German Women and the Home Front in the Second World War

This article provides a survey of current research on life for German women on the home front during the Second World War. Initially it addresses daily life, including the availability of foodstuffs, rationing and its impact, alongside the ways in which women contending with food shortages turned to the black market and ‘hamstering’. Second, it examines women's work during the war, including voluntary work for the German war effort and the Nazi regime's endeavours to call women up for obligatory service. Finally, it discusses how women coped with the impact of the war: the Allied bombing of the cities and the end of the war, when the home front and the war front merged.