Frauen der NS-Zeit is a documentary film which premiered in 2020. In 2023, it was shown on French and German television (arte).
Here is some basic information about this film:
** French title: Des femmes au service du Reich
** Director: Christiane Ratiney
** Writers: Christiane Ratiney and Wendy Lower
** Historical consultant: Wendy Lower
** Run time: 91 minutes
According to the standard version of German history, the men went to war, while the women stayed at home to take care of the children.
According to the standard version of German history, the crimes committed by Nazi Germany were committed by men, while women were innocent bystanders.
According to the standard version of German history, German women did not commit any crimes during the time when Hitler and the Nazi Party were in power.
According to the standard version of German history, German women did not even know about these crimes, until they were revealed to the public after the end of the war in 1945
According to the standard version of German history, women were supposed to focus on the three Ks:
** Kinder, Küche, Kirche
** Children, the Kitchen, and the Church
This film investigates the role which German women played in society during the twelve years when Hitler and the Nazi Party were in power (1933-1945).
When we watch this film, we discover that the standard version of German history is not true at all.
German women were neither innocent witnesses nor passive bystanders, while the men went to war.
Many German women worked closely with the Nazis.
For some, this was a chance to climb the social ladder. For others, this happened, because they shared the same ideology as the leaders of the Nazi Party.
Whatever the reason, it is obvious that many German women were actively involved when Nazi policies and Nazi programs were implemented.
In the early years, the leaders of the Nazi Party wanted to relegate women to the background. They firmly believed the old-fashioned notion of the three Ks.
But in 1939, when the war began, it was no longer possible to keep all German women at home. Women were increasingly needed to support the war effort.
German women were not allowed to serve in the armed forces. But thousands of women worked as secretaries, administrators, and even security guards in concentration camps in Germany and in the occupied zones.
German concentration camps had around 50,000 security guards. Around 5,000 or 10 percent of the security guards were women.
These women were often more brutal towards prisoners than the male guards. Perhaps because they wanted to show the men just how tough they were.
Prisoners of the concentration camps paid the price, whenever a female security guard tried to impress male members of staff.
When the war was over, some Nazis were charged in a court of law. Most of those who were charged with committing crimes during the war were men, but a few women were also charged.
Some women were found guilty and sentenced to serve time in prison.
This aspect of German history is not well-known, but it is true, and the story of these women deserves to be told.
Several persons are interviewed in this film.
Here are the names of the participants
(listed in alphabetical order):
** Rachel Century - author
** Simone Erpel - editor
** Elizabeth Harvey - author
** Anja Homeyer (born 1958) – she is the daughter of Annette Schücking-Homeyer
** Stefan Hördler - historian
** Annegret Jordan – she is the daughter of Liselotte Meier
** Elisabeth Kohlhaas – director of the center for documentation and information in Torgau
** Kathrin Kompisch - author
** Wendy Lower - author
** Elissa Mailänder - author
** Selma van de Perre (born 1922) – Dutch-British resistance fighter during World War II
The film is divided into four chapters:
# 1. Young girls before the war (1933-1939)
# 2. Adult women before the war (1933-1939)
# 3. Adult women during the war (1939-1945)
# 4. Adult women after the war
Here are the names of the German women whose lives and careers are presented and discussed in this film – I have added a few basic facts after each name:
Pauline Kneissler (1900-1989)
She was a nurse
She worked for the Nazis
She worked on the euthanasia program (code-name T-4)
After the war, she was sentenced to four years in prison
She did not have to serve the full sentence
She was released after serving only one year
Hildegard Lächert (1920-1995)
She was a security guard in several concentration camps:
Ravensbrück, Majdanek, and Auschwitz-Birkenau
In 1947, she was tried in a court of law in Poland
She was found guilty of several crimes
She was sentenced to fifteen years in prison
She did not have to serve the full sentence
She was released in 1956
Melita Maschmann (1918-2010)
She was a member of the BDM (Bund Deutscher Mädel)
She described her time in BDM as an adventure
She worked in Poland in 1939
She survived the war and wrote a memoir
A German edition was published in 1963
An English edition was published in 2013
Liselotte Meier
She worked for the Nazis during the war
She was an administrator in Lida in occupied Belarus
She is the mother of Annegret Jordan, who is interviewed in the film
Herta Oberheuser (1911-1978)
She was a doctor
She worked for the Nazis
She participated in medical experiments
She was promoted for her service during the war
After the war, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison
She did not have to serve the full sentence
She was released after serving only five years
After her release, she resumed her work as a doctor
But her past was discovered and a formal complaint was made against her
In 1958, her medical license was revoked
Erna Petri (1920-2000)
She married Horst Petri in 1937 or 1938
The couple had two children
During the war, they served the Nazis in occupied Poland
After the war, they lived in East Germany
They kept a low profile
They did not talk about their past
In 1961, they were both arrested
When the Stasi searched their home, they found evidence of the past: they had both worked for Nazi Germany
The husband Horst was found guilty and executed in 1962
The wife Erna was sentenced to life in prison
She was still in prison when the Berlin Wall stopped working in 1989 and when the two German states were united in 1990
In 1992, she was released because of poor health
Annette Schücking-Homeyer (1920-2017)
She wanted to study law, but it was not possible for her to complete her studies because of the war
She was told a woman would never be allowed to practice law in Nazi Germany
She decided to work for the German Red Cross
She worked for the German Red Cross in Ukraine
She survived the war
After the war, she became a lawyer and a judge
Some letters which she wrote to her family during the war were published in 2015
She is the mother of Anja Homeyer who is interviewed in the film
Gertrud Slottke (1902-1971)
She worked as an administrator in the Netherlands when this country was occupied by the Nazis
She was involved when Dutch Jews were deported to death camps in the east
Many years after the war, she was tried in a court of law
In 1967, she was sentenced to five years in prison
She was in prison from 1968
She had an accident in prison in 1970
Her sentence was suspended in May 1971
She died in December 1971
Liesel Riedel Willhaus
She was a social climber
She wanted to marry Gustav Willhaus, because he was a member of the SS, but permission to marry was not given quickly
They were finally married in 1938
During the war, husband Gustav became an SS commander
The couple lived in a villa next to a concentration camp
As you can see, some of these women worked very closely with the Nazis.
Liselotte Meier managed to keep her past connection with the Nazis secret from her daughter Annegret Jordan. The truth about her past was only revealed after her death.
Not all of these women worked for the Nazis.
Annette Schücking, who married Helmut Homeyer in 1947, did not work for the Nazis. She worked for the German Red Cross.
What do reviewers say about this film?
On IMDb it has a rating of 78 percent which corresponds to a rating of 3.9 stars on Amazon.
In my opinion, this rating is too low.
The topic explored here is important.
The story of the German women who worked closely with the Nazi regime deserves to be told, and in this film, it is done very well.
I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent).
REFERENCES
# 1. Items available online
Rebekah Prather
“More than accomplices:
The crimes of Hitler’s female SS,”
Nursing Clio
04 December 2019
DB Kelly
“The Disturbing History of the Killer Women under Hitler’s Regime,”
Grunge
23 April 2023
# 2. Books in English
Women and the Nazi East:
Agents and Witnesses of Germanization
By Elizabeth Harvey
(2003)
Hitler’s Furies:
German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields
By Wendy Lower
(2013)
Female SS Guards and Workaday Violence:
The Majdanek Concentration Camp, 1942-1944
By Elissa Mailänder
(2015)
Ordinary Women:
Female Perpetrators of the Nazi Final Solution
By Haley Wodenshek
(Trinity College) (PDF file)
(2015)
Female Administrators of the Third Reich
By Rachel Century
(2017)
# 3. Books in German
Im Gefolge der SS:
Aufseherinnen des Frauen-KZ Ravensbrück
Edited by Simone Erpel
(2007)
Täterinnen:
Frauen im Nationalsozialismus
By Kathrin Kompisch
(2008)
# 4. Film and video
Als der Reichstag brannte
Director = Mickaël Gamrasni
Run time = 90 minutes
(2023)
Nazis: Made in Austria
Director = Barbara Necek
Run time = 55 minutes
(2023)
*****
Des femmes au service du Reich
The French title of the film
*****
BDM
Bund Deutscher Mädel
The female version of Hitlerjugend
*****
Damals:
Das Magazin für Geschichte
A special issue about women in Nazi Germany
Frauen im NS-Regime
The first issue of 2022
*****
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