“Hitler derided Americans as degenerate for putting their women to work. The role of German women, he said, was to be good wives and mothers and to have more babies for the Third Reich.” lol I can’t stop laughing at that. Hitler only wanted his women to be baby machines. lol! So underestimating the power of women to help stop a war.
American women were employed in every way possible with rivers, laboring, code breaking, working factories etc. In Code Girls by Lizzy Mundy. A very different take on what I have been researching for along time which has been the drug and alcohol, use in the WWII, from enemies to allies. Code girls highlighted things that working men have had to do during that time and hilariously seemed like because they were women it was new and it was not. Like at a ARMY and NAVY base in the east coast they made soldiers and Sailors march from the showers to the barracks naked. Yup that was a common practice for the males too, on some bases. With Women in the military during WWII they never got the culture to change towards them but that was never the governments plan— women code breakers changed the game and saved years of the war doing there job. If they were known they would have become targets if they went drinking they had strict rules to go with buddies like many in the intel community so they would not get chatty and spoil secrets. They were the US Government best secret that we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg of what they did. Only a few have shared there stories.
Women were joining in the war effort in so many ways of organizing and building-working in factories and giving up luxuries. As my grandma had told me giving up materials like silk and nylons for the troops parachutes. Instead of nylons it became in vogue to use leg makeup and draw nylons on. Then it changed quickly to au natural style make up. Drawing nylons on your legs is a tricky task lol.
One of my favorite US WWII propaganda was the Loose lips sink ships. Because let’s get real people talk. And during that time they were taught not to share things. So different then our social media platforms today that teach us share everything even if no one wants to know and it’s TMI. So what was the psychological impact to zipping lips for a war? No trust with others?
That stoicism must have been at first hard to do because connecting with other human beings and talking is what we do -then changing it to check yourself and what you are saying. The psychological impact is very interesting and militant. I know we fought Hitler and Nazi’s but was it the right move for our society to mirror the militant behavior with our society. I mean they could not be happy go lucky there was a war and England was being bombed, Pearl Harbor was attacked and the US was scared. Like the rest of the world.
Many other countries did likewise because of the Nazi occupation.
Like many wars after the loose lips ever cease when it came to war stories or things that happened you had to be a part of it or a soldier for them to open up. Was the government training us to figure out whom we could trust with propaganda? Yes but was it saving lives —yes!!
After the war and during the war, like 911, the government was on the look out for moles. Japanese Americans mostly, German Americans and Italian Americans were targets. Japanese American got many internment camps in the west many were here to see if they were safe one was in Topaz Utah . Germans and Italian migrants the US had allowed many in to get citizenship during this time so they were two designated camps at Fort Douglas, Utah, and Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. Apparently, Congress considered legislation to study treatment of European Americans during WWII, but it did not pass. Activists and historians have identified certain injustices against these groups. Unlike Italians Americans and Japanese Americans, German American internees have never received financial compensation or an official apology for these events.
I only figured out that German Americans were hiding this information of being German from my grandma her family who were in NY who came long before the war. They didn’t teach their children their native tongue at all because of the war, intern camps and American’s hatred of Germans. My grandmother only knew curse words in German because she would only hear them speak when her parents were arguing.
WAVES- Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service was a branch in the Navy I read about in the code girls but as we visited with Mr Incredible aunt she brought up that his great aunt Nola was in WAVES and filled up planes in Oklahoma and Hawaii.
So grateful that the US government allowed women to be more involved in the war efforts then Hitler saying his women were baby machines. Women working actually helped the war to end earlier in so many ways.