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E-book
Author Heineman, Elizabeth D., 1962-

Title What difference does a husband make? : women and marital status in Nazi and postwar Germany / Elizabeth D. Heineman
Published Berkeley : University of California Press, ©1999

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Description 1 online resource (xviii, 374 pages) : illustrations
Series Studies on the history of society and culture ; 33
Studies on the history of society and culture ; 33.
Contents Preface -- Abbreviations -- Introduction War, Politics, and Marital Status -- Housewives, Activists, and "Asocials": Controlling Marital Status Under Nazism -- War Wives, Workers, and Race Traitors: Losing Control during War -- The Hour of the Women: Survival During Defeat and Occupation -- Marriage Rubble: The Crisis in the Family, Public and Private -- Restoring the Difference: The State and Marital Status in West Germany -- Narrowing the Difference: The State and Marital Status in East Germany -- What's the Difference? Marital Status and Everyday Life in the Reconstruction Germanys -- Epilogue-- Who's More Emancipated? Feminism, Marital Status, and the Legacy of War and Political Change -- Appendix A: Statistics from Published Reports -- Appendix B: The Darmstadt Study
Summary In October 1946, seven million more women than men lived in occupied Germany. In this study of unwed, divorced, widowed, and married women at work and at home across three political regimes, Elizabeth Heineman traces the transitions from early National Socialism through the war and on to the consolidation of democracy in the West and communism in the East. Based on thorough and extensive research in German national and regional archives as well as the archives of the U.S. occupying forces, this pathbreaking book argues that marital status can define women's position and experience as surely as race, gender, sexual orientation, and class. Heineman finds that, while the war made the experience of single women a dramatic one, state activity was equally important. As a result, West German women continued to be defined in large part by their marital status. In contrast, by the time of reunification marital status had become far less significant in the lives of East German women. In one broad, comprehensive sweep, Elizabeth Heineman compares prewar and postwar, East and West, lived experience and public policy. Her sharp analytical insights will enrich our understanding of the history of women in modern Germany and the role of marital status in twentieth-century life worldwide. -- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 323-364) and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject Single women -- Germany -- Social conditions -- History
Marital status -- Germany -- History
Marital status -- Germany -- Psychological aspects -- History
Single women -- Germany -- Social conditions
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Women's Studies.
Marital status
Marital status -- Psychological aspects
Single women -- Social conditions
Germany
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780520937314
0520937317
0585230056
9780585230054
9780520214255
0520214250
0520239075
9780520239074