History

Quoting Michelle Mouton’s From Nurturing the Nation to Purifying the Volk: Weimar and Nazi Family Policy, 1918–1945, pages 116–8, 120–2:

When the [German Fascists] took power, they tried to erase any ambiguity in women’s rôles by increasing the number of public ceremonies and lauding mothers for the sacrifices they made for the nation.

Almost from their first day in office, the [German Fascists] inundated Germans with propaganda exalting motherhood. Government‐sponsored advertisements and posters, carefully designed for shop windows and for blitz campaigns, loudly and publicly proclaimed, “The care of mothers and children is the holiest duty of the entire German Volk,” “The future of a Volk is only secure when it is prepared to give the highest sacrifice for mother and child,” and “Only a healthy and strong mother can give her Volk healthy sons and daughters.”²⁸

When asked whether she was aware of the state’s pronatalist attitudes, one woman I interviewed (b. 1916) claimed that there was an atmosphere in which motherhood “was so self‐evident, it hung in the air.”²⁹ Another woman agreed, telling me: “Yes, then, well, somehow we were all so ‘in’ [the spirit of motherhood] that we all wanted to marry and also gladly have children. I don’t even know whether we were aware of it [the propaganda]. It was just the general propaganda which influenced us.”³⁰

In celebrating motherhood, the [Fascists] echoed similar public celebrations in Europe, including England and France. But the [German Fascists] differed in their simultaneous development of an intense and invasive antinatalist campaign aimed at prohibiting the “unworthy” from reproducing that existed side‐by‐side with pronatalism.³¹ All mothers who were candidates for honor had to be evaluated by doctors and social workers to assess their genetic and racial value to the Volk in terms of their physical, social, and mental well‐being.

The [Fascists] also collected information from teachers, mayors, employers, and party leaders to create a more complete picture of families. The consolidation of information drawn from different perspectives was meant to enhance authorities’ overall ability to assess a woman, but conflicts often arose among the various assessors over control and turf as well as over questions of definition, all of which directly affected [Fascist] authorities’ ability to honor mothers.

One of the [German Fascists’] first steps after seizing power was to declare Mother’s Day a national holiday. Dr. Rudolf Knauer acknowledged that it was with joy that the Reich Committee for Mother’s Day celebrated the day [that] the [German Fascists] came to power, since they realized that “the pure idea of German Mother’s Day could be laid in the hands of men, who were [committed] […] to the high goal of popular rejuvenation […] [and who made] the mother the leitmotif of their struggle.”

Henceforth, Mother’s Day would not only celebrate mothers but also “awaken motherly responsibility toward the Volk in the souls of German women.” Children would learn to use Mother’s Day to express their deep respect, thankfulness, and love for their mothers. The [bourgeois] state stepped in to honor mothers who had lost sons in war and to free child‐rich and poor mothers from “front line work in factories.”³² Even members of the SS and SA were given the day off to celebrate motherhood.³³

Mothers were invited to come together to listen to radio broadcasts that informed them of their duty to populate the nation and ensure Germany’s future. In 1934, Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick, announced, “We stand now at a turning point! The salvation of Germany depends not only on love for the fatherland, but equally on women’s and girls’ devotion to the idea of motherhood.” He even claimed that “the state would step in where fathers had stepped out” for any reason by supporting all wage‐earning wives and mothers if they preferred not to work.³⁴

Although the elevation of motherhood at the rhetorical level was quickly accomplished, unifying local celebrations under [Fascism] proved more difficult. Both the Catholic and Protestant churches resented the [Fascist] effort to bring Mother’s Day under the control of the [so‐called] National Socialist People’s Welfare Organization (NSV) and the [so‐called] National Socialist Women’s Organization (NSF). In many cases, conflict broke out at the local level.

[…]

Only by controlling the celebrations themselves could the [Fascist bourgeoisie] ensure that its ideological goals were met. Reiterating and building upon the views of conservatives from the Weimar era, NSV authorities called motherhood a “duty” for healthy women, greatly strengthening the connection between women’s patriotism and childbearing.

Harking back to Dr. Knauer’s 1923 suggestion that Mother’s Day “should become a […] celebration of the fatherland,” [Fascist] policymakers used Mother’s Day to praise mothers publicly for their patriotic spirit and for their “readiness to sacrifice” both for their children and for the nation. For women, childbearing was presented as the equivalent of military training for men — both were ways of serving the country.

Although [Fascist] rhetoric continued to designate Mother’s Day a private family holiday, its patriotic elements took on elevated importance, particularly after the war began, when the celebration of Mother’s Day assumed a strongly militaristic tone.³⁶ [Fascist] authorities conscientiously tried to include all Aryan mothers in the celebration, claiming that “no mothers, especially not soldiers’ mothers, should feel alone on this day!”³⁷ They brought together mothers who lived alone for small group celebrations in the company of the youth groups.

Even after the war had begun and the Central Department for Publication and Propaganda had outlawed large‐scale public celebrations, Mother’s Day remained an important holiday heavily imbued with [Fascism].

From their first Mother’s Day celebration, the [German Fascists] also connected motherhood to racial politics. Eugenic ideals of racial purity dictated which mothers were worthy of honor. The [Fascists] redefined women’s “worthiness” and reshaped the concept of the ideal mother by creating a standard against which all women were judged.

Some of the qualities the [Fascists] expected of mothers did not differ dramatically from traditional notions: “A German mother’s ‘worth’ consisted […] in her being peaceable, frugal, orderly, and clean. The ‘worthy’ mother was a good housewife. She had a tidy, clean, orderly and straightened home; she wore clean, feminine clothes, had a husband to whom she was faithful, and bore only legitimate children. If she became pregnant, she bore the child under all circumstances. She did not smoke, and drank alcohol only sparingly.”³⁸

But the dimensions of a mother’s worthiness under [Fascism] extended beyond the sum total of the woman’s behavior, style, and stature to include those of her family as well. A worthy woman’s husband might smoke, but he drank only small amounts of alcohol and did not have a criminal record. Together with her husband, she worked industriously and paid the rent and debts punctually.

The integral connection between a woman’s duty to bear children and a man’s duty to provide for and defend the nation was often overt. NS Frauenwarte, Heft 20, 6 (1937/38).

If any member of the family was identified as “asocial” or a “work dodger,” it reflected badly on the whole family, but especially on the mother. Alcohol or drug abuse by any family member similarly revealed a fault in the family and the mother. While families that found themselves in economic trouble might accept welfare or aid from the NSV, too much reliance on the state for money was viewed as evidence of unworthiness.

NSV officials believed that children who had trouble in school reflected their mother’s shortcomings. Parents who had not demonstrated political reliability by showing their electoral support for the NSDAP early or by joining a [Fascist] organization could be dubbed unworthy.

Finally, a worthy family was racially pure according to [the Reich’s] racial guidelines. Jewish and [Romani] mothers, as well as mothers who were themselves or whose family members had been identified as hereditarily ill, were considered to be unworthy. Women who were not “German‐blooded” also were not honored. Only if a woman and the members of her family passed all these tests did [Fascist] authorities hold her to be worthy of public honor.

In addition to Mother’s Day, the [Fascists] adapted other Weimar programs to the new governing ideology. The 1931 decree providing certificates and honorary cups or monetary awards to mothers of twelve or more children continued after 1933, albeit in an altered form: a decorated swastika, the symbol of the Third Reich, appeared prominently on each certificate, and a new emphasis was placed on determining the racial worth of applicants.

Whereas before 1933, mayors, pastors, and the welfare office had filed applications for mothers in their communities, in the [Third Reich] doctors also participated in the nomination process. The character of the evaluation that was carried out also changed. Weimar authorities typically described a family’s reputation with the single word “good,” but after 1933 doctors and other evaluators described reputation in much greater detail.

(Emphasis added. Mouton’s work says more about the subject, which I omitted in the interests of saving time.)