As suggested by this photo, once the war started the factories were emptied of men who left to go and fight and were filled with female workers. New employment opportunities were opened all over the country for women as jobs that were once deemed masculine jobs were now available and required to be filled by women. Especially after colossal military defeats, like Stalingrad, the economy had to be redoubled to reequip the army so even more female workers were needed. Judging by all the positions that were filled the women were very eager to help and work, despite this being contrary to the original ideology of the Country to re-establish the "German Family".
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Philip,
You mention that women were very eager to work even though this was contrary to the ideal of the "German family". You make it sound as those these ideas are counter productive to one another. Yet, from the way I was thinking about it, what if these women were going in to the positions in the hopes that their help would end the war faster, thereby bringing their husbands home. I have no doubt some of the women genuinely wanted to work, but arguably at least at the beginning of the war these women were merely "helping" their men the way the government told them to. So because of this you could make the argument that women went to work in the hopes of establishing the "German family" upon their husbands return. Just something to think about when looking at why women went to work to help the war effort.
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