Stage helper
Female auxiliary workers in the service of the German military behind the front in World War I are referred to as stage helpers .
history
The mass drafting of men for military service led to discussions about introducing general compulsory service for women , especially after the costly battle of Verdun and on the Somme . The head of the War Office, Wilhelm Groener, and Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg , among others, turned against this .
On a voluntary basis, women served as nurses and stage helpers behind the front. About 92,000 nurses worked in the military hospitals. What is less known is that the so-called stage helpers also existed in the last two years of the war. Their attitude should make it possible that soldiers performing stage duty could be transferred to the front. The number of female assistants in July 1917, at around 4,800 women, was significantly lower than that of their male colleagues (around 12,250). Their share was initially 39%. However, their number rose to around 17,400 by September 1918. Meanwhile, women made up 64.4% in this area.
The positions, especially in the occupied territories, were particularly attractive to younger women, who applied accordingly frequently. The reasons given for this are not only the relatively good wages and meals , but also the possibility of an independent lifestyle, which hardly existed in “civil” life. You came out of the closer environment and could see something new. Many of the helpers came from a rather middle-class environment. The women worked as typists , in laundries or as kitchen staff. They were used in the stage, but also in the occupied territories. Functionaries of the Federation of German Women's Associations were responsible for the organization in cooperation with the deputy general commandos . Their activities corresponded (at that time) to the usual female types of employment. Nevertheless, they had a rather dubious reputation among the German public, for which primarily male fantasies may have played a role. The goal of using the stage helpers to transfer around 200,000 military personnel to the front was nowhere near achieved.
Female military assistants were not specific to Germany. They also existed in the Allied forces and in the Austro-Hungarian army . There, the number of around 36,000 to 50,000 women was considerably larger than in Germany.
Individual evidence
literature
- Ute Daniel : Working women in war society. Job, Family and Politics in the First World War . Göttingen, 1989 p. 93f.
- Gerhard Hirschfeld / Gerd Krumeich : Germany in the First World War. Frankfurt am Main, 2013 p. 130
- Bianca Schönberger: Mobilizing Etappenhelferinnen for Service with the Military: Gender Regimes in First World War Germany Oxford, 2002