8 - German and American Women Between Domesticity and the Workplace

Summary

In 1948, a young psychiatrist who worked for the Information Control Division of the American military government in Germany published his research on “the Father Land.” According to this study, the German married woman “is completely dependent on her husband.” The secondary position of the “German Mother” in the family was assumed to be because of two factors: “her subjugation to the undisputed authority of the father, and her abandonment of those qualities associated with 'femininity' which would make her a colorful, self-reliant personality instead of an insecure passive drudge.” The German husband and father, however, behaved like a tyrant and wielded “absolute power” over his wife and children. The children, who only knew their father as an omnipotent presence at home, were shocked to see his subservience toward his superiors. According to the author, these gender-specific behavior patterns within the family continually socialized Germans into specific forms of authoritarianism; it was only a small step from authoritarian family life in Germany to fascism. These and similar ideas were widespread within the American occupation force when it set out to reeducate the Germans and cure them from Nazism.