Dressed in modest petticoats and starched white aprons, their hair pulled back into neat plaits, a group of women are pictured marching through a hayfield. Arms linked, broad smiles across their faces, they are carrying baskets laden with flowers, which later they will arrange into pretty garlands. In another photograph, they are purposefully huddled around a sewing machine, darning pairs of pinstriped trousers, while other images show them gleefully feeding livestock, chopping vegetables on a kitchen worktop and singing along to another woman’s accordion-playing.
These faded black-and-white pictures are reminiscent of scenes from the 1800s: surviving off the land, communal living, hard work and simple, wholesome pleasures. In fact, they were taken during the height of the Second World War – and far from depicting idyllic country life, they are a rare glimpse inside a Reichsbräuteschule, or Reich Bride School, one of a cluster of training academies set up by the Nazis to educate women, many of them teenagers, to be suitable wives. The photographs themselves took pride of place in the Nazis’ official biweekly magazine for women, NS-Frauen Warte.
Until recently, little was known about these schools, where the Nazi marriage doctrine, ranging from domestic chores to worshipping the Führer, was instilled in the partners of Adolf Hitler’s personal bodyguards, the Schutzstaffel (SS). But, this week, a series of documents unearthed in Germany’s Federal Archive, based in Koblenz, shed light on their sinister operation. Historians discovered a rule book, detailing the disturbing oaths that prospective spouses had to swear, and certificates presented to those who passed the rigorous training course. So just what were “bride schools”? And why, nearly 70 years after they closed down, are they still shrouded in mystery? » | Sarah Rainey | Friday, August 16, 2013
Reichsbräuteschule »
Mütterschulen im NS-Regime »
