Witten Women's Protest

Last updated May 13, 2024

The Witten Women's Protest was conducted to demonstrate against a specific policy of the Nazi regime. After being evacuated from the city of Witten due to the dangers of Allied bombing raids, women and children were moved to the countryside in Baden, away from their husbands and homes. Many women returned to Witten and their homes despite these regulations. By traveling back and forth between their homes and evacuation sites, they were seen by the Nazi government to be an additional burden on already over-stressed wartime transportation systems. The Nazi Party Gauleiter (regional Party Leader) of Westphalia South, Albert Hoffmann, declared that women from his region would not receive their food ration cards except in Baden or other designated evacuation sites.^[1] The protest occurred on October 11, 1943 and achieved the aims of the protesters, backed by a ruling by Hitler in January 1944, to allow the distribution of ration cards regardless of where the women were. According to the SD secret police there were estimated to be 300 women in the Witten Women's Protest. The Witten Women's Protest and the Nazi appeasement of the protesters prompted Goebbels to worry on November 2, 1943 that the regime was losing power by giving in repeatedly to Germans gathered on the streets in dissent. The protest weighed decisively on Hitler's decision in January 1944, that no Nazi official could manipulate ration card distribution as means of enforcing evacuation regulations.

Background

By autumn of 1943, three million civilians had been evacuated from their homes and relocated to different areas of Germany that the Allied forces had a harder time bombing.^[2] As Allied bombing intensified, some civilians evacuated out of concern for their own safety; others, like women and children, were relocated by the Nazi Government.^[2] Relatively new evacuation rules established the previous spring discontinued the practice of Freizügigkeit, in which civilians were able to pay their own way and evacuate anywhere they chose to- with the end of this practice, a flood of evacuees began to pour into similar government assigned areas, causing problems for cities as civilians with different dialects, customs, and religions moved into one shared space.^[3] As new neighbors clashed and winter came, people were ready to return home. In attempts to stop them, the Reich tried several methods of preventive measures- closing schools, restricting train ticket sales to those with explicit permission to leave the area, and then restricting access to ration cards unless evacuees stayed in their evacuation area.^[4]

Events

In a November 1943 report on current events and their effect on women's mood, the Nazi secret police (security service, SD) made a detailed report to the Third Reich's highest authorities, stating that on 11 October 1943 about 300 women had demonstrated in front of city hall in Witten in order to take a public position against official measures.^[5] According to the SS, the women gathered on Adolf Hitler Square in the Ruhr-area city of Witten to protest against an official decision by the regional party leader (Gauleiter) to withhold their food ration cards until they moved from their homes in the city to evacuation sites in the Baden countryside. The women became more outraged when they discovered that not every area had adopted this policy, and that their neighbors moving back home from their evacuation area were able to receive their rations stamps.^[6]

The Security Service, Nazi Police, or SD, reported:

The women in question had indeed tried to force the delivery of food ration cards, in order to take a public stand against the measures that led to this prohibition of the delivery of food ration cards. Shameful scenes developed so that the city administration of Witten found itself forced to call on the police so as to restore order. They refused to get involved however since the demands of the women were fair and there was no legal basis for not handing out food ration cards to German people who had returned [home]. Also in Hamm, Lünen, and Bochum wild scenes reportedly played out in front of the food offices. Agitated crowds of people waited in line for the distribution [of rations]. Because some of the women brought with them small children and nursing infants and the miners in some cases showed up in the place of their wives, those waiting began to exchange accounts of their experiences in the places they had been evacuated to, and the craziest (tollste) statements were made. Miners declared that they would not return to the mines before they had received the necessary food ration cards for their families. Women announced that they would rather suffer bombs here than to once again return to the quarters assigned to them. The publication in the newspaper as well as at the distribution center on October 12, 1943 that food ration cards would not only be denied to those who had returned but also to all children required to attend school, even if they had not yet been evacuated, led to a firsthand rebellion among the women, who had been capable of anything, without exercise of the least restraint or caution about consequences. Friendly persuasion had the opposite effect. Insults of official and high-ranking persons were the order of the day.^[5]

According to the SD, demonstrations like the one at Witten had taken place in front of municipal food offices in nearby Hamm, Lünen and Bochum in the same period.

By 1943, as British and American bombing raids continued to increase in intensity, Hitler wished to evacuate all civilians from targeted cities not essential to the war production industries by most means necessary. Within these strictures, Gauleiters were free to develop a range of tactics for evacuating Germans from targeted cities and preventing them from returning home. In Witten the women protested the regional party leader's decision to deny ration cards to evacuees who returned to their homes in cities subject to bombing raids. At the same time, he insisted that civilians must volunteer for evacuations rather than being forced into them- within four months of the protests in Witten, Hitler responded with policy that allowed more women and children to both return to their homes and received ration cards.^[7] The regime also improved opportunities for working fathers to go visit evacuated family members to promote cooperation in evacuation.^[7]

Significance

The Witten protest appears to have been the fulcrum event that forced a conclusion for Hitler in January 1944, that Gauleiters must not withhold ration cards as a means to force evacuees to remain in their assigned quarters away from their homes. The Führer then maintained this position at least through October 1944, as the German situation both at home and in the war became increasingly calamitous. Propaganda Minister and Hitler confidant Joseph Goebbels mused in his diary on November 2, 1943, that repeated concessions to protesters could cost the regime authority in the eyes of the German people.

We must try, ... through appropriate measures, to dam this flood of returning evacuees. If this is not achievable through well-meaning persuasion, then coercion must be used. It is not true that coercion does not lead to the desired result. ... Nothing has been felt of this [coercion] yet, and the Volk knows perfectly well where the pliant spot of the leadership is, and will always know how to exploit it. If we harden the spot where we have thus far been pliable, the Volk will bend to the will of the State. At the moment we are on the way to bending the will of the State under to the will of the Volk ... The state must never, against its own best interests, give way to the pressure of the street. If it does this, it will be even weaker the second time than the first, and gradually lose its whole authority.^[8]

Using a broader interpretation of the meaning and history behind the Witten Protest is Richard Evans who wrote in 1976 on the context within women's history of protesting. He writes that popular resistance enacted Hitler to back down in response to this protest. "The regime gave in to the women's protests," because it feared that "open resistance might have become very difficult to suppress without alienating not only the general populace but also the soldiers at the front."^[9] He explained that Nazi authorities feared the "rulebreaking" of women more than men and "kept a particularly close watch on the morale of women during the war." Further, Women could be much more easily provoked into open resistance than men." He further explains that there are "common features" within the Nazi Party of "almost total neglect of the larger part of the population— the female part ... Yet no explanation of any feature of German social history— least of all the rise of Hitler— that leaves out of consideration the larger part of the population can be considered adequate; and there are now [1976], at last signs that the realization of this fact is starting to make an impact at least on historians in Britain and the United States, though it has still to find widespread acceptance in Germany."^[9] However, in his 2008 work, he ignored the scholarship that backed up his 1976 conclusion, stating that "...the threat of arrest, prosecution and incarceration in increasingly brutal and violent conditions loomed over every one in the Third Reich. . . . The regime intimidated Germans into acquiescence, visiting a whole range of sanctions upon those who dared to oppose it.”.^[10]

Many Historians have concluded that the Witten street protests succeeded in getting their way by protesting. The regime preferred to accommodate rather than punish them because suppressing open resistance would likely alienate the people it depended on to win the war, whether on the home front or the battle front.^[9] The early treatments by historians saw the protest as an indication of women's resistance or of workers' opposition. More recently historians have set the Witten Demonstration within the context of civilian evacuations and have found the motivation for protest in the bonds of family.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fritz Sauckel</span> German Nazi politician (1894–1946)

Ernst Friedrich Christoph "Fritz" Sauckel was a German Nazi politician, Gauleiter of Gau Thuringia from 1927 and the General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment (Arbeitseinsatz) from March 1942 until the end of the Second World War. Sauckel was among the 24 persons accused in the Nuremberg Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal. He was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, sentenced to death, and executed by hanging.

<i>Gauleiter</i> Third highest political rank of the Nazi Party

A Gauleiter was a regional leader of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) who served as the head of a Gau or Reichsgau. Gauleiter was the third-highest rank in the Nazi political leadership, subordinate only to Reichsleiter and to the Führer himself. The position was effectively abolished with the fall of the Nazi regime on 8 May 1945.

Arthur Karl Greiser was a Nazi German politician, SS-Obergruppenführer, Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of the German-occupied territory of Wartheland. He was one of the persons primarily responsible for organizing the Holocaust in occupied Poland and numerous other crimes against humanity. He was arrested by the Americans in 1945, and was tried, convicted and executed by hanging in Poland in 1946 for his crimes, most notably genocide.

The Reich Security Main Office was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as Chef der Deutschen Polizei and Reichsführer-SS, the head of the Nazi Party's Schutzstaffel (SS). The organization's stated duty was to fight all "enemies of the Reich" inside and outside the borders of Nazi Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosenstrasse protest</span> 1943 street protest in Nazi Germany

The Rosenstrasseprotest is considered to be a significant event in German history as it is the only mass public demonstration by Germans in the Third Reich against the deportation of Jews. The protest on Rosenstraße took place in Berlin during February and March 1943. This demonstration was initiated and sustained by the non-Jewish wives and relatives of Jewish men and Mischlinge,. Their husbands had been targeted for deportation, based on the racial policy of Nazi Germany, and detained in the Jewish community house on Rosenstrasse. The protests, which occurred over the course of seven days, continued until the men being held were released by the Gestapo. The protest by the women of the Rosenstrasse led to the release of approximately 1,800 Berlin Jews.

Karl Hermann Frank was a Sudeten German Nazi official in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia prior to and during World War II. Attaining the rank of Obergruppenführer, he was in command of the Nazi police apparatus in the protectorate, including the Gestapo, the SD, and the Kripo. After the war, he was tried, convicted and executed by hanging for his role in organizing the massacres of the people of the Czech villages of Lidice and Ležáky.

The term "home front" covers the activities of the civilians in a nation at war. World War II was a total war; homeland military production became vital to both the Allied and Axis powers. Life on the home front during World War II was a significant part of the war effort for all participants and had a major impact on the outcome of the war. Governments became involved with new issues such as rationing, manpower allocation, home defense, evacuation in the face of air raids, and response to occupation by an enemy power. The morale and psychology of the people responded to leadership and propaganda. Typically women were mobilized to an unprecedented degree.

Gustav Adolf Scheel was a German physician and Nazi Party official. He served as a "multifunctionary" in Nazi Germany, including posts as the Reich Student Leader leading both the National Socialist German Students' League and the German Student Union, as an SS member and Sicherheitsdienst employee, as a Higher SS and Police Leader, as well as Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter in Reichsgau Salzburg. He was also an Einsatzgruppe commander in occupied Alsace and he organized the October 1940 deportation of Karlsruhe's Jews to extermination camps.

Many individuals and groups in Germany that were opposed to the Nazi regime engaged in resistance, including assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler or by overthrowing his regime.

Fabrikaktion is the term for the last major roundup of Jews for deportation from Berlin, which began on 27 February 1943, and ended about a week later. Most of the remaining Jews were working at Berlin plants or for the Jewish welfare organization. The term Fabrikaktion was coined by survivors after World War II; the Gestapo had designated the plan Große Fabrik-Aktion. While the plan was not restricted to Berlin, it later became most notable for catalyzing the Rosenstrasse protest, the only mass public demonstration of German citizens which contested the Nazi government's deportation of the Jews.

Robert Gellately is a Canadian academic and noted authority on the history of modern Europe, particularly during World War II and the Cold War era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German evacuation from Central and Eastern Europe</span> Population transfer from Nazi-occupied areas

The German evacuation from Central and Eastern Europe ahead of the Soviet Red Army advance during the Second World War was delayed until the last moment. Plans to evacuate people to present-day Germany from the territories controlled by Nazi Germany in Central and Eastern Europe, including from the former eastern territories of Germany as well as occupied territories, were prepared by the German authorities only when the defeat was inevitable, which resulted in utter chaos. The evacuation in most of the Nazi-occupied areas began in January 1945, when the Red Army was already rapidly advancing westward.

History of Pomerania between 1933 and 1945 covers the period of one decade of the long history of Pomerania, lasting from the Adolf Hitler's rise to power until the end of World War II in Europe. In 1933, the German Province of Pomerania like all of Germany came under control of the Nazi regime. During the following years, the Nazis led by Gauleiter Franz Schwede-Coburg manifested their power through the process known as Gleichschaltung and repressed their opponents. Meanwhile, the Pomeranian Voivodeship was part of the Second Polish Republic, led by Józef Piłsudski. With respect to Polish Pomerania, Nazi diplomacy – as part of their initial attempts to subordinate Poland into Anti-Comintern Pact – aimed at incorporation of the Free City of Danzig into the Third Reich and an extra-territorial transit route through Polish territory, which was rejected by the Polish government, that feared economic blackmail by Nazi Germany, and reduction to puppet status.

Paul Wegener was a German Nazi Party official and politician who served as the Gauleiter of Gau Weser-Ems as well as the Reichsstatthalter of both Bremen and the Free State of Oldenburg.

The Alpine Fortress or Alpine Redoubt was the World War II German national redoubt planned by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler in November and December 1943. Plans envisaged Germany's government and armed forces retreating to an area from "southern Bavaria across western Austria to northern Italy". The scheme was never fully endorsed by Hitler, and no serious attempt was made to put it into operation, although the concept served as an effective tool of propaganda and military deception carried out by the Germans in the final stages of the war. After surrendering to the Americans, the Wehrmacht General Kurt Dittmar told them that the redoubt never existed.

The evacuation of children in Germany during the World War II was designed to save children in Nazi Germany from the risks associated with the aerial bombing of cities, by moving them to areas thought to be less at risk. The German term used for this was Kinderlandverschickung, a short form of Verschickung der Kinder auf das Land.

Hans Meiser was a German Protestant theologian, pastor and from 1933 to 1955 the first 'Landesbischof' of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria.

The Crucifix Decrees were part of the Nazi Regime's efforts to secularize public life. For example, crucifixes throughout public places like schools were to be replaced with the Führer's picture. The Crucifix Decrees throughout the years of 1935 to 1941 sparked protests against removing crucifixes from traditional places. Protests notably occurred in Oldenburg in 1936, Frankenholz (Saarland) and Frauenberg in 1937, and in Bavaria in 1941. These incidents prompted Nazi party leaders to back away from crucifix removals in 1941.

Reich Defense Commissioner was a governmental position created in Nazi Germany at the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939. Charged with overall defense of the territory of the German Reich, there was originally one Reich Defense Commissioner for each of 15 Wehrkreise. On 16 November 1942, the geographical scope was reduced to the Gau level, raising the number of Reich Defense Commissioners to 42.

References

↑ Stoltzfus, Nathan (2016). Hitler's Compromises: Coercion and Consensus in Nazi Germany. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 234. ISBN 978-0-300-21750-6.
1 2 Torrie, Julia (2016). "Chapter 5: The Possibilities of Protest in the Third Reich". In Stoltzfus, Nathan (ed.). Protest in Hitler's "National Community":Popular Unrest and the Nazi Response. Breghahn Books. p. 78. ISBN 978-1-78238-825-8.
↑ Torrie, Julia (2016). "Chapter 5: The Possibilities of Protest in the Third Reich". In Stoltzfus, Nathan (ed.). Protest in Hitler's "National Community":Popular Unrest and the Nazi Response. Breghahn Books. p. 79. ISBN 978-1-78238-825-8.
↑ Torrie, Julia (2016). "Chapter 5: The Possibilities of Protest in the Third Reich". In Stoltzfus, Nathan (ed.). Protest in Hitler's "National Community":Popular Unrest and the Nazi Response. Breghahn Books. pp. 80–81. ISBN 978-1-78238-825-8.
1 2 SD-report, 18 Nov. 1943 (Bundes Archiv Berlin: R 58/190). The report is published in part in Heinz Boberach, ed., Meldungen aus dem Reich: Auswahl aus den geheimen Lageberichten des Sicherheitsdienstes der SS 1939-1944 (Berlin: Luchterhand, 1965), 451-53.
↑ Stoltzfus, Nathan (2016). Hitler's Compromise: Coercion and Consensuses in Nazi Germany. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 234. ISBN 978-0-300-21750-6.
1 2 Torrie, Julia (2016). "Chapter 5: The Possibilities of Protest in the Third Reich". In Stoltzfus, Nathan (ed.). Protest in Hitler's "National Community":Popular Unrest and the Nazi Response. Breghahn Books. p. 76. ISBN 978-1-78238-825-8.
↑ Joseph Goebbels, Die Tagebücher, Elke Fröhlich, ed. Vol. 10, 2 Nov. 1943, 222.
1 2 3 Evans, Richard J (1976). "German Women and the Triumph of Hitler". The Journal of Modern History. 48 (1): 123–175. doi:10.1086/241521. JSTOR 1878178. S2CID 144202702.
↑ Evans, Richard (2008). The Third Reich at War. London: Penguin Publishing Group. p. 452. ISBN 978-0-14311-671-4.