Numerous privileges, belonging to the German social cream and a general reason to carry your nose a little higher than the others. The SS wives knew very well why it was worth going through the lengthy pre-wedding verification process.
Women in the Third Reich did not live a rich and liberated life. However, there was a social group to which many German women wanted to belong. Wives of SS men could do more than other women , they knew what their husbands were doing, and sometimes they used their position to satisfy their own sadistic desires.
Perfect Arya
In order to become the wife of an SS officer, one had to undergo a demanding verification process. The candidate had to submit irrefutable evidence of her Aryan origin for several generations. She also collected references, and her identity had to be confirmed by two credible witnesses. The RuSHA form (Main Office of Race and Settlement of the SS) they filled out also included questions about whether the candidate is trustworthy, she likes children, whether she is a "home dweller or a latite", and whether she is addicted to ... cleaning.
The woman of the SS officer was supposed to emphasize the uniqueness of her husband, who in Himmler's vision was created to be a contemporary Siegfried - the hero of old legends and the embodiment of all chivalry virtues. Moreover, such an ideal wife would also bring to earth offspring worthy of this ideal.
The article was inspired by the book Two Faces. Private life of the Auschwitz murderers Nina Majewska-Brown. The book has recently been released on the market by Bellona
However, positive verification did not mean that the candidate could breathe a sigh of relief. The next step to "becoming a future officer" was to take a six-week marriage or "motherhood" course.
They were taught there how to nurture future heroes and awake in them the will to fight. How to instill that devotion to the homeland and bearing the hardest sacrifices is the highest value in a warrior's life. They were taught, in general, to become the wife and mother of future and present heroes, and the perfect mistress of an officer's house. And also that the greatest value of a woman is to be a good and understanding wife and mother of as many children as possible. Usually, young candidates did not have to be encouraged to do so too much.
Nina Majewska-Brown's book, Two Faces, begins with these premarital concerns.
In fact, we should add about one hundred and eighty or more testimonies to the RuSHA of what happened with our ancestors, with whom they mixed blood and united in love, find two credible witnesses to testify about our political beliefs, and I, as a woman, the guardian of the race, must undergo a proper six-week marriage course where, in addition to political training, I will learn how to run a home, look after children and raise our offspring in the Nazi spirit so that one day they can join the ranks of the SS.
Efforts to marry an SS man could also be thwarted by many other factors. Both mundane, such as the fact that the woman was too short as well as independent of the candidate, such as denouncing her poor conduct or financial problems.
"Kirche, Küche und Kinder"
"Church, Kitchen and Children" is the essence of Nazi femininity in three words. Breaking this rule was not met with understanding or leniency. Especially in the case of the wives of SS officers, whose role has been further precisely defined.
First day of the RuSHA process
Each of the 240,000 women of this elite unit therefore knew exactly what was expected of her. She could read about it in the 13th issue of the magazine "Das Schwarze Korps":
Man is credited with the natural spiritual direction of the family. He puts her on, he leads her, he fights for her and defends her. On the other hand, a woman brings her inner self to the relationship - she gives her soul to her family by quietly, barely noticeable support for what her husband has created. Moreover, it is responsible for creating family ties.
Was it worth it?
In the eyes of the young German girls, the answer was quite clear - of course! The greatest honor was to enter the newly formed family into the SS family book. Nina Majewska-Brown expressed the gravity of this act in almost perfect words:
I wonder if the community of families has any special meaning for me and I am surprised to discover that it does. I am proud of being German more and more, and entering this particular book would be the crowning achievement of my life so far. It's like a pass to a higher category of people, to a better world, inaccessible to just anyone on the street , well, even for ordinary compatriots who have no ties to the SS.
Looking from the left:Magda Goebbels, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, and from the bottom the Goebbels children
The entry in the book of families meant for the spouses a confirmation of the purity of their Aryan blood. Moreover, at that moment, he was a promise to give the children a better and easier future.
Was it possible to divorce the SS man?
Yes of course! And it was a very common practice. In their ideal plan and verification of candidates, the officials forgot about one thing - the compatibility test of future spouses.
For example, in 1934 a divorce case was pending between Michael Lippert, the commander of the Dachau camp guards, and his wife Marie. The case became serious when the woman was accused not only of domestic fights, but also of destroying portraits of the Fuhrer, Goering or Himmler during them , and this already elevated the whole domestic row to the rank of a political act and seemed to be a betrayal.
However, Marie did not owe her husband. She herself admitted that as soon as she found out that she was pregnant, she decided to get drunk. By this act, she wanted to harm the child so as to give birth to the "idiot" she believed her husband was.
The divorce was granted.
The article was inspired by the book Two Faces. Private life of the Auschwitz murderers Nina Majewska-Brown. The book has recently been released on the market by Bellona
Many women attempted to join the elite circle of SS officers' wives. All of them filled with great hopes but also great fear while submitting extensive reports on their origins. . What if someone in their family had not turned out to be such an exemplary Aryan and got into an affair with a person with mixed genes? What is worse with someone of Jewish origin? These were the things that young women did not even want to believe in.
Once they were positively verified and received permission to marry, they entered the elite. With time, however, it turned out that the life presented to them before, as if out of a legend, had no connection with reality in the slightest. Surely most wives knew perfectly well what their husbands did. Some of them divorced for various reasons, but were also those who, with their sadism and love of crime, surpassed even the cruelest commanders of this elite unit.
Literature:
- N. Majewska-Brown, Two Faces. Private life of the Auschwitz murderers , Warsaw 2020.
- G. Schwarz, Wives of SS Men. Women in the elite circles of the Third Reich, Warsaw 2016.
- P. Roland, Hitler my love. Women in the service of the swastika, Warsaw 2019.