The National Socialist Women's League (German: Nationalsozialistische Frauenschaft, abbreviated "NS-Frauenschaft"literally "Nazi Womanship") was the women's wing of the Nazi Party. It was founded in October 1931 as a fusion of several nationalist and National Socialist women's associations.
The Frauenschaft was subordinated to the national party leadership (Reichsleitung); girls and young women were the purview of the 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. During wartime, it also provided refreshments at train stations, collected scrap metal and other materials, ran cookery and other classes, and allocated the domestics 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 2 million by 1938, the equivalent of 40% of total party membership.
The German National Socialist Women's League Children's Group was known as "Kinderschar".
Famous quotes containing the words national, socialist, women and/or league:
“Universal suffrage should rest upon universal education. To this end, liberal and permanent provision should be made for the support of free schools by the State governments, and, if need be, supplemented by legitimate aid from national authority.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“I pass the test that says a man who isn’t a socialist at 20 has no heart, and a man who is a socialist at 40 has no head.”
—William Casey (1913–1987)
“There is still the feeling that women’s writing is a lesser class of writing, that ... what goes on in the nursery or the bedroom is not as important as what goes on in the battlefield, ... that what women know about is a less category of knowledge.”
—Erica Jong (b. 1942)
“We’re the victims of a disease called social prejudice, my child. These dear ladies of the law and order league are scouring out the dregs of the town. C’mon be a glorified wreck like me.”
—Dudley Nichols (1895–1960)