Women in Post War Germany

This was also a period of denazification, an initiative that meant to free the Germans and Austrians off their then way of life that was built around the National Socialist Ideology (Nazism). Women, in particular, played a huge role during this period as they had to exclusively take care of their families as their husbands, brothers, and fathers progressively returned to Germany from different Prisoner of War camps scattered across Europe and the Soviet Union. Many writers and filmmakers have tried to give an account of this period. In this paper, two articles authored by Heinrich Böll, one of the most prolific writers during that period, and a film: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) will be used to back the arguments on the role played by women in post-war Germany.

Women in post-war Germany had to take different roles in society. In the Breaking News article, the soldier describes his encounter with her host, the widow. According to him, upon entering the widow’s house, he is met with a room “crammed with shabby furniture where the odor of bad food and excellent cigars. ” (Boll 4). In another scene, while at the station, the soldier also overhears an elderly couple say, “if only there were a little more bread and a bit of tobacco” (Boll 6). Indeed, this is one of the scenes that show the extent to which hunger was prevalent. According to him, on reaching her doorstep, he could hear a cooing sound of a woman laughing from inside. According to him, “only a woman who was not alone could laugh like that” (Boll, Breaking the News 4).

In the movie, The Marriage of Maria Braun, the lead actor Maria Braun, marries a private in the German army during World War II who gets deployed immediately for the Russian front. As soon as his husband is reported missing, Maria moves in with a black American GI. In that film, Maria’s husband returns unexpectedly from the war and finds her in bed with her lover. He also speaks of owing landlady money for rent which to some extent points towards the fact that women during the postwar period were the ones who in most cases owned property. In the film, The Marriage of Maria Braun, Maria works for Oswald works as an interpreter. The relationship signifies the privileges women had over men concerning the acquisition of basic education that helped them in the postwar period (Schygulla).

There is also the aspect of women being more willing than the men to engage in new responsibilities to rebuild Germany after the war. In the film, The Marriage of Maria Braun, Maria is sharing a “flat carved out of bombed building” with her mother. According to him, he was not doing too bad down there as he had “a stove and would steal briquettes” (Boll, 385). However, this was not to be the case for long as a newspaper eventually unearthed him and wrote an article with his picture, portraying him as a “returning veteran who lived in poverty. ” In the film as well, there is a scene where an American GI throws away a cigarette and a couple of German men scramble for it (Schygulla). This was the sorry state of the postwar men which can explain the women’s attitude towards them.

The women in postwar Germany also had to live with the fear that their men had died in the war. As their husbands trickled back to Germany from war camps, they were physically and mentally incapable of work and had a tough time re-integrating back to the society. Women were also more privileged as they had alternative ways of making money as opposed to men who had no other profession apart from being soldiers. The postwar period was also characterized by poverty, lack of food and lack of housing which made it even harder for the women. Works cited Boll, Heinrich. Breaking the News. Werner Fassbinder Rainer. Perf. Hanna Schygulla.