WOMEN IN GERMANY

Southland Times, Issue 22991, 10 September 1936, Page 15

WOMEN IN GERMANY

Effects of the Hitler Regime

Impressions of the women’s point of view in Germany—after three years of Hitler’s regime—were given in London recently to the correspondent of an Australian journal by Frau E. A. Scharrer, who is Australian by birth.

Frau Scharrer has resided in Germany for 50 years. At the age of 19 she married a German, and after bringing up a family and enduring the horrors of war against her compatriots, she has in later years turned her attention to the study of national problems affecting German women. She speaks with authority—she is now in England at the express invitation of women’s organizations eager to hear the truth about how modern German women live and think. "Contrary to general outside opinion, woman is now playing a very important part in the new Germany,” she said. Happier than Before. “She is far happier than ever before. lam speaking of the great masses of the population—and, I think, the value of every country lies in the general level of the mass, not the individual. I go so far as to declare the German woman lacks understanding of politics as such. “To-day she’s glad to be free of voting, to be free of political fights and struggles. She’s glad to push the responsibility on to the men’s shoulders and herself to be free to follow her womanly inclinations and avocations. Don’t judge from what a tiny percentage of academic-trained German women say. I put before you one question to support my assertion: Germany started on Woman’s Rights Alliance of Suffragettes in 1902. The German woman has had 34 years to learn, yet she has not the slightest knowledge of her duties, nor were the masses trained. The League of Women’s Rights was not popular, and had no influence whatever in the Government. “The German woman is made for home, and not for public life, and she is now in her natural element, that of mother, wife, family, and home. If a State is to recover its strength it needs a healthy stock of wives and mothers—but at the same time woman’s training in the policy of her country is not_ to be neglected. Actually, she is being methodically and systematically trained in politics as never before. Women’s Organizations. “It is little known that in Berlin there exists a Ministry of Women—you might call it the Council of National Women—conducted on the same system as the Government for men. This-is called the ‘Frauenschaft,’ and here sits an army of women—executives, secretaries, typistes, the

various under-departments of a gigantic organization for folk-welfare and household science. Among these women we find a number of former academicians versed and trained in municipal and civic work, so that they are well equipped for their responsibilities. “This 'Frauenschaft’ controls a whole network of organization, which could never be properly administered by men alone. There is the Winter Aid system, by which millions of compatriots are served with a warm meal, daily, and given coals, firewood, potatoes, groceries and clothing. Another form of donation is the one pound of dry goods monthly. “There is the mother-and-child movement, with rural holiday homes, or domestic aid provided from the girls’ work camps—the kindergartens and everything connected with maternity. “Weekly and monthly lectures are given for national-socialistic instruction, as well as evening classes of tuition for inexperienced brides, in domestic and State knowledge. Then there is the colossal work involved with the national labour service camps for girls, running parallel with the boys’ camps, where girls join up, from 17 to 25 years of age, for experience in domestic and agricultural labour under the non-class system. Here they work for six months and are expected to place their aid at the service of the villagers or peasants if needed. “All this national-social work is conducted very ably by German women. New membership of the ‘Frauenschaft’ it now closed to adults, and open only to the so-called Girls’ League Section of the Hitler Youth Movement. The women of the organization wear a special badge, designed by the Fuhrer himself for these political women—who are thereby honoured with special distinction. In all public functions they take a prominent part among the men of the party. A Fervent Hope. “I fervently hope,” Frau Scharrer concluded, “that, in time, the vital question of the training of the girl leaving school will be introduced as compulsory. Adequate training on the domestic side is much urged and supported by the new regime. “At this moment, something like 10,000 could be placed in private families for tuition in housewifery. It’s a nice little trial and is working well, but until it becomes law its progress will not be as active as it should be. The officers of the trade unions and labour exchanges are supporting the idea in refusing to give girls positions if they do not bring their certificate to show that they have duly served their year of domestic service. This rule applies equally to the highest and lowest in the land.”