Compulsory year

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The compulsory year was introduced by the National Socialists in 1938 . It was for all women under 25 - so-called compulsory year girl / girls - and committed her to a year's work in agriculture and home economics. It was in competition with the established Landjahr and, from 1939, through the introduction of the Reich Youth Service Act, to serve as part of the Reich Labor Service . This particularly affected those young people who had not previously belonged to any party youth organization and who had also not completed any professional training. The compulsory obligation in the RAD was based on purely arbitrary guidelines, regardless of interests, skills or affinities of any kind. Neither the place of employment nor the type of activity were available.

In this way, the girls and women should be prepared for their future roles as housewives and mothers. In addition, in many households the lack of manpower of men who were soldiers in the war could be compensated. Exceptions were women with children and women who already worked in these areas. Without proof of the completed compulsory year, no apprenticeship or other training could be started.

Reason for the compulsory year according to the Nazi regime

The home economics education was the basis of all women's professions. Learning the household was the most important thing a girl or a woman could learn. All girls were to become capable housewives and mothers. The children could only be brought up in a healthy and tidy way if the mother was a capable housewife. The housewife could only be efficient and do business properly if she had learned the housekeeping properly.

Development of the compulsory year

Hermann Göring ordered the so-called compulsory year in February 1938, which came into force in March of the same year. All women under the age of 25 were only allowed to be employed by private and public companies in the clothing, textile and tobacco industries if they could prove that they had been employed in agriculture or housekeeping for at least one year. This also applied to office or commercial employment. As an alternative to the compulsory one year in the country, one could also do a two-year service in welfare or in the health sector.

The compulsory year included the already existing housekeeping year, which had been initiated in May 1934 in order to put the large number of school graduates on hold and thus take them out of the job market because there were too few training places. The inclusion of the housekeeping year served to set up a barrier with which one could more strongly influence the career choice of women.

The compulsory year was an institution that - compared to the voluntary land aid or the land service of the Hitler Youth - was introduced relatively late. It differed from the “women's labor service” founded in 1930, which was based on voluntary service until 1938 and initially only supported male labor service. Later, the “Women's Labor Service” was incorporated into the “Reich Labor Service for Female Youth” and thus concentrated on the domestic and ideological training of young girls, and not on the actual performance of work.

The shortage of labor in agriculture and housekeeping remained a major issue in politics until Goering's introduction of the compulsory year. The compulsory year was a first service obligation in times of war-related emergency and should enable a quick recruitment of workers.

Initially, the introduction of the compulsory year caused consternation among the population. Young girls who did not want to work in agriculture or household jobs, or parents who had other jobs for their daughters, were dissatisfied with this regulation .

In 1938 around 130,000 girls came to agriculture and housekeeping as well as care-related jobs because of the compulsory year. However, this did not cover the demand. Therefore, in January 1939, the regime tightened the regulations by affecting all industries. 300,000 to 400,000 girls and young women under the age of 25 were recorded. In addition, the employment office had to agree to the compulsory year; this increased the steering force of the labor administration and it was possible to specify where the compulsory year had to be completed. As a result of this development, the previously partial compulsory year, which had blocked direct access to some professions, became an all-encompassing one.

As the war progressed, there was a dispute over positions. The decision-makers on labor policy could not make a decision on the general enforcement of compulsory service for all inactive women, and no result was reached until the end of the war. The proponents and opponents were in conflict. On the one hand, the woman was seen as an important worker for the war, on the other hand she was perceived in her role as mother and housewife, and compulsory service would counteract this image.

literature

  • Keyword compulsory year (compulsory year girl, girl) , in: Cornelia Schmitz-Berning: Vocabulary of National Socialism . Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998, p. 465f.
  • Gertrud Albrecht: The compulsory year . Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt, 1942 (with a detailed overview of the legal basis of the "compulsory year", the government agencies responsible for its implementation and their tasks (German Labor Front, labor offices, labor courts) as well as the rights and obligations of the girls and young women concerned, their parents and the employers involved). PDF .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Cornelia Schmitz-Berning: Vocabulary of National Socialism . 2nd Edition. Berlin / New York 2007, pp. 465-466 .
  2. a b c d Detlev Humann: "Labor battle". Job creation and propaganda in the Nazi era 1933–1939 . In: Ulrich Herbert / Lutz Raphael (eds.): Modern time. New research on the social and cultural history of the 19th and 20th centuries . tape 23 . Göttingen 2011, p. 149 .
  3. a b c Christina Löffler: The role and importance of women in National Socialism. Anti-feminism or modern promotion of emancipation? Saarbrücken 2007, p. 67 .