Part III: German society of the 1950s

 German society of the 1950s

The 50s were a particularly repressive time in western Germany. The murderous Nazi oppression had stopped but in many ways the Western German society was keeping groups of people down. Most people were very conservative, in some regards more than in other countries of that time. Being conservative means attempting to "conserve" traditions of the past. Yet at the same time German people tried being very different to the NS society. One example were sex morals. The Nazis were very "open" and unrestricted about this. They promoted nudeness in movies for example. Their propaganda movies particularly showed "perfect" nude bodies of for example athletes. Leni Riefenstahl produced some of those movies.

Being "healthy", having a "strong" body was something you were supposed to have and you were supposed to be proud of it. Of course this was just one piece of Nazi ideology that also killed millions of people because their bodies were seen as "weak".

The Nazis had an open image of sexuality. They wanted people (yet the "right" kind of people, in their eyes) to have as many children as possible. Boys would be growing up to be soldiers for the Nazi war machinery. This meant mothers were part of the war as well. In the eyes of the Nazis soldiers fought with a rifle on the battlefield, mothers would "fight" by having as many children as possible. There were medals for mothers who had many children.

People remembered all of this and tried to being the complete opposite during the 50s. Many especially old people were very narrow-minded. It's difficult for us of today to imagine how restrictive and authoritarian German society of the 50s was. Women were supposed to be housewives and mothers. They needed the permission of their husband to get a job or even their own bank account. Only in 1969 women had their full legal competence.

Sexual morals were a hot topic in many ways. For example if you were a landlord you weren't able to give a room to an unmarried couple. It was literally being illegal to give a room to those people, you would be guilty of "procuring". Those rules were actually being enforced.

It was even worse for sexual minorities. Being homosexual was illegal and many old Nazi laws were still effective. It was especially gay men who were persecuted. It was like a witch hunt. More than 50,000 men were sentenced to prison. Many more people lost their jobs and social contacts because of persecution, some committed suicide in desperation:

Many arrests, lawsuits, and proceedings in Frankfurt in 1950–1951 had serious consequences:

A nineteen-year-old jumped off the Goetheturm after having received a summons, another fled to South America, another to Switzerland, a dental technician and his friend poisoned themselves with coal gas. In total there were six known suicides. Many of the accused lost their jobs.[34]

In many ways the Nazi influence still lingered over the Western German state. One example were the children's homes. There were thousands of children who lost their parents during the war but those weren't the only ones in those homes. They were also for anyone who "stepped out of line". Difficult children who didn't fit in, who made trouble. Those places were incredibly oppressive towards the children. Children were locked up and often had to work like adults without getting any money. They were regularly beaten and many were sexually abused. Many "caregivers" at those places were stuck in Nazi ideology, they treated the children like recruited soldiers. Violence was very common.

If you were a child without parents or anyone to defend you in 50s Germany you were mostly seen as worthless. German society still valued "powerful" people but didn't care for those who were weak or needed help. Almost worse were children born out of wedlock (see again the topic sexual morals).

There was an extreme stigma about it and those children were heavily ostracized. Your family background was very important. If your parents were teachers then you would probably go a higher way of education yourself. But if your parents were farmers then your chances weren't good. Other students, teachers and society as a whole would continue to bully you. You were supposed to stay "in your place".

During the 60s those things slowly started to change. People started to revolt against the conditions in the children's homes. Children (often teenagers) ran away and students started to protest against those terrible conditions. There was the "Heimkampagne", 'home campaign', of students and journalists who tried to criticize it and bring change.

One of those journalists was Ulrike Meinhof who would years later become one of the founders of the leftist terrorist group RAF.