Young Women In Nazi Germany

Young women in Nazi Germany had many opportunities which gave them many positive experiences but may also have been used to give girls the expectation to support Hitler’s ideas and led to harsh punishments. All German girls were required to be a part of the Young Girl’s League and once older, they were transferred to the German League of Girls (BDM) which allowed the girls to lead and perform in fun activities. This would have given girls a positive experience. Girls were given the opportunity to exercise by playing a variety of sports, including ball games, running and javelin throwing. During winter, they stayed indoors and learned songs which was enjoyable (1RR). However, the songs being learnt often had a political message which influenced
the girls with Hitler’s beliefs. The youth groups were also negative for girls because although the BDM enabled girls to become active and educate them, the primary aim was to prepare girls for motherhood and marriage (3G). All girls in the BDM were also reminded that their schooling was necessary to prepare them to be carriers of the Nazi world view, which was propaganda (Snyder, 1998). Furthermore, girls were prone to receive punishments for doing something wrong. For example, if a girl had the wrong hairstyle, they would have their hair ceremoniously shaved off as a punishment (Simkin, 2017). Therefore, the opportunities that the girls received were both positive and negative since they had an enjoyable time, but were being influenced by political messages and had strict rules which were followed by punishments.