits to unmarried mothers.

74. Ibid., 347.

75. Reese, Dagmar, “Emanzipation oder Vergesellschsftung: Mädchen im ‘Bund Deutscher Mädel,’” in Politische Formierung und soziale Erziehung im Nationalsozialismus, ed. Otto, Hans-Uwe and Sünker, Heinz (Frankfurt am Main, 1991), 212.Google Scholar

76. Schmidt, Margot, “Im Vorzimmer: Arbeitsverhältnisse von Sekretärinnen und Sachbearbeiterinnen bei Thyssen nach dem Krieg,” in “Hinterher merkt man,” ed. Niethammer, 191–232. Women made up about 36 percent of the paid labor force all through the 50s in the BRD. Rytlewski and Opp de Hipt, BRD, 78.Google Scholar

77. Einfeldt, “Zwischen alten Werten,” 166.

78. Reese, “Emanzipation,” 207.

79. Scott, Gender, 56–57.