In and Beyond the Racial State: Gender and National Socialism, 1933–1955

Abstract

This article provides a comprehensive overview and critical discussion of recent scholarship on gender issues in Nazi Germany. In particular it examines how gendered approaches have both contributed to, and been shaped by, new research in three key areas: the formation of the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft (national or people's community); Nazi understandings of ‘space’ and empire; and memory and the legacy of the National Socialist regime. The article argues that there are some limits to what gender can explain, especially as the Third Reich prioritised race over gender when it came to reordering German and European society. Nonetheless, gender is a crucial category for analysing the everyday lives and experiences of real German men and women in the period 1933 to 1955, most notably in conjunction with ideas around ‘comradeship’, ‘honour’, individual and collective ‘performance’, and mobilisation for war. It also raises important questions about the process of coming to terms with the aftermath of total war and total defeat, and about the strength and validity of past and current theories of generic fascism.