ABSTRACT
How widespread was violent and authoritarian parenting in Germany from the 1890s to the 1940s? This chapter analyses gendered and class-specific patterns of childhood and their change over time, based on four samples of girls and boys growing up during imperial, Weimar, and Nazi Germany. Evidence from interviews and statistical databases shows that emotional austerity and a focus on strict child control were and remained common. Girls were widely expected to engage in domestic chores and the care of younger siblings to make up for their mothers’ time constraints. Corporal punishment slowly decreased while becoming more selective and more gendered (masculinised) over time. The Nazi era, in particular, saw harsher beatings for boys. A principled turn away from violent parenting towards a child-centred perspective did not happen until the late 1960s.
