From the above article:
Hitler’s patriarchal views about women shaped Nazi policy and propaganda. One of the Nazis’ first policy objectives was to return women to motherhood in order to increase the population. In July 1933 the Nazi regime passed the Law for the Encouragement of Marriage. In effect an early form of ‘baby bonus’, married couples were given a state loan of 1000 Reichmarks that was partially repaid every time the wife gave birth (one quarter was deemed paid after the first child and the loan was discharged after four children). Between 1933 and 1936 the Nazi government issued these state loans to almost 695,000 married couples. German women were bombarded with speeches and propaganda that suggested their highest aspirations should be husband, home and healthy offspring. Pregnancy and motherhood were celebrated. Propaganda praised Kindersegen (women blessed with children) as national heroines. Women who bore multiple children were awarded a medallion, the Ehrenzeichen der Deutschen Mutter (‘Cross of Honour of the German Mother’). The cross was awarded in bronze for a fourth child, in silver for a sixth and gold for an eighth.
“The worth of a nation is shown in the willingness of its women to become valuable mothers … Germany must once again become a fertile land of mothers and children … the existence or non-existence of our people is decided solely by the mother.”
Mayer, Nazi eugenicist
As well as promoting motherhood, the Nazis also restricted abortion and contraception. During the 1920s Germany led the world in the development of contraceptive devices, including condoms, diaphragms and intra-uterine devices (IUDs). But the Nazis outlawed contraception – not only to increase the birthrate but also because many pioneers of contraceptive medicine were Jewish. Even publicising or discussing birth control was eventually banned in Nazi Germany. The regime also cracked down on abortion, imposing tough requirements for pregnancy terminations on medical grounds and harsh penalties for illegal abortions. Propaganda described abortion as a “crime against the body and against the state”. In 1932, the year before Hitler’s rise to power, just under 44,000 German women applied to terminate a pregnancy and 34,698 of these were approved. Between 1935 and 1940 there were only 14,333 applications and 9,701 approvals. Conversely, doctors would approve abortions – and indeed, even encourage them – if the patient happened to be non-Aryan. In November 1938 a Nazi-run state court ruled that abortion should be legal and freely available for all Jewish women.
While the Nazis hailed German mothers as national heroes, single women and working women were treated as second-class citizens. Hitler was full of scorn for women in paid employment. He called it a Marxist ploy, an attempt to clad women in overalls and work boots to strip them of their femininity. This derision for single and working women was reflected in policy. Unmarried women were viewed by the law as Staatsangehoriger (‘subjects of the state’), the same legal status later given to Jews and the mentally infirm. When the Nazis took power in 1933 there were 100,000 female teachers and 3,000 female doctors working in Germany. Most of them were eventually sacked, forced to resign or pushed into marriage and motherhood. From 1936 women were prohibited from working as judges, lawyers, principals and a range of other professions. Women were also removed from high-ranking or influential positions in government agencies, charities, schools and hospitals, to be replaced by men. University and college places for women were restricted to a firm quota of 10 per cent.