Hitler's Handmaidens (2024) s01e03 Episode Script

1
(loud bangs & explosions)
(dramatic music)
NARRATOR: Nazi Germany,
two words synonymous
with barbarity, terror,
hate and death.
A shock defeat in World War One
sows the seeds for discontent
in a once prosperous nation.
Adolf Hitler, an
unassuming, uninspiring man
seizes the opportunity
to take control,
promising to make
Germany great again.
- (shouts in German) NARRATOR:
But he won't do it alone.
Willing accomplices rally
from the most
unlikely of places.
The female Fuhrers,
Nazi she-devils,
cougars, fantasists
and secret lovers
These are the forgotten Nazis.
These are Hitler's handmaidens.
- (chanting in German)
NARRATOR: When
most people think of Nazis,
they conjure up newsreel images
of row upon row of
goose-stepping stormtroopers,
invading and violating
a terrified Europe.
(dramatic classical music)
NARRATOR: But it's
worth remembering,
behind a bad man
- (yells in German)
..sometimes there lurks
an even worse woman.
Why has the role of
women in Nazi Germany
been almost entirely
airbrushed from history?
Why has an assumption been made
that half the population were not
active and powerful participants
in the rise of Nazi Germany?
- Well, here's a book from 2019.
It is the authoritative
biography of Hitler.
And do you think that any of the
women that I'm about to describe
even is in the index? No.
This is all about
the public Hitler,
what he looked like from the
outside from the men's point of view.
- In approaching this history,
one must kind of, um,
unpack all the bias that exists
as far as what we think are
our, kind of, preconceived
notions of femininity,
um, or the fact that women
that's not how they behave,
that women don't participate
in genocidal programmes,
that they're a-political.
NARRATOR: Such is the strength
of the propaganda from the period.
It's easy to see how historians
may have been seduced
by the myth of
German motherhood.
Safely cosseted in a
world of peace, love
and devotion to
husband and family,
German women
claimed to be untouched
by the moral and political
horrors swirling about them.
These romantic notions
can now be laid to rest
..by the cold, hard
facts. (sombre music)
NARRATOR: Women were utterly
complicit in the murderous regime.
(women shouting)
NARRATOR: The women who
supported Hitler and the Nazis
made an active choice,
driven by selfish opportunism
and total conviction.
Many knew exactly
what they were doing,
covering the reality
of Nazi brutality
with the soft glow of
motherhood and domesticity.
(eerie music) (dog barks)
- They played a huge role.
And their role was partly
important before the takeover.
They played such
an important role,
partly because the Nazi
male leaders ignored them.
They were so concerned
with masculine activities,
they thought, "Oh, the girls."
You know, "The little brown mice."
NARRATOR: Who were
the early female leaders
who tethered
themselves to Hitler
in the expectation that their
influence would rise with his?
Who were the wealthy
female financiers
vital to Hitler's
radical movement?
And how did the female
population of Germany
find themselves instrumental
to the Nazis' rise to power,
whether they knew it or not?
(tense music)
NARRATOR: When it comes
to Hitler's appeal to women,
it was evident
early in his career,
and grew as the Nazi's
domination increased.
But what was his own attitude
towards the women of Germany?
It didn't take him
long to understand
their value to his
populist movement.
After cooling his
heels in prison,
following a failed coup in 1923,
the so-called 'Munich
Beer Hall Putsch',
he found his female support base
was still focused and strong.
In stark contrast to
his male associates,
who'd put their energy into
squabbling and power plays.
- The men started
fighting with other men,
they were rivalling
to take over.
Uh, they were rivalling to
start their own little mini parties.
But the women followers
didn't disagree with one another.
They weren't
ambitious like the men.
And so afterwards, then
it finally occurred to Hitler
that one of the qualities
that enabled him to pull
his party back together again
were those faithful women.
NARRATOR: With the
failure of the Beer Hall Putsch,
Hitler and the National
Socialists realised
they needed a less violent,
more respectable route to power.
The ballot box.
But it was not
their natural game.
To be successful, it was going
to come down to one thing.
Finance for a decent,
vote-winning campaign.
The party was going
to have to integrate itself
with German high society.
So Hitler set about
opening the hearts, minds
and purses of the moneyed set.
And it worked,
with Hitler catching the eye
of some morally unsavoury,
yet outwardly respectable,
society queens.
Once on the hook,
these matronly women
were to become the
devoted patronesses
of the enigmatic Herr Hitler.
- So Bavaria, which is your
traditional German homeland.
Bavaria, the women there, which
is where, a lot of money down there.
They were absolutely
They were right-wing.
And suddenly, you've
got this man, Adolf Hitler,
standing up and saying, "I
will make Germany great again."
"I will put Germany where
she belongs, top of the tree."
And so, that's what
interested the women.
NARRATOR: Soon, Hitler
had hit on the perfect line
for his besotted female legion.
There'd never be a woman in his
life for them to feel jealous about.
Publicly, at least,
he'd stay a bachelor,
telling the Nazi faithful,
"My bride is Germany."
- I think Hitler hid
his relationships,
partly to embody a kind
of pure, masculine ideal.
Someone who wasn't
encumbered by domesticity,
by a wife or girlfriend.
And he became this almost
personification of masculinity.
Also, a bit like a
celebrity or a pop star,
it allowed other women
in the general population
to fantasise that they would
be Hitler's girlfriend or wife.
I think he wanted to create
an image of being without need,
without dependence.
Uh, a pure, self-sustaining,
um, hero, really.
NARRATOR: Hitler knew the
way to financing his power-play
was through exploiting
his hold over women.
(sombre music)
NARRATOR: In 1921, Hitler was
introduced to Helene Bechstein,
matriarch of the famous
piano-making family,
and prominent member
of the German aristocracy.
Not only was she
fabulously wealthy,
she was well known
for her antisemitic rants.
- She was Bechstein from
the piano manufacturers.
I mean, her husband and
she, they ran the company.
They were antisemitic,
both of them.
And Helene Bechstein was
actually, uh, boycotted by some people
because of her antisemitism.
That, of course,
appealed to them as well,
because Hitler, right from
the beginning, was clear
the stab in the back
came from the Jews.
NARRATOR: On receiving
Hitler at her mountain villa,
Bechstein took an instant liking
to the intense young politician.
And Hitler must've sensed that
here was a big fish, ready to reel in.
She began showering
him with gifts and donations,
one of which included
an open-top Mercedes
that met him at the
gates of the prison
on his release for leading
the Beer Hall Putsch.
Party insiders were quick
to notice that Bechstein,
who was thirteen
years his senior,
"lavished on him an ecstatic
and faintly maternal devotion."
- People like Helene Bechstein,
were attracted very early.
And it really helps,
if you're a fundraiser,
if a very prominent, respectable
person donates money,
that attracts more money.
And because Helene Bechstein was
so well known, and so was her husband,
with the support of
Helene Bechstein,
then other friends of the
Bechsteins also began to sign on.
(unsettling music)
- Helene Bechstein took
Hitler under her wing,
specifically to
teach him etiquette,
and how to move in the
circles of the aristocracy,
because obviously, the
support of the aristocracy
was very important
to Hitler gaining power.
One of the reasons
he gained power,
he obviously needed
the aristocracy on his side.
Most accounts suggest relations
between Adolf and Helene
never made it past the platonic.
Yet there was no doubt that
this was an intimate bond.
Hitler was to be
seen sitting at her feet,
with his eyes closed and his
head resting on her bosom,
while she stroked his hair.
The reality was
their relationship
was likely more maternal
than anything else,
with Helene even stating
she would've liked Hitler
to have been her son.
- They all became
mother figures for Adolf.
Sitting on the floor,
his head on their laps,
they're stroking his head.
You know, one of
them actually wished
that Hitler would
marry their daughter.
Didn't happen, you know.
- I mean, it would
certainly seem that
Hitler's relationship
with his mother
would be an important
template for later relationships,
and he would find it quite easy
to be the sweet, good, little boy
who's seeking help and guidance
and very respectful
to an older woman.
I mean, there's an opportunistic,
more sociopathic, side
that could be about he saw
who was gonna be useful to him.
(tense music) (cheering)
NARRATOR: Helene wasn't
the only wealthy matriarch
who would take up
the re-shaping of Hitler.
Another was Elsa Bruckmann.
Born in 1865, Elsa
was a real-life princess,
courtesy of her father,
a Bavarian prince
and a mother from
Austrian nobility.
Well-bred, she certainly was.
But she also had a keen interest
in xenophobic nationalism
and antisemitic racism.
Importantly, Elsa, wife
of a literary publisher,
and incredibly well-connected,
ran an influential salon,
where the cream of
Munich society would gather
to discuss the
issues of the day.
Elsa first encountered
Hitler in 1921,
when she was in the audience
at one of his early party speeches.
- (shouting in German)
NARRATOR: Elsa was hooked.
- (cheering)
NARRATOR: She was to become
one of Hitler's first big fangirls,
and even visited him in jail
after his failed coup attempt.
- Hitler could have
visits every afternoon.
They brought him food,
he dressed in lederhosen.
And the Bruckmanns gave
him access to a group of people
who met every couple of weeks
and discussed ideas in Munich.
And that gave
him respectability.
NARRATOR: But just like
Helene, Elsa felt it her national duty
to work on Hitler's coarseness,
his lack of social graces.
It was from her that Hitler
learned the essentials
to being a successful
political mover and shaker,
how to correctly eat lobster
and kiss a lady's hand.
What was it that drew
women like Elsa and Helene
so strongly to Hitler?
They were certainly
not the only ones
entranced by his
intoxicating power,
they also shared his
warped beliefs and ideologies.
They keenly felt
Germany's humiliation
after its disastrous
defeat in World War One,
and were angered by
how the victorious allies
had imposed huge
financial reparations on it
and stripped it of territory
and its overseas colonies.
Hitler, they were convinced,
would make Germany great again.
- What we see in Hitler is
the worst example,
possibly the only example,
of somebody achieving
absolute power.
This is somebody who came from
being a complete non-entity in 1919,
to a man who had the belief that
he was going to conquer the world.
So this just segued
perfectly into his self-image.
"I am the greatest man in the
world, I should control the world."
And it picked up from there.
(Hitler shouts) (crowd shouts)
- This story of a newly
heroic, newly arisen Germany
centres at first
on Hitler himself,
who has this, kind
of, Elvis quality to him.
He's a rock star.
He's a superstar.
Women fawn in his presence.
- (chanting in German)
- And he also tells this
fairy tale of this racial purity,
of German Aryan superiority,
of this Nordic body that
has this great tradition to it,
of the Vikings, conquerors.
And the role of
women in this story
is you are both promised
this strong country
and you get to be a part
of this strong country.
NARRATOR: But
one early patroness
was more significant
than all the others.
The most influential and
long-lasting of Hitler's devotees,
her name was Winifred Wagner.
- (chuckles) Winifred
Wagner was terribly influential.
Hitler, when he was in Vienna,
spent his leisure time
at operas by Richard Wagner.
And that's where he got ideas
of saviours and heroes
and Germanic myth.
And Winifred carried on the
tradition and was very political,
and invited Hitler to come
to the annual Opera Festival,
which is still a meeting place
for the German elite in Bayreuth.
(grand singing)
NARRATOR: The daughter-in-law
of world-famous composer Richard
- (applause)
NARRATOR: ..Winifred Wagner
was born in London in 1897
to an English father
and German mother.
Orphaned at the age of
three, she grew up in Germany.
Winifred was a nationalist
and rabidly right-wing,
fascinated with the Nazi
mythology of blood and soil,
the idea of racial Aryan purity,
combined with simple country life.
(children chatter & laugh)
NARRATOR: She
first met Hitler in 1923
at the annual Wagner
Festival in Bayreuth.
Before long, he was a regular
fixture in the Wagner home,
part of the family,
his politics in perfect
sync with hers.
- Hitler had always been
an opera fan. Always.
In Linz, he'd always gone
to the opera, loved the opera,
particularly loved the Wagner
operas and their themes,
those, you know,
great Germanic heroes.
So it wasn't really
difficult, then, you know,
to get the, um, the Wagner
Empire, if you like, behind him.
NARRATOR: Winifred
soon enthusiastically
joined the Nazi party.
And just like Hitler's
other patronesses,
started showering him
with donations and presents.
Her effect on him, and
his party, was profound.
(shouting & chanting)
NARRATOR: As the
1930s rolled around,
Hitler was still dogged
by his roughhouse image,
arising from the
Beer Hall Putsch
and violent clashes
between his fascist militia
and their communist rivals.
He needed an altogether
more sophisticated veneer.
Wagner's music would
help him acquire it.
When Winifred's husband,
Siegfried, died in 1930,
Winifred took
charge of the festival,
an opportunity
Hitler wouldn't miss.
- Well, the Bayreuth
Festival opened the doors
to all the other elites
in the whole country.
Through the twenties, Hitler
was always at pains to increase
his, we would call it name
recognition, outside of Bavaria.
And he wanted name
recognition abroad.
And seeing pictures
of the elite at Bayreuth
put Hitler's name
into the category of
nationally respected people.
(gentle classical music)
NARRATOR: Winifred allowed
Hitler's control over Bayreuth to grow.
(music builds)
NARRATOR: By the time
World War Two started,
the Nazis' stranglehold
on the event was complete.
Winifred always claimed Hitler
was unaware of any Nazi atrocities.
(sombre music)
NARRATOR: She died in 1980,
never wavering in
her devotion to him.
Throughout the 1920s and 30s,
more and more members
of German high society
were drawn to the Nazi flame.
Anger and fear about
the threat of communism
and the dire economic situation
created the perfect environment
for Hitler's nationalist vision.
- One of the reasons why
wealthy members of society
would have backed Hitler is
because he offered a dream.
He promised a dream that was
extremely compelling and powerful.
When you think about
the political situation,
the humiliation
and impoverishment
of Germany after World War One,
the seeds for the rise
of fascism were sown.
And so, to have a charismatic
leader come along and say,
"I will restore the
greatness to this country,
I will avenge all the wrongs
that have been done."
NARRATOR: He was their champion,
who would restore and
protect their wealth and power.
They thought they would prosper
under Nazi authoritarianism,
not realising Hitler secretly
despised their elitism
and little guessing
the depth of evil
that lay at the heart
of the Nazi party.
(gentle music) (birds tweeting)
NARRATOR: The
Nazis were working hard
to persuade the majority of
ordinary women to support them.
Although women voted for them
in fewer numbers
than men in the 1920s,
their contribution to the party's
growing popularity was crucial.
- What the Nazi women did
for the party was extraordinary.
Every time there was
a rally, they showed up.
They showed up with
pamphlets to distribute,
badges to distribute.
They collected money,
they collected charity.
When poor Nazi
families needed help,
they collected charity,
they took care of the kids.
They formed children's groups.
NARRATOR: This
wholesome community outreach
during harsh economic
times made the party look
as if it actually cared about the
wellbeing of ordinary Germans.
- When women are
taking part in things like
tending to the soldiers,
or running soup kitchens,
they are accorded
a particular status
and sense of being do-gooders,
helpers, belonging to the cause.
So they're given a very, uh
acceptable, kind of idealised
version of themselves,
and disconnected
from the horrors
that that good work
is actually supporting.
NARRATOR: The
women were relied upon
by the Nazi paramilitary
group, the Brownshirts,
for food while on duty,
and medical care
following street brawls.
Women's groups provided
money and clothing,
as well as support for the
families of political detainees.
And there were sewing
circles and book clubs
where women would
read and discuss
Hitler's writings and
other party literature.
- Nazi women
created a subculture,
so that if you were a
follower of the party,
you could go to the
Nazi singing competition,
you could join a chorus,
you could play soccer,
you could travel to go and
get reduced ticket prices
to the theatre or to the opera.
So the Nazi women
created a grassroots network
that made their followers
feel that they belonged.
NARRATOR: There was
one particular woman who,
on the strength of her work
with the sick and wounded,
could be mistaken for someone
who'd misguidedly been
swept up in the Nazi mania.
In fact, she was as ideologically
motivated as all the rest.
Her name was Eleonore Baur,
also known as Sister Pia.
She would become one
of Hitler's favourite Nazis.
Sister Pia had served as
a nurse in World War One,
despite not being
medically qualified.
She'd always been an
extreme right-winger,
but when she was acquitted
of a public order offence
after an antisemitic
rant at a Munich rally,
everyone, including Hitler,
sat up and took notice.
But it was during
the Beer Hall Putsch,
when Sister Pia
treated wounded Nazis,
that she cemented her
place as a hero of the party.
Adolf Hitler decided that
he would take a gamble,
and would make a bid for power.
And so, he launched an assault,
an attack on the
main parts of Munich,
the railway station, the
post office and so on.
Sister Pia was the only woman
who actually took part in that.
She was tending to broken
heads and bullet wounds
because 12 Nazis
were killed in the Putsch.
NARRATOR: She
impressed Hitler so much,
she would be
given responsibility
for building and running
Dachau concentration camp,
where some 40,000
people would die.
While there was
never enough evidence
of Baur directly
harming prisoners,
former inmates recall extensive
bullying and suffering at her hands.
(sombre music)
She invented
this "brothel train",
which, uh, with which
she peopled prostitutes
who were usually
Polish or Ukrainian,
who had no choice, they
were- they were brutalised into it.
And they became
prostitutes on the train
and it would go around Germany,
offering services to the
Aryan officers, on this train.
NARRATOR: Aside from
religious radicals like Sister Pia
for whom Nazism was
an irresistible magnet,
the big question remains
What attracted women to
these misogynistic men?
- There is something about Hitler
that lots of women found appealing.
Lots of women wrote
love letters to him.
And I think there was
something about his character
that people appreciated.
And perhaps it's hard for us to look
back and understand what that was.
But I think they saw him
as maybe, erm, a rescuer
taking them out of the difficult
situation after World War One.
- (chanting)
NARRATOR: For Hitler,
women were politically useful.
Violence and intimidation
counted for nothing
if the party could not make
a mark at the ballot box.
He needed to woo female voters
with a homespun Nazi
image and message.
But how could they do that,
with an underlying ideology
of division and violence?
- (yells in German)
NARRATOR: Much of the draw
came from Hitler's enigmatic magnetism.
Observers described the
rapturous reception women gave him
as something akin
to sexual hysteria.
- As soon as he spoke, he
changed his personality entirely.
And I think that they,
whether man or woman,
I think they were drawn to this,
can we even say,
charismatic little guy.
- (yells in German)
- Over these years,
like, from 1921,
'til he was arrested
and put into prison,
he changed his image
from a little drummer
to the leader.
Der Fuhrer.
- (chanting)
- The rock star analogy
is quite a good one.
He would've been a rock
star of the twenties and thirties,
except he wasn't selling music.
He was selling something
a lot more dangerous.
Certainly, the
remaking of Germany.
And later, of course, all of
the abuses and the Holocaust.
That was what he was selling.
NARRATOR: Hitler's
powerful oratory,
combined with the pomp and
grandeur projected by the party,
thanks to the genius of
propaganda chief, Josef Goebbels,
helped to capture the
imaginations and emotions of many.
But other social
factors were at play too.
- I think support for the Nazi
Party, particularly from the women,
was a direct result, really, of the
tougher times or the Weimar period.
But again, it was the women
who really witnessed all this
chaos right outside their own homes,
the fighting with the
different political parties.
And the women wanted stability, they
wanted their husbands to have jobs.
And that's why I think they
found the Nazi party so attractive.
(dramatic music)
- In the Weimar Republic,
thanks to the Constitution of 1919,
women had equal
rights. They voted.
They had equal employment
opportunities, that was guaranteed.
They had guarantees of
equality in the workplace.
They had access that they never
had before to higher education.
Women had always
gone to universities,
but more women were admitted.
So it was careers
open to everybody.
NARRATOR: The problem was,
not all women wanted this change.
They were being
thrust into the frontline
of the professions
and the labour market
right at the time when
pay and conditions
had never been
tougher or less attractive.
For most, it was
exhausting, low paid
agricultural work or
assembly line drudgery.
Many married women felt
overworked and underpaid.
Discontent was brewing.
As more women
poured into the workforce,
conservative groups, who wanted
social order, became alarmed.
For them, the real
and imagined terrors
of prostitution, abortion,
venereal disease,
obscenity and
rampant promiscuity
lurked in the shadow
of this social revolution.
By contrast, there
were the Nazis
and their comforting
talk of a society
harking back to a
kinder, safer past.
A time when women weren't
under pressure to work
but were content to stay at home
and be given status and respect
for fulfilling the sacred
roles of wives and mothers.
- Uh, the Weimar
Republic was probably
the freest that women
ever were in Germany.
It was this great age of
freedom and expressing yourself,
not just in Germany,
across the whole of the world.
Hitler's view was, "You don't
really want to be enfranchised
and go out to have to
work eight till five every day.
Be at home, do the job that
you're really entitled to do.
Do the job that you
really want to do,
which is raising a family
and caring for a man."
(tense music)
NARRATOR: Low paid
and dreary factory jobs,
or staying home to
care for your family?
The Nazis knew for many
women what the answer would be.
- And it shows, again,
the power of this dream,
this return to some
mythical society,
where women would
be breeders of children,
educators of children,
nurturers of children,
in the church, in the
kitchen, in the home.
And although, to us,
it would seem crazy
that women would want to
give up their emancipation
because it was
framed as evidence
of a kind of corrupted,
debased society.
(shouting & cheering)
NARRATOR: Leading the Nazi
charge against progressive feminism
was Paula Siber.
She predicted a dismal future
for the newly emancipated
German woman.
"Emancipation from
emancipation" was the Nazi slogan.
- Paula Siber was all about
professionalising motherhood.
You might even say
she was a forerunner
for Wages for Housework,
a movement in the 1970s.
Paula Siber wanted to see
motherhood elevated to a profession,
just like other
kinds of professions,
and that was her aim.
NARRATOR: Housewives in
their thousands joined a movement
in the name of family,
rather than freedom.
They worked within religious,
patriotic and civil associations
to defend traditional morality
and fight against decadence.
- They were saying, "We've
had enough of emancipation.
During the Weimar Republic,
we've seen emancipation.
And emancipation just left us
worse than we were to begin with.
We've lost the supports we've
had, the family is weakened,
our children run away,
they run off to the cities.
Give us life before
emancipation."
And that's what
the Nazis promised.
And they thought, with
a strong leader like Hitler,
there's going to be order.
NARRATOR: But Siber was by no
means the only conservative pioneer
responsible for getting German
women to back Hitler's cause.
Elsbeth Zander was another.
She passionately hated socialism
and was a fervent
supporter of the Nazis.
- She was a frumpy
housewife, oh my goodness.
She was a little overweight,
she kind of slumped around.
Then she got in
front of a crowd.
And she straightened up,
and she spoke brilliantly.
And in a way that's kind of the
double personality that Hitler had.
NARRATOR: Under what Zander
called the "holy flame of motherhood",
she campaigned for women to
join her in purifying German culture
and defend its traditional morality
against the decadence of Weimar.
Zander's campaign
struck a chord.
Woman were signing
up to her party in droves.
Her German Women's Order
was soon officially recognised
as part of the Nazi party,
and she received
official permission
to consider herself the
leader of all female Nazis.
Zander responded by
announcing that from now on
women would leave
the politics to the men
and concentrate on welfare
work and family support.
Elsbeth Zander had
undisputed authority
over women from all social
levels who were drawn to the party
by the alluring picture it
was painting of womanhood.
- And they, all of them
said, "We like KKK."
"Kinder, Kuche, Kirche."
"Children, kitchen, church."
We will do what we're good at,
and we will let the men
do what they're good at.
And wouldn't you rather rise up
to the top of your
hierarchy of all women,
than always be
second class citizens
in a world where men pretend
to respect you, but they don't?
So, that was Zander.
And then there was Mother
Mother Guida Diehl.
Her crusade in life was very
religious, she was Protestant,
and she was really
concerned about
women who had "fallen".
"fallen women"
was the polite term
for women who'd had
out-of-wedlock children,
women who'd been
abandoned by their husbands,
women who were too poor.
And she started,
independently, her own network
of houses called Neuland houses
that would give
women a second start.
NARRATOR: Born in 1868,
Guida Diehl grew up in a radically
nationalist and antisemitic family.
- (singing)
NARRATOR: Just
like Elsbeth Zander,
she was an early fan
of Hitler's racial ideology
and formed her very
own women's organisation.
But unlike Zander,
Diehl was looking to rally
the conservative and
well-educated women,
the protestant establishment,
to the Nazi standard.
People just like her.
Diehl opened a headquarters
with 500 rabid supporters
and began her fight against
what she called the anarchy
of values she so despised.
As with other female
leaders at the time,
Diehl railed against women's
rights, which, she claimed,
denigrated motherhood,
housework and women's culture.
She went as far as to call for
the elimination of paid labour
for women outside the home.
All of this was
music to Hitler's ears.
(grand trumpet music)
NARRATOR: Both Zander and Diehl
had felt imprisoned by the Weimar system
and saw the Nazi
party's traditionalism
as a German freedom movement.
They preyed on women's fears
about having to compete
alongside men in all walks of life.
Hitler offered liberation
from this alien, new world.
On behalf of the
women of Germany,
these rising stars reached
for the blue skies of Nazi ideals.
- Despite the encouragement
of the Nazi party
that all German women should be
good German mothers and stay at home,
some of the women
loved the opportunity
that supporting the Nazi
Party would bring them.
There was a sense of belonging,
and also a sense of power.
You're supporting
the leading party,
you're volunteering
for the leading party,
you're overseas
representing them.
And so, despite the narrative
that the Nazi party wanted
women to be at home to be mothers,
these women also
relished the opportunities
that supporting the
Nazi Party gave them.
(cheering and applause)
(curious music)
NARRATOR: Women
like Zander and Diehl
were allowed to create a
movement within the Nazi structure.
But they were in
danger of overestimating
their significance to
the party hierarchy.
The truth was, as long as
they kept supporting the party
- (chanting)
NARRATOR: ..the Nazis didn't
really care what they were doing.
- Nobody censored them.
Hitler, whenever somebody
disagreed with him,
or challenged his viewpoint,
Hitler would expel them,
purge them from the party.
Nobody purged women.
Men just didn't notice them.
NARRATOR: So each
major female leader
was free to set up organisations
and follow different rules
with their own objectives.
They even felt free to interpret
Hitler's ideas any way they chose.
Even with all this noise,
female support for the Nazi
party still lagged behind the men.
It would take one more
massive societal shift
to really move the
needle in their favour.
And that was the
Great Depression.
- So the Depression
hit first. 1929.
It hit Germany faster,
even, than the United States.
Unemployment, in two or three
years, became the highest in the world.
Imagine living in a country
where one out of three
workers lose their jobs.
And the unemployment
rate was one third for men,
but only ten-percent for women,
because women worked
in the lowest paying jobs.
But this disrupted everything.
It disrupted family
life. It disrupted politics.
NARRATOR: As the Great
Depression began to bite,
the female Nazi vote
rose to equal male support,
and in places,
even to surpass it.
The Weimar government
was fatally divided
and increasingly impotent in
the face of the economic malaise.
- (singing)
NARRATOR: The
Nazi party smelt blood,
and amped up the propaganda
to take advantage of the chaos.
(tense music)
NARRATOR: It was now
between them and the Communists,
while moderates were
left to die in a political ditch.
In the election of 1930,
the world watched on
as the Nazis leapt from ninth to
second place in the Reichstag.
The reason was simple.
Men had been losing their jobs
and were now
languishing at home,
while their wives
were often still working.
As many of these men
grew increasingly desperate,
women could see that
conventional German family life
was crumbling around them.
Their hopes and dreams for
the future were under threat.
The Nazi promise to reinstate
traditional gender roles,
allowing men to again
provide for their families,
proved wildly popular.
- Post World War One,
where the German
men, uh, Austrian men,
were feeling completely
humiliated and useless,
the idea of being
re-masculinised
would've been incredibly
exciting, exhilarating and seductive.
(dramatic music)
NARRATOR: By 1931, however,
so significant had women's
support for the party become,
that the Nazi leadership
decided to clip its wings
and bring it closer to the
mainstream party organisation.
It was decreed that all women's
associations, big and small,
were to be incorporated
into what was called
the National Socialist
Women's League.
Overnight, these organisations
fell under direct control
of the party, and
the men who ran it.
Despite all their work and
dedication to the cause,
the female leaders were
suddenly out in the cold.
In one cynical stroke,
they had been stripped of
their power and influence.
- Hitler's in power.
And all of his women followers,
Paula Siber, Guida
Diehl, Zander, everybody,
they all think, "Ah, I am
going to become the leader."
None of them did.
Suddenly, the Nazi
leaders cared about women.
(all shouting in German)
And their concern
exhibited itself
because all those
women lost their positions.
The Nazis had no idea who was
going to be in charge of women.
So their first
appointment was a man,
who had no experience
with women's anything.
But he seemed to be a good Nazi.
And so did the
dirty work of firing
and dismissing and
discrediting those women.
NARRATOR: The Women's League
eventually had a female leader,
committed Nazi
Gertrude Scholtz-Klink.
But for women, the
point had been made.
They'd been naive enough
to swallow the Nazi ideology
and ignore what the party
really thought of them.
It didn't matter that for years
they'd proved themselves
to be Hitler's loyal and
hardworking supporters.
He'd never let competent,
charismatic women gain real power.
There was to be
no honour in store,
no final prize,
no gratitude.
Instead, for these women,
it ended in bitter
disappointment and betrayal.
(tense music)
NARRATOR: The
Nazi's comforting slogan,
"Kinder, Kuche, Kirche",
"Children, kitchen, church",
was revealed to be a hollow lie.
And as the war ground on,
they'd become virtual
slaves in Germany's factories,
while their menfolk and
children died on the battlefield
or in the ruins of their
wrecked towns and cities.
The reward for their unflinching
devotion to the Nazis
- (shouting & chanting)
NARRATOR: ..was
sacrifice and death.
(sombre music)