ABSTRACT
Comparatively generous family allowances were granted to women with modest incomes who had been married for a number of years, and also to war brides. In July 1940 the authorities in central Germany sadly reported that 8,000 women had been asked to make their contribution to industry for Fuhrer and fatherland, but only eight had answered the call. With the increased number of marriages in wartime a large number of women had changed their names and places of residence and thus could no longer be traced. Speakers from the National Socialist Women’s Organisation were howled down in a number of factories, criticism of the luxurious lifestyles of the wives of the Nazi elite became increasingly outspoken and productivity began to drop as morale dwindled. Adolf Hitler did not object to German women volunteering for war work, but the results of a campaign to encourage the slender and long legged to make sacrifices for the war effort were disappointingly meagre.
