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Within the Nazi Regime an effort was made to control all aspects of life in the Third Reich.
Men were expected, and typically forced into the Army, children had to join the Hitler Youth
in order to be integrated more fully into the goals and ideologies of the Third Reich, and
women were given strict roles to adhere to that would enable them to further the cause of Nazi
Germany. In fact, women and their roles were seen as the backbone of German society. From
the beginning, the spheres that women were expected to attend to were emphasized not only
through propaganda, but also through speeches and laws that were passed. As stated by Brana
Gurewitsch in her book Mothers, Sisters, Resisters, women occasionally "benefited from the
stereotypes perpetuated by Nazi ideologyThe persistence of the stereotype of the passive,
homebound woman dominated by her husband prevented Germans from immediately
suspecting women of activities that did not fit this stereotype." The strict gender roles that the
Nazis imposed acted as a shield and disguise under which women resistors could work. Two
such women resistors that I will examine are Lucie Aubrac and Diet Eman. Although in
different countries and working with different groups of resistance, both Lucie and Diet
utilized the stereotypes of women propagated by Nazi Germany to move within their
resistance efforts. Cases such as theirs exemplify how women were able to use the gender
roles assigned to them by the Third Reich in order to work against the Nazis.
German women, and women within the influence of Germany, were expected to attend to the
home. It was taught that women should build a stronger and more united Germany through
raising children and serving their husbands. For this reason, many women were fired from
their jobs, not allowed to work in government or hold office, and looked down upon if they
were single or did not raise enough children. Joseph Goebbels, the State Minister for People's
Enlightenment and Propaganda explained the womans role in a speech during the exhibit
"Women" in Berlin in 1935 as "something quite different from the vocation men have." He
goes on to describe that a woman's "first and foremost place is in the family, and the most
wonderful duty which she can take on is to give her country and her people children, children
which carry on the success of the race and assure the immortality of the nation."
This emphasis on the rearing of children is present throughout German propaganda and
programs. In fact, Germany was so intent on consigning women to be solely mothers and
homemakers that an organization called "Lebensborn" or "Fountain of Life" was set up in
1935 under the direction of Heinrich Himmler. Here, women who were seen as "racially fit"
were provided to procreate with the purest of SS men. In this way, those who were single and
unwed were still able to contribute to the advancement of "pure" German subjects.
Although many see these strict gender roles as a degrading act upon women, one which
weakened their abilities to be heard and recognized, often women acting under the guise of the
expectations of their gender were able to resist the Nazi Regime. Because men, and
particularly those men indoctrinated with Nazi propaganda and ideals, saw women as weak
and unable to be beneficial in any other area than child raising, women were often able to go
undetected in working in resistance against the Third Reich. Women used the stereotypes
placed upon them to create a seemingly innocent and benign alibi while actually participating

in activities directed toward the destruction of Hitler and his Third Reich.
A poignant example of a woman resistor using the expectations that were placed on her as a
woman is that of Lucie Aubrac, a member of the French Resistance during a Nazi-occupied
France. Her memoir, Outwitting the Gestapo, written in the form of a journal, describes her
actions in resisting the Nazis. In the beginning, Lucie is a supporting member for her husband,
who is deeply involved in the Resistance. She uses her appearance of motherhood to cover up
for secret meetings between her husband and other members of the Resistance. She strolls
alongside them, thinking "a mother with a child, what could be more transparently innocent in
a public park on a Sunday afternoon?" She was "happy to provide some slight cover for [the]
meeting between the two resistants." In using her role as a mother, Lucie was able to distract
the attention away from her husband and his partner. By emphasizing her duty as a wife,
raising children, and acting under the responsibilities that are seen fit for a woman, Lucie
draws
attention away from the true task at hand and thus aids the resistance effort.
Later in the book, when Lucie's husband is discovered and arrested by the Gestapo for his
resistance activities, she takes on the main role and her resistance efforts are not done merely
as a help to her husband, but she takes on new tasks. However, even though she is now
participating on a main level, she still uses her role as a subservient woman and mother to
accomplish her aims. In an effort to get her husband out of jail, she once again puts on the
portrayal of a helpless woman. Pretending to be pregnant and using the social taboo of a
pregnant, unmarried woman, she claims that she needs to see her husband, who the guards do
not know that she is married to, in order to get him to marry her, as she is expecting his child.
She acts defenseless and begs the Gestapo to let her husband go because she "is expecting a
child" and does not want "to be an unwed mother." The Gestapo merely see her plight as one
of an ordinary woman who was deceived by a man. Because of her gender, they do not look
any more into her interest in the release of a prisoner who poses such a threat to German
control. Most certainly had it been a man enquiring about the fate of Lucie's husband, he too
would have been immediately suspected.
In her efforts in working against the Gestapo, Lucie, unlike many of the male characters in the
novel does not use force or strength to resist, but rather the roles that are assigned to her as a
woman. Because of the enforcement and focus of these roles, she is not seen as a threat, but is
able to perform her duties using Nazi ideas on gender to her advantage.
Yet another example of a woman using the strict confines of gender roles to resist the Nazis is
that of Diet Eman. In her memoir "Things We Couldn't Say" she details how she used the
preconceived notions of women that Nazis propagated to her advantage. Working with the
Resistance in Holland, Diet hid Jews, downed English pilots and other peoples considered
"enemies" to the German State. Just as in the case of Lucie Aubrac, Diet first becomes
involved with Resistance through her soon-to-be husband, Hein. However, she soon learns the
limits that she, as a woman, is most successfully able to operate within. While working for
men who were involved in espionage for the Underground and the Allies, she was given the
task of delivering forged identification documents, ration cards and money. She notes that "for

the men, the kind of travelling [she] did would have been much more dangerous, but for
women it was not so. As a rule, Germans would not stop girls and start searching them" (168).
This was because, to most Germans, women were not seen as capable of carrying out such
tasks. To them, a women's place was in the home, and it was inconceivable for them to
imagine any who would take on other tasks, especially those that involved such danger.
Another way that Diet was able to work within gender expectations was by portraying herself
as less intelligent than she really was. Because women were seen as inferior by Nazis and
such propaganda as they provided, it was assumed that women were inherently less smart than
men. On one occasion, when Diet is arrested by the Gestapo for having a fake identification,
she decides that the best way to save herself is to be "really dumb" and not "have the slightest
idea how [she] could have received a bad ID" (188). When called in for her hearing, she plays
the part of a simple maid, a profession that German men would not be surprised at women
having. During her whole hearing she remembers that she played "the scared, stupid maid
because [she] thought it was her only hope" (274). It was in fact this impersonation of a dumb
maid that saved her life. The Nazis who where trying her merely assumed that due to the fact
she was a woman, it was sensible that she would have such a character.
Just as with Lucie Aubrac, Diet Eman, though in a different country and working against
group of Nazis, was able to use gender roles to her advantage to help her resist against the
German occupation. Both these women were able to bend and exploit the strict ideas that were
assigned to women by the Nazis in order to work against them.