What was the Nazi pitch to working class German women? Helene Overlach, leader of the Roter Frauen und Mädchenbund, the Women’s Red Front Fighters, on the success by fascists in reaching what should be a base of the Left. As Communist member of the Reichstag from Dusseldorf and leader of the Party’s Women’s Committee, Overlach was among the most prominent of Communist women and would pay for her politics spending much the decade following the Nazi takeover in jails and camps, somehow surviving the war.

‘The Propaganda of the National Socialists among the Proletarian Women in Germany’ by Lene Overlach from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 10 No. 5. January 30, 1930.

The national socialists (fascists) are winning influence among the women, even among the working women of Germany. This was proved among other things by the election results of the municipal and diet elections. In some places the national socialists polled as many female as male votes.

What is still more significant is the fact that the national socialists have gained ground in the factories. It is, for instance, reported from a big concern of the metal industry in Berlin that the nucleus of the national socialists comprises more working women than men. Hitler, the leader of the fascists reports of 45,000 women members. The national union of patriotic workers’ associations claims to have 20,000 women members out of a total 100,000 members.

At the same time the attitude of the national socialists towards the proletarian women is absolutely reactionary. The national socialists openly oppose the tariff agreements and advocate “free” agreements with the employers, profit-sharing, against any fixing of wages and the working day.

The working women let themselves be caught by these slogans. The reformist trade union bureaucracy, when concluding tariff agreements, always delivered them over to the exploitation of the employers. They therefore consider it to be more advantageous for them to negotiate directly with the employer. It is only in a few cases that the working women have been able to make the practical experiences that the national socialist leaders also sell them in the negotiations with the employers. They are still full of illusions and hopes, they consider payment by results to be a just recompense of especially diligent workers and profit sharing as a means of improving their economic position.

The national socialists are openly opposed to the employment of women in industry. They say that the man should earn, while “women’s place is the home”. They know how to mask this reactionary standpoint by describing to them an idyllic picture of the future. They say to the working woman: Demand of your husband that he takes up the fight for you and your child and that he earns your keep. He must fight against the Young Plan, which enslaves us and compels us to go into the factories, he must fight against Jewish capital which is the cause of our misery.

The weary working woman who has to bear a triple burden allows herself to be caught by these words. She herself is against the employment of married women. She lets herself be led to fight against her husband, her class comrade, and to drive him on to more and more intensive work. The abstract propaganda of the Communists cannot yet convince her that professional work of the women is a social advance.

Consistent with this reactionary attitude the national socialists are also against all political activity on the part of women, against women being in Parliament, as speakers, or in the State administration. They are in favour of the “Men’s State.”

The national socialists are deliberately opposing the radicalisation of the working women, their political enlightenment their inclusion in the revolutionary class front. By making the women the house slave, a breeding machine and at the same a wage slave, they actively support the exploitation plans of capital.

Of course the national socialists are also in favour of a strong army, by means of which Germany is to become strong and powerful again. They are for compulsory national service without pay, to which also the young women are to be liable. In this most shameless form of exploitation of young working men and women they see a remedy for unemployment.

The national socialists are working very skillfully. In the big towns they are using other arguments than in the small towns and in the country. They make very radical gestures and are thereby winning the masses of working women who turn away in disappointment from social democracy. It is only the C.P. of Germany which can wrest the working women from the clutches of fascism. Insofar as the Communist Party proves itself able to work in the factories among the working women and to lead them in the struggle, It will succeed in exposing and defeating the national socialists as the hirelings of the employers. The masses of working women are seeking for a way out of their misery. Lenin’s Party will show them the way of the revolutionary class struggle and lead them to victory over capital!

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecorr” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecorr’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1930/v10n05-jan-30-1930-Inprecor.pdf