"Gretchen"

 

A term coined by those who saw the German woman as unfashionable and unattractive, “Gretchen” personified the ideal German woman physically and aesthetically in Nazi Germany in the eyes of those looking on. Nazi ideology detailed the role of women as tied to the home, bearing children, and keeping her husband happy. She was also wide hipped, wore simple clothes, wore her blonde hair done up in a bun or braids, and wore no cosmetics.. She was also physically fit and healthy. Ultimately, “Gretchen” was the ideal Nazi woman who embraced Nazi ideology. It should be mentioned too that this woman was the exact opposite of the "new woman". Having a competing image of women was possibly an attempt to break down the "new woman" image that continued to irk the Nazi ideology but in the end all their attempts would fall on deaf ears and blind eyes due to reality and the Nazis' conflicting policies.

What did this image of "Gretchen" do for German fashion? This traditional image promoted dirndls or traditional German costume as this kind of garb embodied the German culture and the ties to nature, the countryside, and the folk past which Nazi ideology sought to promote. As a whole, the image of this ideal woman was Nazi ideology and culture represented in a so called real life woman. Having a women embody the policies that the Nazi regime endorsed, gave their system support, or the image of support, among women because conformity was a building block in Nazi culture. 

Did many women conform to this image? That is a good question that is rather hard to answer because many of the sources concerning German fashion that are primary sources are incredibly biased (for obvious reasons I don't think I have to elaborate on) and give an inaccurate view of their women suggesting that they wore this garb all the time or close to it.  Of course, that is propaganda which the Nazi regime was good at using.


It is clear that many women did adopt this image (or tried to) and that equally as many women did not adopt this image for various reasons. On the topic of fashion magazines and the pattern book Der Golden Schnitt, women are wearing very modern clothes typical of the 40s and not the folk wear. Below are two examples of photographs with women not wearing the folk wear but instead clothes typical of the 40s. 

Reality offered an interesting perspective. Since many women physically and aesthetically did not fit into this image, I argue that the vast majority of German women living under the Nazi regime dressed like average everyday women typical of the 40s. Some women also wore cosmetics too which conflicted with the ideal German woman image, but their wearing of cosmetics was to fit into that ideal image (I've touched on that topic in past posts). 


If more women chose to wear the clothes typical of the 40s rather than the Tracht/ folk wear, it suggests many things. One conclusion that can be drawn is that women in Nazi Germany wanted to look fashionable more than they wanted to adhere to an ideology and that Nazi ideology was rather weak in terms of women's fashion because Nazi ideology could not appeal to the many women living under the Nazi regime. It should be mentioned too that many Nazi leader's wives chose to wear chic fashionable clothes rather than the folk wear.


Sources

Dirix, Emmanuelle and Charlotte Fiell. 1940s Fashion: The Definitive Sourcebook. London: Goodman Fiell, 2013.

Koonz, Claudia, Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family and Nazi Politics. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987.

Guenther, Irene. Nazi Chic?: Fashioning Women in the Third Reich. New York: Berg, 2004.

Guenther, Irene. “Fashioning Women in the Third Reich”, in Life and Times in Nazi Germany edited by Lisa Pine. New York: Bloomsbury, 2016.