At War: Thea von Harbou, Women, and the Nation

Abstract

The outbreak of the First World War coincided with debates about the role of women in German society. Most female activists saw the war as an opportunity to broaden women's sphere of activity and influence. The author Thea von Harbou's fictional and essayistic works weighed in on the question. Although scholars characterize Harbou as a political conservative, their lack of attention to her bestselling fiction obscures Harbou's conflicted thought regarding feminine gender roles that she herself transgressed as a childless breadwinner. The author argues that Harbou's oeuvre reveals her profound ambivalence in that it calls on women to adhere to the domestic ideal, yet undercuts that message by presenting an alternative to it, the heroic masculine woman. Harbou's essays and fiction disparage women's domestic work as well as praise it. In terms of feminine gender roles, it's difficult to characterize Harbou as a conservative, as she called on women to break gender norms, including the comfort of male protection, for the good of the nation.