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Marriage loans (german: Ehestandsdarlehen, ) were part of the promotion of the family in
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. Instituted in 1933, they were offered to newlywed couples in the form of vouchers for household goods, initially on condition that the woman stopped working. Unless the husband's earnings were very low, interest rates on the loans continued to be lower if only he worked; and one quarter of the principal was forgiven for each child. Marriage loans were created by the "Law for the Reduction of Unemployment" of June 1, 1933.Klaus-Jörg Ruhl, ''Brauner Alltag: 1933–1939 in Deutschland'', Fotografierte Zeitgeschichte, Düsseldorf: Droste, 1981, , p. 63 Cornelia Schmitz-Berning, ''Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus'', Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1998,
p. 161
Aryan Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ' ...
newlyweds were eligible to receive an interest-free loan of 1,000
Reichsmark The (; sign: ℛℳ; abbreviation: RM) was the currency of Germany from 1924 until 20 June 1948 in West Germany, where it was replaced with the , and until 23 June 1948 in East Germany, where it was replaced by the East German mark. The Reich ...
s,
Richard Grunberger Richard Grunberger (7 March 1924 Vienna, Austria – 15 February 2005) was a British historian who specialised in study of the Third Reich. He was born in Austria to Jewish parents. After the 1938 Anschluss with Hitler's Germany, he was put on ...
, ''A Social History of the Third Reich'', London: Weidenfeld, 1971, , p. 235.
in the form of vouchers in the husband's name that could be redeemed for household goods such as furniture. The amount was approximately one fifth of average annual take-home pay;Stibbe, p. 40. industrial workers earned 140 RM a month.Ruhl, p. 64. Initially, the loans required that the bride stop work immediately and not take another position during the life of the loan unless the husband was earning less than 125 RM per month. Planners hoped that the loan programme would cause 800,000 women to leave the workforce over the first four years, and there was an associated programme of subsidies for household goods manufacture intended to provide jobs for another 200,000 men. In November 1933, the ''
Völkischer Beobachter The ''Völkischer Beobachter'' (; "'' Völkisch'' Observer") was the newspaper of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from 25 December 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from 8 February 1923. For twenty-four years it formed part of the official pub ...
'' featured as a "shining" example the mass wedding and subsequent resignations of 122 female employees of the
Reemtsma Reemtsma Cigarettenfabriken GmbH is one of the biggest tobacco and cigarette manufacturing companies in Europe and a subsidiary of Imperial Brands. The company's headquarters is in Hamburg, Germany. History Reemtsma was created in 1910 in Erfu ...
cigarette factory in Berlin, who thereby freed jobs for unemployed men.Stibbe, p. 41. By 1937, full employment had been achieved and women workers were needed, so the requirement was removed and the loan made available to all young people of documented Aryan ancestry and genetic fitness. This caused an increase in applications: by 1936 approximately one third of couples were receiving them; by 1939 this had risen to 42%. In July 1938, a special marriage loan programme for agricultural workers was added as part of the Decree on the Welfare of the Rural Population: couples were eligible if one partner had worked in agriculture or forestry for five years before they married, and the loan would be excused after a further ten years of such work. There was also a renewable 400 RM subsidy to farm workers for setting up a household. Applying for the loans required demonstrating ancestral and medical "fitness," which could be onerous. However, a law of August 31, 1939 suspended the documentary requirements in anticipation of the effects of the war. Couples who were both employed had to pay back the loan at the rate of 3% per month; if only the husband was employed, the repayment rate was 1% a month. In accordance with the Nazi policy of reversing the decline in the birth rate among Germans, one quarter of the loan was forgiven for each child, so that with the fourth child, no more was owed. This gave rise to the colloquialism ''abkindern'' (from ''ab'', off, and ''Kind'', child) for discharging the loan by producing offspring. By the end of 1938, 1,121,000 marriage loans had been extended, 800,000 under the original conditions of requiring the bride to stop work, and a "baby boom" had resulted in the forgiveness of 980,000. The loan was then halved, to 500 RM. The 250 RM for each child remained a powerful incentive; other financial assistance, called '' Kindergeld'', was also available to encourage families to have children. The loans were a particularly strong incentive to marry after extramarital pregnancy had occurred. The loans were partially paid for by a tax on unmarried people called ''
Ehestandshilfe Ehestandshilfe ("marriage assistance") was a tax levied on unmarried people in Nazi Germany as part of the Nazi state's policy of natalism, and used to contribute to the costs of the marriage loan system. This was levied at a rate of 2–5% o ...
'' ("marriage assistance"). This was levied at a rate of 2–5% of gross annual income on those under 55 who were liable for income tax; under a law of October 16, 1934, it was incorporated into the income tax beginning in January 1935. As a result of the marriage loan programme, furniture and home furnishings were amongst the few retail trade sectors to show expansion under the Third Reich; and this did not apply to department stores, which were specifically excluded. The
East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
government forgave all outstanding marriage loans in 1950, and in 1972 instituted its own loan programme, the ''Ehekredit'' (marriage credit), which was strongly reminiscent of the Nazi marriage loan: newlyweds under 26 received an interest-free loan of 5,000
East German mark The East German mark (german: Mark der DDR ), commonly called the eastern mark (german: Ostmark, links=no ) in West Germany and after reunification), in East Germany only ''Mark'', was the currency of the German Democratic Republic (East Germa ...
s, which was progressively forgiven as they had children (in this case 3), again referred to as ''abkindern''.Michael Schwartz, "Emanzipation zur sozialen Nützlichkeit: Bedingungen und Grenzen von Frauenpolitik in der DDR" in ''Sozialstaatlichkeit in der DDR: Sozialpolitische Entwicklungen im Spannungsfeld von Diktatur und Gesellschaft 1945/49–1989'', ed. Dierk Hoffmann and Michael Schwartz, Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, Sondernummer, Munich: Oldenbourg, 2005, , pp. 47–88
p. 70
, also in ''Lieschen Müller wird politisch: Geschlecht, Staat und Partizipation im 20. Jahrhundert'', ed. Christine Hikel, Nicole Kramer and Elisabeth Zellmer, Zeitgeschichte im Gespräch 4, Munich: Oldenbourg, 2009,
p. 39
: "ein spezieller Ehekredit für junge Ehepaare, der mit der Möglichkeit des 'Abkinderns'—der schrittweisen Streichung der Kreditschuld bei Geburt von mehreren Kindern—stark an die 'Ehestandsdarlehen' des NS-Regimes erinnerte".


See also

*
Tax on childlessness The tax on childlessness (russian: налог на бездетность, translit=nalog na bezdetnost) was imposed in the Soviet Union and other Communist countries, starting in the 1940s, as part of their natalist policies. Joseph Stalin's regim ...


References


Further reading

* Ulrike Eichborn. "Ehestandsdarlehen. Dem Mann der Arbeitsplatz, der Frau Heim, Herd und Kinder". In
Annette Kuhn Annette Frieda Kuhn, FBA is a British author, cultural historian, educator, researcher, editor and feminist. She is known for her work in screen studies, visual culture, film history and cultural memory. She is Professor and Research Fellow in ...
, ed. ''Frauenleben im NS-Alltag''. Bonner Studien zur Frauengeschichte 2. Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus, 1994. . 48–64. * Michelle Mouton. ''From Nurturing the Nation to Purifying the Volk: Weimar and Nazi Family Policy, 1918–1945''. Publications of the German Historical Institute. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University, 2007. .


External links

* {{PM20, FID=sh/126128,144262 Nazi eugenics Natalism Marriage Loans Economy of Nazi Germany Economy of East Germany