The National Socialist Women's League (, abbreviated ''NS-Frauenschaft'') was the
women's wing
A women's wing, sometimes also known as a women's group or women's branch, is an auxiliary or independent front or faction within a larger organization, typically a political party, that consists of that organization's female membership or acts to ...
of the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...
. It was founded in October 1931 as a fusion of several
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...
and
Nazi
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
women's associations, such as the German Women's Order (, DFO) which had been founded in 1926. From then on, women were subordinate to the NSDAP Reich leadership.
Guida Diehl was its first speaker (''Kulturreferentin'').
The ''Frauenschaft'' was subordinated to the national party leadership (''Reichsleitung''); girls and young women were the purview of the
League of German Girls (''Bund Deutscher Mädel'', BDM). From February 1934 to the end of World War II in 1945, the ''NS-Frauenschaft'' was led by Reich's Women's Leader (''Reichsfrauenführerin'')
Gertrud Scholtz-Klink (1902–1999). It put out a biweekly magazine, the ''
NS-Frauen-Warte''.
Its activities included instruction in the use of German-manufactured products, such as butter and rayon, in place of imported ones, as part of the self-sufficiency program, and classes for brides and schoolgirls.
[ Richard Grunberger, ''The 12-Year Reich'', p 258, ] During wartime, it also provided refreshments at train stations, collected scrap metal and other materials, ran cookery and other classes, and allocated
the domestic servants conscripted in the east to large families.
Propaganda organizations depended on it as the primary spreader of propaganda to women.
The ''NS-Frauenschaft'' reached a total membership of two million by 1938, the equivalent of 40% of the total party membership.
[Payne, Stanley G. 1995 ''A History of Fascism 1914-1945'' University of Wisconsin Press, Madison p. 184]
File:Ns frauenschaft lapel pin Moment.jpg, NS Frauenschaft dress pin
See also
*
Women in Nazi Germany
In Nazi Germany, women were subject to doctrines of Nazism by the Nazi Party (NSDAP), which promoted exclusion of women from the political and academic life of Germany as well as its executive body and executive committees. On the other hand, wh ...
References
External links
Die NS-Frauenschaftat ''Lebendiges Museum Online''.
(NS women's policy and women's organisations] at ''Lebendiges Museum Online''.
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Women's organisations based in Germany
Nazi Party organizations
Women's wings of political parties in Germany
Women in Nazi Germany
1931 establishments in Germany
1945 disestablishments in Germany
Organizations established in 1931
Organizations disestablished in 1945