Anti-communist resistance also had an organized form, and many people opposing the government took up arms and formed partisan groups, comprising 10–40 people. There were attacks on police posts and sabotage. Some of the famous partisans were  Elisabeta Rizea  from  Nucșoara  and  Gheorghe Arsenescu . Despite the numerous secret police ( Securitate ) and army troops massed against them, armed resistance in the mountains continued until the early 1960s, and one of the best known partisan leaders was not captured until 1974.


Another form of anti-communist resistance, non-violent this time, was the  student movement of 1956 . In reaction to the anti-communist revolt in Hungary, echoes were felt all over the Eastern bloc. Protests took place in some university centers resulting in numerous arrests and expulsions. The most-organised student movement was in  Timișoara , where 3000 were arrested. [ 23 ]  In Bucharest and Cluj, organised groups were set up which tried to make common cause with the anti-communist movement in Hungary and coordinate activity. The authorities' reaction was immediate – students were arrested or suspended from their courses, some teachers were dismissed, and new associations were set up to supervise student activities.


Tens of thousands of people were killed as part of repression and  agricultural collectivization  in Communist Romania primarily under Gheorghiu-Dej. [ 24 ] [ 25 ]


Gheorghiu-Dej  died in 1965 and, after a power struggle, was succeeded by the previously obscure  Nicolae Ceaușescu . During his last two years, Gheorghiu-Dej had exploited the Soviet–Chinese dispute and begun to oppose the  hegemony  of the Soviet Union. Ceaușescu, supported by colleagues of Gheorghiu-Dej such as Maurer, continued this popular line. Relations with Western countries and many other states began to be strengthened in what seemed to be the national interest of Romania. Under a policy of  de-Russification  the forced Soviet (mostly Russian) cultural influence in the country which characterized the 1950s was stopped and Western media were allowed to circulate in Romania instead. [ 26 ]


On 21 August 1965, following the example of Czechoslovakia, the name of the country was changed to "Socialist Republic of Romania" ( Republica Socialistă România, RSR ) and PMR's old name was restored ( Partidul Comunist Român, PCR ; "Romanian Communist Party").


In his early years in power, Ceaușescu was genuinely popular, both at home and abroad. Agricultural goods were abundant, consumer goods began to reappear, there was a cultural thaw, and, what was important abroad, he spoke out against the  1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.  While his reputation at home soon soured, he continued to have uncommonly good relations with Western governments and with international capitalist institutions such as the  International Monetary Fund  and  World Bank  because of his independent political line. Romania under Ceaușescu maintained and sometimes improved diplomatic and other relations with, among others,  West Germany , Israel, China,  Albania , and  Pinochet 's  Chile , all for various reasons not on good terms with Moscow.


Ceaușescu refused to implement measures of  economic liberalism . The evolution of his regime followed the path begun by Gheorghiu-Dej. He continued with the program of intensive  industrialization  aimed at the  economic self-sufficiency  of the country which since 1959 had already doubled industrial production and had reduced the peasant population from 78% at the end of the 1940s to 61% in 1966 and 49% by 1971. However, for Romania, like other Eastern People's Republics, industrialization did not mean a total social break with the countryside. The peasants returned periodically to the villages or resided in them, commuting daily to the city in a practice called naveta. This allowed Romanians to act as peasants and workers at the same time. [ 27 ]


Universities were also founded in small Romanian towns, which served to train qualified professionals, such as engineers, economists, planners or jurists, necessary for the industrialization and development project of the country. Romanian healthcare also achieved improvements and recognition by the  World Health Organization  (WHO). In May 1969, Marcolino Candau, Director General of this organization, visited Romania and declared that the visits of WHO staff to various Romanian hospital establishments had made an extraordinarily good impression. [ 27 ]


The social and economic transformations resulted in improved living conditions for Romanians. Economic growth allowed for higher salaries which, combined with the benefits offered by the state (free medical care, pensions, free universal education at all levels, etc.) were a leap compared to the pre-WWII situation of the Romanian population. Certain extra retributions were allowed for the peasants, who started to produce more. [ 27 ]


Concerned about the country's low birthrates, Nicolae Ceaușescu enacted an aggressive  natalist  policy, which included outlawing abortion and contraception, routine pregnancy tests for women,  taxes on childlessness , and legal discrimination against childless people. This period has later been depicted in movies and documentaries (such as  4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days ,  Children of the Decree ). To counter the sharp decline of the population, the  Communist Party  decided that the Romanian population should be increased from 23 to 30 million inhabitants. In October 1966, [ 28 ]   Decree 770  was authorized by Ceaușescu.


These pro-natalist measures had some degree of success, as a baby boom resulted in the late 1960s, with the generations born in 1967 and 1968 being the largest in the country's history. The natalist policies temporarily increased birth rates for a few years, but this was followed by a later decline due to an increased use of  illegal abortion . [ 29 ] [ 30 ]  Ceaușescu's policy resulted in the deaths of over 9,000 women due to illegal abortions, [ 31 ]  large numbers of children put into  Romanian orphanages  by parents who couldn't cope with raising them,  street children  in the 1990s (when many orphanages were closed and the children ended up on the streets), and  overcrowding  in homes and schools.


Other restrictions of human rights included invasion of privacy by the secret police (the " Securitate "), censorship and relocation, but not on the same scale as in the 1950s.


During the Ceaușescu era, there was a secret ongoing "trade" between Romania on one side and Israel and West Germany on the other side, under which Israel and West Germany paid money to Romania to allow Romanian citizens with certified Jewish or German ancestry to emigrate to Israel and West Germany, respectively.


Ceaușescu's Romania continued to pursue Gheorghiu-Dej's policy of  industrialization . Romania made progress with the economy. From 1951 to 1974, Romania's gross industrial output increased at an average annual rate of 13 percent. [ 32 ]  Several branches of heavy industry were founded, including the machine-tool, tractor, and automotive industries; large-tonnage shipbuilding; the manufacture of electric diesel locomotives; and the electronics and petrochemical industries. [ citation needed ]


Prior to the mid-1970s, Bucharest, as most other cities, was developed by expanding the city, especially towards the south, east and west. High density residential neighbourhoods were built on the outskirts of the city, some (such as  Drumul Taberei ,  Berceni ,  Titan  or  Giurgiului ) of architectural and urban planning value. Conservation plans were made, especially during the 1960s and early 1970s, but all were halted after Ceaușescu embarked on what is known as "The Small  Cultural Revolution " ("Mica revoluție culturală"), after visiting  North Korea  and the  People's Republic of China  and then delivering a speech known as the  July Theses . In the late 1970s, the construction of the  Bucharest Metro  system was started. After two years, 10 km of network were already complete and after another 2 years, 9 km of tunnels were ready for use. By 17 August 1989, 49.01 km of the subway system and 34 stations were already in use.


The  earthquake of 1977  shocked Bucharest; many buildings collapsed, and many others were weakened. This was the backdrop that led to a policy of large-scale demolition which affected monuments of historical significance or architectural masterpieces such as the monumental Văcărești Monastery (1722), the "Sfânta Vineri" (1645) and "Enei" (1611) Churches, the Cotroceni (1679) and Pantelimon (1750) Monasteries, and the  art deco  "Republic's Stadium" (ANEF Stadium, 1926). Even the Palace of Justice – built by Romania's foremost architect,  Ion Mincu  – was scheduled for demolition in early 1990, according to the systematisation papers. Yet another tactic was abandoning and neglecting buildings and bringing them into such a state that they would require being torn down.


Thus, the policy towards the city after the earthquake was not one of reconstruction, but one of demolition and building anew. An analysis by the Union of Architects, commissioned in 1990, claims that over 2000 buildings were torn down, with over 77 of very high architectural importance, most of them in good condition. Even Gara de Nord (the city's main railway station), listed on the Romanian Architectural Heritage List, was scheduled to be torn down and replaced in early 1992.


Despite all of this, and despite the much-questioned treatment of HIV-infected  orphans , [ 33 ]  the country continued to have a notably good system of schools. Also, not every industrialization project was a failure: Ceaușescu left Romania with a reasonably effective system of power generation and transmission, gave Bucharest  a functioning subway , and left many cities with an increase in habitable apartment buildings.


Before austerity, Romania had made considerable progress in many areas. Between 1950 and 1973, Romania joined Yugoslavia and Bulgaria in achieving average annual growth rates that were above both the Central European and the West European average. During the first 3 post-war decades, Romania industrialized faster than Spain, Greece, and Portugal. The infant mortality rate plummeted from 139 per 1,000 during the interwar period to 35 in the 1970s. During the interwar period, half the population was illiterate, but under the communist government illiteracy was eradicated. The population became urbanized, women's rights greatly improved, life expectancy grew, among many other achievements. [ 9 ] [ 34 ]


Romania continued to make progress. High rates of growth in production created conditions for raising living standards of the people. From 1950 to the mid-1980s, average net wages increased more than eightfold. The consumption fund increased 22-fold, and a broad program of building cultural facilities and housing was carried out. Over 80 percent of the country's population had moved to new apartments during this period. [ 35 ]


Despite all this, living standards in the country remained some of Europe's lowest and as early as 1981, there were clear signs of public discontent, such as riots and an angry mob throwing rocks at Ceaușescu's helicopter while it made a flight to Transylvania that October. Ceaușescu desired to repay Western loans, and thus enacted a harsh austerity policy, including  rationing  of food, gas, heating and electricity. People in cities had to turn to natural gas containers ( "butelii" ) or charcoal stoves, even though they were connected to the gas mains.
With full-scale food rationing in place, the Communist Party published official guidelines on how Romanians could eat nutritiously while reducing their calorie intake by 25%. There was a shortage of available goods for the average Romanian. By 1984, despite a high crop yield and increased food production, wide-scale food rationing was introduced. The government promoted it as "rational eating" and "a means to reduce obesity". Most of what was available were export rejects, as most of the quality goods were exported, even underpriced, in order to obtain  hard currency , either to pay the debt, or to push forward in the ever-growing pursuit of heavy industrialization. [ citation needed ]


Measures in the mechanization and chemicalization of farming helped to increase the output of agricultural products. In 1950, more than 300 kg of cereals was gathered per head of the population; by 1982 this amount had increased to 1 ton per person. Meat production increased from 29.5 to 100 kg. [ 35 ]


In spite of the  Soviet-led boycott , Romania participated in the  1984 Summer Olympics  in Los Angeles. At that time, it was the only Soviet-aligned country to participate in the Olympic Games.


In the late 1980s, the United Nations Human Development report classified Romania as having had high human development. The life expectancy was 71 years, the literacy rate was 96%, and the Real GDP per capita was $3000. [ 36 ]


By 1985, despite Romania's huge refining capacity, petroleum products were strictly rationed with supplies drastically cut, a Sunday curfew was instated, and many buses used  methane  propulsion (they were mockingly named "bombs"); taxis were converted to burning  methanol . Electricity was rationed to divert supplies to heavy industry, with a maximum monthly allowed consumption of 20  kWh  per family (everything over this limit was heavily taxed). Only one in five streetlights was kept on, and television was reduced to a single channel broadcasting just 2 hours each day. All these policies combined led Romanians to have the lowest standard of living in Europe, with the possible exception of Albania.


Systematization  ( Romanian :  Sistematizarea ) refers to the program of  urban planning  carried out under Ceaușescu's regime. After a visit to  North Korea  in 1971, Ceaușescu was impressed by the  Juche  ideology of that country, and began a massive campaign shortly afterwards.


Beginning in 1974, systematization consisted largely of the demolition and reconstruction of existing hamlets, villages, towns, and cities, in whole or in part, with the stated goal of turning Romania into a "multilaterally developed  socialist society ". The policy largely consisted in the mass construction of high-density blocks of flats ( blocuri ).


During the 1980s, Ceaușescu became obsessed with building himself a  palace  of unprecedented proportions, along with an equally grandiose neighborhood,  Centrul Civic , to accompany it. The mass demolitions that occurred in the 1980s under which an overall area of eight square kilometres of the historic center of Bucharest were leveled, including monasteries, churches, synagogues, a hospital, and a noted  Art Deco  sports stadium, in order to make way for the grandiose  Centrul Civic  (Civic center) and the House of the Republic, now officially renamed the  Palace of Parliament , were the most extreme manifestation of the systematization policy.


In 1988  massive rural resetlement program began .


Control over society became stricter and stricter, with an  East German -style  phone bugging system  installed, and with the  Securitate  recruiting more agents, extending  censorship  and keeping tabs and records on a large segment of the population. By 1989, according to CNSAS (the Council for Studies of the Archives of the Former Securitate), one in three Romanians was an informant for the Securitate. Due to this situation, income from tourism dropped substantially, the number of foreign tourists visiting Romania falling by 75%, with the three main tour operators that organized trips in Romania leaving the country by 1987. Ceaușescu also started becoming the subject of  a vast personality cult , his portrait on every street and hanging in every public building.


By 1988, with  perestroika  and  glasnost  policies in effect in the Soviet Union and China undergoing  economic reforms , Romania's  Stalinist  sociopolitical system began to look increasingly out-of-place, but all attempts were made to keep the populace isolated from events going on outside the country. Also, while the West had been willing in the past to overlook Ceaușescu's human rights record in lieu of his independent, anti-Soviet stance, this was becoming less relevant with the Cold War winding down. As such, Romania started coming under fire from the United States and its allies, but such complaints were merely brushed off as "unwelcome interference in our nation's internal affairs".


There was also a revival of the effort to build:


December 1989 was the last act of a finale that had started in 1987, in Brașov. The anti-communist riot in Brașov on 15 November 1987 was the main political event that announced the imminent fall of communism in Romania. [ 37 ]


The revolt started at the enterprise of Trucks Brașov, as a strike that began on the night of 14 November, on the night-shift, and it continued the next morning with a march downtown, in front of the Council of the  Romanian Communist Party . [ citation needed ]


The population heard about this event through  Radio Free Europe . As Emil Hurezeanu tells it: "I remember that Neculai Constantin Munteanu, the moderator of the show, started the broadcast: 'Brașov! So Brașov! Now it started!' This was the tone of the whole broadcast. We had interviews, information, interpretations of some political interpretations, older press articles announcing open street protests against Ceaușescu." [ This quote needs a citation ]


The reprisals against the strikers were rapid. The workers were arrested and imprisoned and their families were terrorized, but this act of courage on the part of the workers of Brașov set the stage for future mass revolts. [ citation needed ]   [ neutrality  is  disputed ]


Hurezeanu continues: "... All these have been turned into an offensive. The reaction of the regime was expected.. Very soon it was seen that the regime wants to hide it, to cancel it, practically not to respond to claims, not to take measures, to change anything, not to turn this protest into a public debate or even inside the party, in the Political Executive Committee. And then, the recipe of street confrontations with the regime became the only...possible. It became the leitmotif of all the media analysis. [...] It was the beginning of an action against the system that comprises more items. It was a labor protest in a citadel of Ceaușescu, it was an antidictatorial message, it was a clear political context: the pressures of Moscow, Ceaușescu's refusal to accept the demands of Gorbachev, the breaking with the West, who changed the views towards the regime – all these have made us to believe that the beginning of the end was coming". [ This quote needs a citation ]


In March 1989, several leading activists of the PCR protested in a letter that criticized the economic policies of Nicolae Ceaușescu, but shortly thereafter Ceaușescu achieved a significant political victory: Romania paid off its external debt of about US$11 billion several months earlier than even the Romanian dictator had expected. Ceaușescu was formally reelected secretary general of the Romanian Communist Party—-the only political party of the Romanian Socialist Republic—-on 14 November at the party's XIVth Congress.


On 11 November 1989, before the party congress, on Bucharest's Brezoianu Street and Kogălniceanu Boulevard, students from  Cluj-Napoca  and Bucharest demonstrated with placards that read "We want Reforms against the Ceaușescu government." [ This quote needs a citation ]   The students–Mihnea Paraschivescu, Grațian Vulpe, the economist Dan Căprariu from Cluj and others–were arrested and investigated by the Securitate at the  Rahova Penitentiary  [ ro ] , accused of propaganda against the socialist society. They were released on 22 December 1989 at 14.00. There were other letters and other attempts to draw attention to the economic, cultural, and spiritual oppression of Romanians, but they served only to intensify the activity of the communist police and the Securitate. [ citation needed ]


On 16 December, a protest broke out in  Timișoara  in response to an attempt by the government to evict the dissident pastor  László Tőkés  from his church flat. Tőkés had recently made critical comments against the regime to the Hungarian media, [ 38 ]  and the government alleged that he was  inciting ethnic hatred . His parishioners gathered around his home to protect him from harassment and eviction. Many passers-by, including Romanian students, spontaneously joined the protest. Subsequently, police and  Securitate  forces showed up at the scene. By 7:30 pm, the protest had spread, and the original cause became largely irrelevant. Some of the protesters attempted to burn down the building that housed the District Committee of the  Romanian Communist Party  (PCR). The  Securitate  responded with  tear gas  and water jets, while the police attacked rioters and arrested many of them. Around 9:00 pm, the rioters withdrew. They regrouped eventually around the  Romanian Orthodox Cathedral  and started a protest march around the city, but again they were confronted by the security forces.


Riots and protests resumed the following day, 17 December. The rioters broke into the District Committee building. The army failed to establish order and chaos ensued, with gunfire, fighting, burning of cars, and casualties.


Unlike the Soviet Union at the same time, Romania had not developed a large, privileged elite. Ceausescu's family maintained all control of politics and Communist Party officials were paid poorly and often rotated from job to job, thus preventing any potential political rivals from developing a base of support. This prevented the rise of the  Gorbachev -era reformist Communism found in Hungary or the Soviet Union. Ceausescu was so bitterly opposed to reform that he went as far as to call for a Warsaw Pact invasion of Poland after its Communists decided to treat with the opposition–a marked turn from his vehement opposition to the invasion of Czechoslovakia two decades earlier.


Similarly, unlike in Poland, Ceaușescu reacted to strikes entirely through a strategy of further oppression. Romania was nearly the last of the Eastern European communist governments to fall; its fall was also the most violent up to that time.


Protests and riots broke out in  Timișoara  on 17 December and soldiers opened fire on the protesters, killing about 100 people. After cutting short a two-day trip to Iran, Ceaușescu gave a televised speech on 20 December in which he condemned the events of Timișoara, saying he considered them an act of foreign intervention in the internal affairs of Romania and an aggression through foreign secret services on Romania's sovereignty, and declared National Curfew, convoking a mass meeting in his support in Bucharest for the next day. The uprising of Timișoara became known across the country, and on the morning of 21 December, protests spread to  Sibiu , Bucharest and elsewhere. [ citation needed ]


Matters came to a head on 21 December, when Ceausescu's speech at the  Central Committee Building  (CC) in Bucharest turned into chaos.  The crowd, in a reaction that would have been unthinkable for most of the previous quarter-century, openly booed and jeered Ceaușescu as he spoke.   He was forced to hide himself in the CC Building after losing control of his own "supporters". The night of 21 December brought fighting between protesters and the  Securitate , police and part of the army forces; more than 1100 protesters were killed during the fights over the next few days. On the morning of 22 December, it was announced that the army general Vasile Milea was dead by suicide.  Believing that Milea had actually been murdered, the rank-and-file soldiers went over almost  en masse  to the budding rebellion.  A second attempt at a speech the next day quickly failed.  Soon, people were besieging the Central Committee Building, coming within a few meters of Ceaușescu himself; [ 39 ]  the Securitate did nothing to help him. Ceaușescu soon fled by helicopter from the rooftop of the CC Building, only to find himself abandoned in  Târgoviște , where he and his wife Elena were  finally tried  by a  drumhead court-martial , convicted after an hour and a half, and executed by  firing squad  moments after the verdict and sentence were announced on 25 December. [ 40 ]  The  PCR  dissolved soon afterward and has never been revived.


For several months after the events of December 1989, it was widely argued that  Ion Iliescu  and the  National Salvation Front  (FSN) had merely taken advantage of the chaos to stage a coup. While, ultimately, a great deal did change in Romania, it is still a subject of contention among Romanians and other observers as to whether this was their intent from the outset, or merely pragmatic playing of the cards they were dealt. By December 1989 Ceaușescu's harsh and counterproductive economic and political policies had cost him the support of many government officials and even the most loyal Communist Party cadres, most of whom joined forces with the popular revolution or simply refused to support him. This loss of support from government officials ultimately set the stage for Ceaușescu's demise. The Romanian army also was a factor in the regime's fall as it suffered from severe budget cuts while vast sums were spent on the Securitate, leaving them severely discontented and unwilling to save Ceaușescu. [ citation needed ]


RSR's political framework was a  socialist republic   run by a single party , the  Romanian Communist Party . All of its legislative meetings took place in  Bucharest .


Romania's foreign policy was aligned with all nations that were aligned with the  Soviet Union . Under Ceaușescu it enjoyed strategic relations with the  Western Bloc  and the  Non-Aligned Movement , and it was the only Eastern Bloc country not to boycott the  1984 Summer Olympics  in Los Angeles.


Following the  Sino-Soviet split , Romania also maintained relations with China and North Korea as well as the Chinese-backed  Khmer Rouge -ruled  Democratic Kampuchea .


Romania joined the United Nations on 14 December 1955 (see  United Nations Security Council Resolution 109 ) as well as the  International Monetary Fund  and the  World Bank  in 1972. In July 1980, Romania signed a comprehensive trade agreement with the  European Economic Community ; which in turn became the  European Union  in 1993 when Romania joined in 2007.


Despite the prolonged economic and social crisis between 1982 and 1989 and the following  austerity measures ; mostly due to the fast and stunning economic growth that was followed by the decline, [ 41 ]  many Romanians still view the Socialist era of their country positively, [ 42 ]  looking back nostalgically at an era of perceived stability and safety as opposed to the recent  economic  and  political instability , and also the post-communist corruption that were resilient after 1989, being considered a major problem in the country. [ 43 ]  More than 53% of Romanians responded in polls that they would prefer to live once again under the  Communist regime , [ 44 ]  and 63% think that their lives were better under it. [ 45 ] [ 46 ]  The last and longest ruling leader of the Communist regime, Ceaușescu, also enjoys a high amount of approval in polls: In 2010, 41% of Romanians would vote for Ceaușescu, by 2014 this percentage reached 46%. In December 2018, 64% of people had a good opinion of Ceaușescu, making him the president with the highest amount of approval in the country. [ 47 ]


On the other hand, after the fall of the communist regime, Romania began shifting its political and economic policies from support (albeit tepid) for Moscow to aligning itself with Brussels and Washington by joining  NATO  in 2004 and the  European Union  in 2007. Today, the "apologetic presentation" of Nazi and communists governments and denigrating their victims in the audio-visual media is forbidden by decision of the  National Audiovisual Council . Dinel Staicu was fined 25,000  lei  (approx. 9,000 United States dollars) for praising Ceaușescu and displaying his pictures on his private television channel ( 3TV Oltenia ). [ 48 ]


TESCREAL  is an  acronym   neologism  proposed by computer scientist  Timnit Gebru  and philosopher  Émile P. Torres  that stands for " transhumanism ,  Extropianism ,  singularitarianism , (modern)  cosmism ,  Rationalism ,  Effective Altruism , and  longtermism ". [ 1 ] [ 2 ]  Gebru and Torres argue that these ideologies should be treated as an "interconnected and overlapping" group with shared origins. [ 1 ]  They say this is a movement that allows its proponents to use the threat of  human extinction  to justify expensive or detrimental projects and consider it pervasive in social and academic circles in  Silicon Valley  centered around  artificial intelligence . [ 3 ]  As such, the acronym is sometimes used to criticize a perceived belief system associated with  Big Tech . [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ]


Gebru and Torres coined "TESCREAL" in 2023, first using it in a draft of a paper titled "The TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence". [ 1 ] [ 4 ]   First Monday  published the paper in April 2024, though Torres and Gebru popularized the term elsewhere [ 6 ]  before the paper's publication. According to Gebru and Torres, transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, (modern) cosmism, Rationalism, effective altruism, and longtermism are a "bundle" of "interconnected and overlapping ideologies" that emerged from 20th-century  eugenics , with shared progenitors. [ 1 ]  They use the term "TESCREAList" to refer to people who subscribe to, or appear to endorse, most or all of the ideologies captured in the acronym. [ 1 ] [ 3 ]


According to critics of these philosophies, TESCREAL describes overlapping movements endorsed by prominent people in the tech industry to provide intellectual backing to pursue and prioritize projects including  artificial general intelligence (AGI) ,  life extension , and  space colonization . [ 1 ] [ 4 ] [ 7 ]  Science fiction author  Charles Stross , using the example of space colonization, argued that the ideologies allow billionaires to pursue massive personal projects driven by a right-wing interpretation of science fiction by arguing that not to pursue such projects poses an  existential risk  to society. [ 8 ]  Gebru and Torres write that, using the threat of extinction, TESCREALists can justify "attempts to build unscoped systems which are inherently unsafe". [ 1 ]  Media scholar  Ethan Zuckerman  argues that by only considering goals that are valuable to the TESCREAL movement, futuristic projects with more immediate drawbacks, such as racial inequity,  algorithmic bias , and environmental degradation, can be justified. [ 9 ]  Speaking at  Radio New Zealand , politics writer Danyl McLauchlan said that many of these philosophies may have started off with good intentions but might have been pushed "to a point of ridiculousness." [ 10 ]


Philosopher Yogi Hale Hendlin has argued that by both ignoring the human causes of societal problems and over-engineering solutions, TESCREALists ignore the context in which many problems arise. [ 11 ]  Camille Sojit Pejcha wrote in  Document Journal  that TESCREAL is a tool for tech elites to concentrate power. [ 7 ]  In  The Washington Spectator , Dave Troy called TESCREAL an " ends justifies the means " movement that is antithetical to "democratic, inclusive, fair, patient, and just governance". [ 4 ]   Gil Duran  wrote that "TESCREAL", "authoritarian technocracy", and "techno-optimism" were phrases used in early 2024 to describe a new ideology emerging in the tech industry. [ 12 ]


Gebru, Torres, and others have likened TESCREAL to a secular religion due to its parallels to Christian theology and  eschatology . [ 1 ] [ 3 ] [ 13 ] [ 8 ] [ 14 ]  Writers in  Current Affairs  compared these philosophies and the ensuing  techno-optimism  to "any other monomaniacal faith... in which doubters are seen as enemies and beliefs are accepted without evidence". They argue pursuing TESCREAL would prevent an actual equitable shared future. [ 15 ]


Much of the discourse about  existential risk from AGI  occurs among supporters of the TESCREAL ideologies. [ 9 ] [ 16 ] [ 17 ]  TESCREALists are either considered "AI accelerationists", who consider AI the only way to pursue a utopian future where problems are solved, or "AI  doomers ", who consider  AI likely to be unaligned  to human survival and likely to cause human extinction. [ 9 ] [ 14 ]  Despite the risk, many doomers consider the development of AGI inevitable and argue that only by developing and aligning AGI first can existential risk be averted. [ 18 ] [ 17 ]


Gebru has likened the conflict between accelerationists and doomers to a "secular religion selling AGI enabled utopia and apocalypse". [ 14 ]  Torres and Gebru argue that both groups use hypothetical AI-driven apocalypses and utopian futures to justify unlimited research, development, and deregulation of technology. By considering only far-reaching future consequences, creating hype for unproven technology, and fear-mongering, Torres and Gebru allege TESCREALists distract from the impacts of technology that may adversely affect society, disproportionately harm minorities through  algorithmic bias , and have a detrimental  impact on the environment . [ 5 ] [ 13 ] [ 17 ]


Neşe Devenot has used the TESCREAL acronym to refer to "global financial and tech elites" who promote new uses of  psychedelic drugs  as  mental health  treatments, not because they want to help people, but so that they can make money on the sale of these pharmaceuticals as part of a plan to increase inequality. [ 19 ]


Gebru and Torres claim that TESCREAL ideologies directly originate from 20th-century  eugenics [ 1 ]  and that the bundle of ideologies advocates a  second wave of new eugenics . [ 1 ] [ 20 ]  Others have similarly argued that the TESCREAL ideologies developed from earlier philosophies that were used to justify mass murder and genocide. [ 7 ] [ 18 ]  Some prominent figures who have contributed to TESCREAL ideologies have been alleged to be racist and sexist. [ 16 ] [ 21 ] [ 22 ]  McLauchlan has said that, while "some people in these groups want to genetically engineer superintelligent humans, or replace the entire species with a superior form of intelligence" others "like the effective altruists, for example, most of them are just in it to help very poor people ... they are kind of shocked ... that they've been lumped into this malevolent ... eugenics conspiracy". [ 10 ]


Writing in  Asterisk , a magazine related to effective altruism, Ozy Brennan criticized Gebru's and Torres's grouping of different philosophies as if they were a "monolithic" movement. Brennan argues Torres has misunderstood these different philosophies, and has taken  philosophical thought experiments  out of context. [ 23 ]  James Pethokoukis, of the  American Enterprise Institute , disagrees with criticizing proponents of TESCREAL. He argues that the tech billionaires criticized in a  Scientific American  article for allegedly espousing TESCREAL have significantly advanced society. [ 24 ]  McLauchlan has noted that critics of the TESCREAL bundle have objected to what they see as disparate and sometimes conflicting ideologies being grouped together, but opines that TESCREAL is a good way to describe and consolidate many of the "grand bizarre ideologies in Silicon Valley". [ 10 ]  Eli Sennesh and  James Hughes , publishing in the blog for the technoprogressive  Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies , have argued that TESCREAL is a left-wing  conspiracy theory  that unnecessarily groups disparate philosophies together without understanding the  mutually exclusive  tenets in each. [ 25 ]


According to Torres, "If advanced technologies continue to be developed at the current rate, a global-scale catastrophe is almost certainly a matter of when rather than if." Torres believes that "perhaps the only way to actually attain a state of 'existential security' is to slow down or completely halt further technological innovation", and criticized the longtermist view that technology, although dangerous, is essential for human civilization to achieve its full potential. [ 26 ] [ 23 ]  Brennan contends that Torres's proposal to slow or halt technological development represents a more extreme position than TESCREAL ideologies, preventing many improvements in quality of life, healthcare, and poverty reduction that technological progress enables. [ 23 ]


Venture capitalist  Marc Andreessen  has self-identified as a TESCREAList. [ 10 ] [ 9 ]  He published the " Techno-Optimist Manifesto " in October 2023, which Jag Bhalla and  Nathan J. Robinson  have called a "perfect example" of the TESCREAL ideologies. [ 15 ]  In the document, he argues that more advanced artificial intelligence could save countless future potential lives, and that those working to slow or prevent its development should be condemned as murderers. [ 7 ] [ 9 ]


Elon Musk  has been described as sympathetic to some TESCREAL ideologies. [ 5 ] [ 13 ] [ 21 ] [ 19 ]  In August 2022, Musk tweeted that  William MacAskill 's longtermist book  What We Owe the Future  was a "close match for my philosophy". [ 27 ]  Some writers believe Musk's  Neuralink  pursues TESCREAList goals. [ 5 ] [ 28 ]  Some AI experts have complained about the focus of Musk's  XAI  company on existential risk, arguing that it and other AI companies have ties to TESCREAL movements. [ 29 ] [ 30 ]  Dave Troy believes Musk's  natalist  views originate from TESCREAL ideals. [ 4 ]


It has also been suggested that  Peter Thiel  is sympathetic to TESCREAL ideas. [ 5 ] [ 13 ] [ 31 ]  Benjamin Svetkey wrote in  The Hollywood Reporter  that Thiel and other Silicon Valley CEOs who support the  Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign  are pushing for policies that would shut down "regulators whose outdated restrictions on things like  human experimentation  are slowing down progress toward a  technotopian  paradise". [ 31 ]


Sam Altman  and much of the  OpenAI  board has been described as supporting TESCREAL movements, especially in the context of his attempted  firing  in 2023. [ 13 ] [ 32 ] [ 14 ]  Gebru and Torres have urged Altman not to pursue TESCREAL ideals. [ 33 ]  Lorraine Redaud writing in  Charlie Hebdo  described Sam Altman and multiple other Silicon Valley executives as supporting TESCREAL ideals. [ 13 ]


Self-identified transhumanists  Nick Bostrom  and  Eliezer Yudkowsky , both influential in discussions of existential risk from AI, [ 22 ]  have also been described as leaders of the TESCREAL movement. [ 5 ] [ 16 ] [ 22 ]  Redaud said Bostrom supported some ideals "in line with the TESCREALists movement". [ 13 ]


Sam Bankman-Fried , former CEO of the  FTX  cryptocurrency exchange, was a prominent and self-identified member of the effective altruist community. [ 34 ]   According to  The Guardian , since  FTX's collapse , administrators of the bankruptcy estate have been trying to recoup about $5 million that they allege was transferred to a nonprofit to help secure the purchase of a historic hotel that has been repurposed for conferences and workshops associated with longtermism, Rationalism, and effective altruism. The property hosted liberal eugenicists and other speakers the  Guardian  said had racist and misogynistic histories. [ 21 ] :  1


Longtermist and effective altruist  William MacAskill , who frequently collaborated with Bankman-Fried to coordinate philanthropic initiatives, has been described as a TESCREAList. [ 1 ] [ 4 ] [ 9 ] [ 19 ]


What to Expect When No One's Expecting: America's Coming Demographic Disaster  is a book by the  Weekly Standard  columnist  Jonathan V. Last  arguing that there had been fewer people born than previously recorded around the world and why this could change society in the future. The book was initially released during February 2013 as a hardcover, with paperback release following in June 2014. [ 1 ]


Nick Gillespie , editor of  Reason  magazine, reviewed the book on  Bookforum , saying that he was convinced by Last's argument that birthrates were declining and there was not much that could be done about it, but found Last's account of the negative consequences exaggerated. [ 2 ] [ 3 ]


David Desrosiers  reviewed the book favorably for  Washington Times , writing that Last has argued that declining birthrates are largely a consequence of the changes set in motion by the  Enlightenment  rather than of any specific government policies, though policies by US liberals may have sped up the decline. [ 4 ]   Stanley Kurtz  and Bradford Wilcox wrote separate reviews of the book for  National Review . [ 5 ]


William McGurn , editor of the  New York Post , reviewed the book favorably for the  Wall Street Journal , but was critical of Last for having 'too much confidence' in his pessimistic scenarios. McGurn concluded: "In theory, it's all certainly possible. But as Mr. Last reminds us, we do well to be modest about our predictions. Because the one thing the math tells us is this: We've never been here before." [ 6 ]


Additional reviews of  What to Expect  include  Walter Russell Mead's  for  Foreign Affairs . [ 7 ]  as well as  Joel E. Cohen's  for  The New York Review of Books . [ 8 ]


In  Nazi Germany , women were subject to doctrines of  Nazism  by the  Nazi Party  (NSDAP), which promoted exclusion of women from the political and academic life of Germany as well as its executive body and executive committees. [ 1 ] [ 2 ]  On the other hand, whether through sheer numbers, lack of local organization, or both, [ 2 ]  many German women did indeed become Nazi Party members. In spite of this, the Nazi regime officially encouraged and pressured women to fill  the roles of mother and wife  only. Women were excluded from all other positions of responsibility, including political and academic spheres.


The policies contrasted starkly with the evolution of women's rights and gender equality under the  Weimar Republic , and is equally distinguishable from the mostly male-dominated and conservative attitude under the  German Empire . The regimentation of women at the heart of satellite organizations of the Nazi Party, as the  Bund Deutscher Mädel  or the  NS-Frauenschaft , had the ultimate goal of encouraging the cohesion of the "people's community" ( Volksgemeinschaft ).


The ideal woman in Nazi Germany did not have a career outside her home. Instead, she was a good wife (however her husband defined that), a careful and conscientious mother (taking special care to raise her children in accordance with Nazi philosophies and ideals), and skilled at doing all domestic chores such as cleaning and cooking. Women had a limited right to training of any kind; such training usually revolved around domestic tasks. Over time, Nazi-era German women were restricted from teaching in universities, working as medical professionals, and serving in political positions within the NSDAP. [ 3 ]  With the exception of  Reichsführerin   Gertrud Scholtz-Klink , women were not permitted to carry out official functions. However, there were some notable exceptions, either through their proximity to  Adolf Hitler , such as  Magda Goebbels , or by excelling in particular fields, such as filmmaker  Leni Riefenstahl  or aviator  Hanna Reitsch . Many restrictions on women were lifted once wartime necessity required policy changes later in the regime.


The historiography of "ordinary" German women in Nazi Germany has changed significantly over time; studies done just after  World War II  tended to see them as additional victims of Nazi oppression. However, during the late 20th century, historians began to argue that German women were able to influence the course of the regime and even the war. In addition, these studies found women's experiences during the Nazi regime varied by class, age and religion. [ 4 ]


While many women played an influential role at the heart of the Nazi system or filled official posts at the heart of the  Nazi concentration camps , [ 5 ]  a few were engaged in the  German resistance  and paid with their lives, such as  Libertas Schulze-Boysen  and  Sophie Scholl .


Under the  Weimar Republic , the status of women was one of the most progressive in Europe. The  Weimar Constitution  of January 19, 1919 proclaimed their right to vote (articles 17 and 22), equality of the sexes in civic matters (art. 109), non-discrimination against female bureaucrats. (art. 128), maternity rights (art. 19) and spousal equality within marriage (art. 119). [ 6 ]   Clara Zetkin , a prominent leader of the German feminist movement, was a Member of Parliament in the  Reichstag  from 1920 to 1933 and even presided over the assembly in the role of Dean. But Weimar did not represent a huge leap forward for women's liberation. Women remained under-represented in the parliament; motherhood continued to be promoted as women's most important social function; abortion was still prosecutable (§ 218 of the Criminal Code); and female workers did not achieve substantial economic progress such as equal salaries. [ 7 ]  With the emergence of  consumerism , businesses and government had an increasing need for labour; although work became a route to emancipation for women, they were often restricted to clerical work as secretaries or sales staff, where they were generally paid 10 to 20% less than male employees, [ 8 ]  under various pretexts, such as the claim that their understanding of domestic tasks freed them from certain household expenses.


While most of the other parties under the Weimar Republic ran female candidates during elections (and some were elected), the Nazi party did not. In 1933,  Joseph Goebbels  justified this position by explaining that "it is necessary to leave to men that which belongs to men ". [ 9 ]  Germany went from having 37 female Members of Parliament out of 577, to none, after the  election of November 1933 . [ 9 ]


Adolf Hitler 's attaining power as Chancellor marked the end of numerous women's rights, even though Hitler had succeeded in his social rise in part thanks to the protection of influential women and female voters. [ 10 ] [ 11 ] [ 12 ]  Hitler's socializing within affluent circles, and with socialites such as Princess  Elsa Bruckmann , wife of the editor  Hugo Bruckmann , and  Helene Bechstein , wife of industrialist  Edwin Bechstein , [ 13 ]  early on brought the  Nazi party  significant new sources of financing. For example, Gertrud von Seidlitz, a widow of a noble family, donated 30,000 marks to the party in 1923; [ 14 ]  and Helene Bechstein, who had an estate on the Obersalzberg, facilitated Hitler's acquisition of the property Wachenfeld. [ 15 ]


In regards to the role played by women voters in Hitler's rise to power, Helen Boak notes that the "NSDAP had been gaining proportionately more support from women than from men from 1928 onwards, not because of any concerted effort on its part nor because of its leader's charisma nor because of one specific element of its propaganda. Women chose to vote NSDAP for the same reasons men voted for the party – out of self-interest, out of a belief that the party best represented their own idea of what German society should be, even if they may have disagreed with the party's stand on individual issues. The larger increase in the share of women's votes than in that of men's votes cast for the NSDAP from 1928 owes much to the party's growing prominence and respectability, as the party's dynamism, the contrast of its young leadership with the elder statesmen of the other parties, its growing strength, the disintegration of the liberal and local, conservative parties and the general disillusionment and dissatisfaction with what the [Weimar] Republic had brought or failed to bring all contributed to the reasons why German men and women turned to the NSDAP...Because of the preponderance of women in the electorate, the NSDAP received more votes from women than from men in some areas before 1932 and throughout the Reich in 1932. Claims that Hitler and his party held no attraction for women voters and that the NSDAP benefitted little from female suffrage cannot, therefore, be maintained. [ 16 ]  Historian Wendy Lower makes it clear that while "Women were not a majority of those who voted for Hitler...In the presidential election of March 1932...26.5% [of German women voted] for Hitler. In the 1931 September elections, 3 million women voted for NSDAP candidates, almost half of the total of 6.5 million votes cast for the NSDAP." [ 17 ]  In terms of voting patterns however, a higher proportion of male voters supported the Nazi party compared to female voters. [ 18 ]


In 1935, during a speech to the National-Socialist Women's Congress, Hitler declared, with regard to women's rights:


in reality, the granting of so-called equal rights to women, as demanded by  Marxism , does not confer equal rights at all, but constitutes the deprivation of rights, since they draw women into a zone where they can only be inferior. It places women in situations where they cannot strengthen their position with regard to men and with society – but it only weakens them. [ 19 ] [ 20 ]


The fact that Hitler was unmarried and that he represented a masculine ideal for many Germans led to his erotisation in the public imagination. In April 1923, an article appeared in the  Münchener Post  stating "women adore Hitler "; [ 2 ]  he was described as adapting his speeches to "the tastes of women who, since the beginning, count among his most fervent admirers". [ 21 ]  Women were also sometimes instrumental in bringing their husbands into the Nazi political fold, thus contributing to the recruitment of new NSDAP members. [ 22 ]


In a society that was beginning to consider women as men's equals, Nazi policies constituted a setback, forcing women from political life. The Nazis' policies pertaining to women were one aspect of their efforts to stem what they viewed as the decadence of the Weimar Republic. In their eyes, the Weimar regime, which they perceived as having a Jewish character, in effect appeared as feminized, as well as tolerant of homosexuality – the veritable antithesis of German virility. [ citation needed ]


Heinrich Himmler  declared as much [ clarification needed ]  to the SS-Gruppenführer, on February 18, 1937:


On the whole, in my view, we have too much masculinized our life, to the point that we are militarizing impossible things [...] For me, it is a catastrophe that women's organizations, women's communities and women's societies intervene in a domain that destroys all feminine charm, all the feminine majesty and grace. For me, it is a catastrophe that we other poor male fools – I speak generally, because this does not mean you directly, we want to make women an instrument of logical thought, to educate them in everything possible, that we want to masculinize with time the difference between the sexes, the polarity will disappear. The path to homosexuality is not far. [...] We must be very clear. The movement, the ideology cannot be sustained if it is worn by women, because man conceives of everything through the mind, whereas women grasp everything through sentiment. [...]  The priests burned  5,000 to 6,000 women [for witchcraft], because they preserve emotionally the ancient wisdom and ancient teachings, and because, emotionally, they do not let go, whereas men, they are logically and rationally disposed. [ 23 ]


Officially, the status of women changed from "equal rights" ( Gleichberechtigung ) to an "equivalence" between men and women ( Gleichstellung ). [ 24 ]  Historian  Pierre Ayçoberry  [ fr ]  points out that "this offensive offered the double advantage of pleasing their male colleagues worried by this competition, and returned to private life more than 100,000 people proud of their success, the majority of whom were voters who supported the political left". This policy created worry among the militants in the NSDAP, who were concerned that it would harm the number of female graduates, a reservoir needed for future party ranks. [ 25 ]


In 1933, school programmes for girls were changed, notably with the goal of discouraging them from pursuing university studies. The five years of Latin classes and three years of science were replaced by courses in German language and domestic skills training. [ 24 ]  This did not bear productive results; on the one hand, a significant number of girls enrolled in boys' schools, while on the other hand, the " enrollment restrictions " of 10% at the university level were generally ignored. Thus, the measures only decreased the enrollment in medical schools from 20% to 17%. [ 25 ]


Some women's associations, notably communist and socialist groups were banned, and in some rare cases members were arrested or assassinated. [ 26 ]  All associations were requested to turn in Jewish members, such as the Union of Protestant Women, the Association of Household and Countryside, the Women's German Colonial Society Union and the Union of Queen Louise. [ 26 ]  But rapidly, the majority of the associations disbanded or chose among themselves to disappear, such as the BDF ( Bund Deutscher Frauenverein ), established in 1894 and which disbanded in 1933 to avoid being controlled. [ 27 ]  Only one women's association persisted under the regime (the association of  Gertrud Bäumer , Die Frau, or Woman), until 1944, but placed under the guardianship of the Reich Minister of People's Education and of Propaganda,  Joseph Goebbels . [ 8 ]   Rudolf Hess  established the  Deutsches Frauenwerk  which, with the women's branch of the Nazi party, the  NS-Frauenschaft , had the purpose of becoming a mass organization for the regime. [ 27 ]


In 1936, a law was passed banning certain high-level positions in the judicial system to women (notably judge and prosecutor, through Hitler's personal intervention [ 28 ] ) and the medical field. Female doctors were no longer allowed to practice, until their loss had a harmful effect on health needs and some were recalled to work; also dissolved was the Association of Medical Women, which was absorbed into its male counterpart. [ 25 ]  Under the Weimar Republic, only 1% of university posts were filled by women. On June 8, 1937, a decree stipulated that only men could be named to these posts, if it was not in a social field. Nonetheless, on February 21, 1938 " in an individual and exceptional capacity " following lobbying by  Gertrud Scholtz-Klink , [ 29 ]  one female scientist  Margarete Gussow  obtained a post in astronomy. Mathematician  Ruth Moufang  was able to receive her doctorate, but could not obtain the right to teach and was forced to work for national industry. [ 30 ]   Emmy Noether , another mathematician, was terminated from her post by virtue of the "German law for the Restoration of the Public Service" of April 7, 1933, for having been active in the 1920s in the  USPD  and the  SPD . Physics researcher  Lise Meitner , who directed the Department of Physics at the  Kaiser Wilhelm Society , was able to remain in her post until 1938, but this was only due to her Austrian nationality, which ended with the  Anschluss ); she then left for the Netherlands, and then Sweden. In the scientific field, there were almost no nominations of women; in 1942, a woman was not permitted to direct a scientific institute, despite the fact that no male candidate had applied. [ 31 ]  The exile of women from political life was total: they could not sit in either the Reichstag, the regional parliaments or municipal councils.


There was no substantial resistance to this control. The bourgeois women's associations reasoned, as did many others, that the Nazi government was a vulgar phenomenon that would soon fade, and that through their participation they could still exert some influence. [ 8 ]  They thus deluded themselves into believing that they were obtaining an "acceptable arrangement", as they were accustomed to do under a patriarchal system. With respect to the widespread tendency to underestimate the threat that the regime presented, the historian Claudia Koonz highlights the popular proverb of the era: "The soup is never eaten as hot as it is cooked". [ 8 ]  Women who were the most resolute in their opposition either set their sights on emigration, or, if they took an active stance, risked being arrested and interned, and possibly executed, the same as male opponents of the regime. [ 8 ]


In 1938, Clifford Kirkpatrick praised "the spirit of militant feminism rising like a  phoenix  from the ashes in the very midst of National Socialism" as a form of  Nazi feminism . [ 32 ]


Noticing the need for women in certain professions and their usefulness in the country's economy, the anti-emancipation policy in terms of the workforce was rapidly blunted. Women were otherwise invited to adhere to Nazism and reassured with the idea that they could be a mother and be employed,  Joseph Goebbels  even attacking anti-lipstick propaganda campaigns in  Völkischer Beobachter  and attacking the most zealous ideologues. [ 24 ]


The Nazi woman was an important part of Adolf Hitler's vision of German society (the  Volksgemeinschaft ) and should mirror its ideals: racially pure and physically robust. She should not work outside of the home, and should be devoted to motherhood, following the slogan of the former emperor  William II of Germany :  Kinder, Küche, Kirche , meaning "Children, kitchen, church". In a document published in 1934,  The Nine Commandments of the Workers' Struggle ,  Hermann Goering  bluntly summarizes the future role of German women: "Take a pot, a dustpan and a broom and marry a man". [ 33 ] [ 34 ]  These ideals were embodied in various Nazi institutions such as the  bride schools  of the  Deutsches Frauenwerk , aimed primarily at prospective brides of SS and Nazi Party members, and the  Faith and Beauty Society  for women aged 17 to 21.


This was anti-feminism in the sense that the Nazis considered political rights granted to women (access to high-level positions for example) as incompatible with the nature of reproduction, the only role within which they could blossom and best serve the interests of the nation.  Magda Goebbels  declared in 1933: "German women were excluded from three professions: the army,  as elsewhere in the world ;  the government ; and  the judiciary . If a German girl must choose between marriage or a career, she will always be encouraged to marry, because that is what is best for a woman". [ 34 ] [ 35 ]


These ideals differed to the conservative and patriarchal norms that had prevailed during the  German Empire , in that rather than being sidelined in society, women were expected to participate at a foundational level in the roles of mother and spouse. Indeed, the fact that the mobilisation of women ( Bund Deutscher Mädel  then  Frauenschaft ) was so highly organized indicates that women did not have the same status as they did in the nineteenth century. The new regime would have appealed to a conservative electorate and a fringe part of the population very critical of the image of the emancipated woman from the 1920s. But the goals were now different, asking each woman to take part in the building of the "Reich of 1000 years". Female liberation found itself therefore necessarily limited, with Heide Schlüpmann stating in  Frauen und Film , that the films of  Leni Riefenstahl , the official film director of the regime, "value quite a negation of female sexuality and only offer women a deceptive autonomy".


The wearing of makeup was generally prohibited, and a certain modesty was demanded of women, contrasting with the Weimar Republic period, which experienced more freedom on a moral level. In 1933, meetings of the  NSBO  (part of the  German Workers' Front ) proclaimed that women "painted and powdered were forbidden at all meetings of the NSBO. Women who smoke in public – in hotels, cafés, in the street and so on – will be excluded from NSBO". [ 36 ] [ 37 ]  Activities considered traditional were encouraged only in appropriate places: music, manual labour, gymnastics. Sexuality was banned, unless for a reproductive goal; liberated young women were considered "depraved" and "antisocial". Mothers were encouraged to have children, and the "Ehrenkreuz der Deutschen Mutter" (in English:  Cross of Honour of the German Mother ) was created for mothers having more than four children. A "German Mothers' Day" was also created, and in 1939, three million mothers were decorated on that day. [ 37 ]  Concerning  abortion , access to services was quickly prohibited, and in 1935, the medical profession became obliged to report stillbirths to the Regional Office for State Health, who would further investigate the loss of a child. In 1943 the ministers of the Interior and Justice enacted the law "Protection of Marriage, Family and Motherhood", which made provisions for the death penalty for mothers convicted of infanticide. [ 38 ]


In line with  Nazi racial theory , the Nazi government promoted the " Aryan " ( Nordic ) archetype as the ideal physical appearance: women were to be blonde, blue-eyed, beautiful, tall, thin and robust all at once. This image was spread as much through advertising as through official art, then through ancient art, and more specifically through Greco-Roman statues. Academic Monique Moser-Verrey notes: "a revival, during the course of the Thirties, of mythological themes such as the  Judgement of Paris ." [ 39 ]  Moser-Verrey notes however:


Yet it is striking that the image of women projected by women's literature of the 1930s is clearly contrary to traditional views of sweet housewife spread by  Rosenberg  and  Goebbels . The heroines of women's novels during this period are often a strong and tenacious type of woman, while the sons and husbands are quickly delivered to death. Everything happens as if one perceives through these fictions a true antagonism between the sexes generated by the constant mobilisation of these two groups independent of one another. [ 40 ]


Fashion for women in Nazi Germany was problematic for Nazi officials. The Nazi government wanted to propagandize the "Aryan" woman. In various posters and other forms of media, this ideal Nazi woman was strong, fertile, and wore historically traditional  German clothing . [ 41 ]  However, Nazi officials also did not want to hinder the German clothing or fashion industries from making profits, as the government also sought to create a consumerist society based for the most part on German domestic products. [ 42 ]  These differences in goals often led to disparities in what was considered fashionable, nationalistic, and politically correct for women in Nazi Germany.


However, although there was disagreement over how to ideally fashion German "Aryan" women, anti-Semitic, anti-American, and anti-French Nazi rhetoric played a key part in molding German women's fashion ideology. [ 41 ]  The Nazis severely criticized the  Western fashions of the 1920s , claiming the Jazz  Flapper  fashion to be "French-Dominated" and "severely Jewish." Additionally, the Nazi Party was strictly against the Flapper style because they felt it masculinized women and created an immoral ideal. [ 43 ]  The desire to abolish 1920s fashion in Nazi Germany was consistent with Nazi propaganda which was insistent on limiting women to the private sphere as housewives and mother figures. [ 41 ]


While the Nazi government sought to create a maternal ideal for the Aryan woman, they also sought financial gain from the textile industry. [ 42 ]  While Hitler urged women to buy more products, he stipulated that women must only consume German products. [ 41 ]  The creation of the German Fashion Institute ( Deutsches Modeamt ) sought to create a Western high-fashion niche market, creating varying opinions [ vague ]  on how fashion and Nazi politics should interact.


The compulsory education for girls was not neglected and boys and girls were placed on the same footing at schools. Girls were encouraged to pursue secondary education but university courses were closed to them. Beginning in 1935 they were required to fulfill a work period of six months for the benefit of the service of women's work, the  Reichsarbeitsdienst   Deutscher Frauenarbeitsdienst . Adolf Hitler declared, on April 12, 1942, that the schools of the Reich must gather "boys and girls from all classes" to meet "all the youth of the Reich". [ 44 ]  The education manual  Das kommende Deutschland  notes that:


The Jungmädel (young girl) must know a) the date and place of the birth of the Führer, and be able to recount his life. b) She is capable of recounting the history of the movement and the struggle of the SA and  the Hitler Youth. c) She knows the living collaborators of the Führer." [ 31 ]


It was also required that they know the geography of Germany, its hymns as well as the clauses of the  Treaty of Versailles . [ 31 ]


The BDM was particularly regarded as instructing females to avoid  Rassenschande  (racial defilement), which was treated with particular importance for young females in order to preserve the  Aryan race . [ 45 ]  During the war, repeated efforts were made to propagate Volkstum ("racial consciousness"), to prevent sexual relations between Germans and any  foreign workers . Nazi propaganda published pamphlets that enjoined all German women to avoid sexual relations with all foreign workers brought to Germany as a danger to their blood. [ 46 ]  German women accused of racial defilement were paraded through the streets with a shaved head and placard around her neck detailing her crime. [ 47 ]  Those convicted were sent to a concentration camp. [ 48 ]  When Himmler reportedly asked Hitler what the punishment should be for German girls and German women who have been found guilty of race defilement with prisoners of war (POWs) he ordered "every POW who has relations with a German girl or a German would be shot" and the German woman should be publicly humiliated by "having her  hair shorn  and being sent to a concentration camp". [ 49 ]


Robert Gellately  in  The Gestapo and German Society. Enforcing Racial Policy 1933–1945  writes about such cases of German women being found guilty of sexual relations with prisoners of war and foreigner workers. One case in March 1941 was of a married woman who had an affair with a French prisoner of war had her head shaved and was marched through the town of  Bramberg  [ de ]  in Lower Franconia carrying a sign which said, " I have sullied the honour of the German woman. " [ 50 ]  Another case was Dora von Calbitz who in September 1940 was found guilty of having sexual relations with a Pole. She had her head shaved and was placed in the pillory of her town of  Oschatz  near Leipzig, with a sign that proclaimed, " I have been a dishonourable German woman in that I sought and had relations with Poles. By doing that I excluded myself from the  community of the people . " [ 51 ]


The education of girls also meant political education; there already existed elite schools of political studies, the  Napola  ( Nationalpolitische Anstalten ), one for girls opened in 1939 in  Vienna  and another in 1942 in Luxembourg. These institutions did not have a purpose of enabling women to re-enter political life but of endowing the best with the cultural baggage required to occupy posts related to the management of women's affairs. This concerned a very small minority. However, on June 5, 1942, the Minister of Finance  Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk , a conservative politician, threatened to cut grants to the second school, if it did not become a simple internship for adolescents, rejecting all political education for girls. Adolf Hitler decided otherwise on June 24, 1943, promising the construction of three new Napola.


When the  Hitler Youth  was devoted to organizing the extra-curricular life of male adolescents, the  Bund Deutscher Mädel  (BDM), occupied female adolescents from 14 to 18 years. Founded in 1934, the movement was needed after the law of December 1, 1936. It was led from 1934 to 1937 by  Trude Mohr , then from 1937 to 1945 by the psychologist  Jutta Rüdiger . Young girls were trained for certain employment (social work, cleaning) or farming ( Ernteeinsatz , helping with harvest) and practised sports; as the education manual  Das kommende Deutschland  shows, the physical performance demanded was sometimes the same as those of the boys (for example, to run 60 meters in less than 12 seconds). [ 31 ]  Every Wednesday evening, for girls from 15 to 20 years old, the "home parties" took place, for discussing art and culture. [ 24 ]  Vacation camps, held for one week during Summer, [ 24 ]  in Germany or abroad, were organized. There also existed a required six-month work service, the  Reichsarbeitsdienst der weiblichen Jugend  (National Young Women's Work Service), completed in 1941 with six extra months in the  Kriegshilfsdienst  (for the war effort). For young women aged 18 to 25 years old wishing to find work, in 1938 the  Pflichtjahr  was instituted, one year of obligatory service in farming or domestic work. [ 37 ]


Women could be members of the  Nazi Party , but newcomers to the party were only admitted if they were "useful" (nurses or cooks for example). [ 24 ]  They numbered 5% of women in 1933 and 17% in 1937. [ 24 ]  But since October 1931 the  NS-Frauenschaft  (NSF) existed, the political organization for Nazi women, that sought above all to promote the ideal of the model woman of Nazi Germany; at its foundation, it was responsible for training in housekeeping. [ 24 ]  Young women joined when they were 15 years old. On 31 December 1932, the NSF counted 109,320 members. In 1938, it had 2 million, corresponding to 40% of the total number of party members. [ 52 ]  The NSF was directed by  Gertrud Scholtz-Klink , who had the title of Reichsführerin; she called the members "my daughters" and acquired a strong influence over them and a certain credibility. Her views on women were obviously in agreement with those of Adolf Hitler, but she still defended access to some positions of responsibility. She did not participate in major meetings of the party but was invited to the party congress.


School textbooks were edited beginning in 1934, often under the supervision of the doctor  Johanna Haarer  [ de ] , an author notably for  The German Mother and Her First Baby , which was widely published, and promoting the driving role of the German mother in building the regime, or  Mother, tell me about Adolf Hitler  ( Mutter, erzähl von Adolf Hitler ), to lead women to indoctrinate their children in Nazi values: [ 53 ]


Housekeeping training was promoted through Frauenwerk (German Women's Work), which opened thematic courses for "ethnically pure" women. It is notable, however, that although there were numerous courses for domestic training, gymnastics and music, they deserted those oriented towards antireligious teaching. [ 24 ]


The  NS-Frauenschaft  "played no political role and did not oppose the loss of hard-won women's rights. It defended the role of the mother of the family at home, conscious of their duties at the heart of the community. Provided, containing women within the private sphere does not hide their responsibilities under the Third Reich; we know today that the Frauenbewegung (women's movement) thought the place of a woman in society was at the heart of a community that excluded Jews and performed a civilizing mission in occupied Eastern Europe to preserve the race". [ 55 ]


During the Second World War, temporarily contradicting their past claims, the Nazis changed policy and allowed women to join the German army. Adolf Hitler had already affirmed in a speech to activists of the  National Socialist Women's League  on September 13, 1936: "We possess a generation of healthy men – and we, National Socialists, are going to watch – Germany will not form any section of women grenade throwers or any corps of women elite snipers." [ 56 ]  Therefore, women were not assigned to combat units during the war, but were regarded as auxiliary military personnel, responsible for logistical and administrative duties in the areas understaffed due to the number of men sent into combat. Other women also worked in factories or in military education. Military members of the  Reichsbahn  (National Company of Railways) or the  Feuerwehr  (firefighters) wore uniforms appropriate to the era, especially with a skirt.  Gertrud Scholtz-Klink , NSDAP member and leader of the National Socialist Women's League stated:


We often hear, even from the women, the most diverse objections against work in arms factories. The question of knowing whether we can require such work of this or that particular woman is now well past. [ 57 ]


Beginning in 1943, the  Reich Minister of the Economy  introduced the job training program called  Berufsausbildungsprogramm Ost  for farming duty in the East (not to be confused with the ethnic cleansing of  Generalplan Ost ). He extended the existing laws of the Reich, concerning the protection of minors and of employment standards for the  League of German Girls  ( Bund Deutscher Mädel )  Osteinsatz , [ 58 ]  for whom such work was compulsory. Adolescent girls were employed in the Brandebourg Market for the agricultural work program. [ 59 ]  They were active  in the resettlement areas  of  occupied Poland  as their assignment. [ 60 ]  Yet, referring to the decree of January 1943, calling for the mobilization of German women aged 17 to 45, Gertrud Scholtz-Klink from NSDAP said in September of that year at a conference in Bad Schlachen:


The educated women in the women's league and made available to the Wehrmacht not only have to type and work, but also be soldiers of the Führer. [ 61 ]


The Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels in his  Sportspalast  speech delivered on February 18, 1943 at the Berlin Sports Hall, called on German women to work, and to be sober in their commitment:


The mobilisation of women in the war economy always remained limited: the number of women practising a professional activity in 1944 was virtually unchanged from 1939, being about 15 million women, in contrast to Great Britain, so that the use of women did not progress and only 1,200,000 of them worked in the arms industry in 1943, in working conditions that were difficult and often poorly treated by their bosses, who deplored their lack of qualification. [ 62 ]


In 1945, there numbered 500,000 women auxiliaries in the Wehrmacht (Wehrmachtshelferinnen), [ 33 ]  who were at the heart of the  Heer , the  Luftwaffe  and the  Kriegsmarine . About half of them were volunteers, the others performing obligatory service connected to the war effort (Kriegshilfsdienst). They took part, under the same authority as prisoners of war ( Hiwis ), as auxiliary personnel of the army (Behelfspersonal) and they were assigned to duties not only within the heart of the German Reich, but also within the German-occupied territories, for example in the  General government  of Poland, in France, in Spain and later in  Yugoslavia , in Greece and in Romania. [ 63 ]


They essentially participated :


The  SS-Gefolge  was the women's wing of the men's  SS , but in contrast it was only confined to voluntary work in Emergency Service (Notdienstverpflichtung). SS Women belonged either to the  SS-Helferinnen (de)  or the  SS-Kriegshelferinnen . They were in charge of auxiliary transmissions (telephone, radio operators, stenographers) in the SS and sometimes in camps (these were the  Aufseherin , see next section). There was an internal hierarchy in the women's wing of the SS, which had no influence on the male troops, although the titles designated to the women sometimes had an influence upon the owners. However, whereas female camp guards were civilian employees of the SS, the SS-Helferinnen who completed training at the Reich-school in Obernai (Oberehnheim) were members of the Waffen-SS. [ 64 ] [ 65 ]


The SS-Helferinnen were trained at the Reichsschule-SS at Oberehnheim in Alsace. [ 66 ] [ 67 ] [ 68 ] [ 69 ]  The Reichsschule-SS (in full, the Reichsschule für SS Helferinnen Oberenheim) was the training centre for the  SS , reserved for women, and opened in  Obernai  in May 1942 upon the order of  Heinrich Himmler . [ 70 ] [ 71 ]  The SS-Helferinnenkorps has also been termed by historians as the 'SS-Frauenkorps'. [ 66 ] [ 71 ]  7,900 women were employed in the clerical unit of the SS, the SS Frauenkorps, and 10,000 as SS auxiliaries or Helferinnen. [ 72 ]  The training was more difficult than that for women enrolled in the  German Army . They had to meet certain physical criteria determined by the regime: they must be aged 17 to 30 years and measure more than 1.65 m (5 ft 5 in) tall, while over the long term, the enrollment criteria were relaxed (the age limit was raised to 40 years and minimum height dropped to 1.58 metres); they even accepted 15 Muslim students. [ 73 ]  Having been in a privileged status, war widows were favoured before the admissions were opened up to other social classes. Women enrolled at the Reichsschule-SS came from various economic, class and educational backgrounds and included a member of the aristocracy in the ranks, Princess Ingeborg Alix. [ 69 ]  The Reichsschule-SS appealed to female Nazi ideologues who foresaw the possibility of social ascent by becoming an SS-Helferin, and candidates were often from families with other SS and NSDAP members. [ 74 ] [ 69 ]  It has been noted by historians that "some SS-Helferinnen knew about the persecution of those whom the Nazis deemed to be worthless; Hermine S., who worked as an administrator at Auschwitz, stated that she knew the word Sonderbehandlung meant the gassing of prisoners." [ 75 ]  In her review of Jutta Muhlenberg's book,  Das SS-Helferinnenkorps: Ausbildung, Einsatz und Entnazifizierung der weiblichen Angehörigen der Waffen-SS 1942–1949 , Rachel Century writes:


Mühlenberg is very careful not to generalise and tar all the SS-Helferinnen with the same brush. Although all these women were a part of the bureaucratic staff, and were ‘Mittäterinnen, Zuschauerinnen und zum Teil – auch Zeuginnen von Gewalttätigkeiten’ [accomplices, spectators and sometimes even witnesses of violence] (p. 416), she notes that each woman still had individual responsibility over what she did, saw and knew, and it would be very difficult to identify the individual responsibilities of each SS-Helferin. Mühlenberg focuses on de-Nazification in the American sector, although the British zone is also discussed. A detailed report was drawn up by the Americans about the school, indicating how the women of the school should be dealt with; they were to be automatically detained... Mühlenberg concludes that the guilt of the former SS-Helferinnen lies in their voluntary participation in the bureaucratic apparatus of the SS.


The school closed in 1944 due to the advance of the Allies. [ 77 ]


Women were within the ranks of the  Nazis  at the  Nazi concentration camps  : these were the  Aufseherinnen  and generally belonged to the  SS . They were guards, secretaries or nurses. They arrived before the start of the war, some of them being trained from 1938 in Lichtenburg. This took place due to the need for personnel following the growing number of political prisoners after the  Kristallnacht  on 8 and 9 November 1938. After 1939, they were trained at Camp  Ravensbrück  near  Berlin . Coming mostly from lower- or middle-class social origins, they previously worked in traditional professions (hairdresser, teacher, for example) but were, in contrast to men who were required to fulfill military service, driven by a sincere desire to reach the female wing of the SS, the  SS-Gefolge . Of the 50,000 total number of guards at all the Nazi camps, there were 5,000 women (approximately 10% of the workforce).


They worked at the  Auschwitz  and  Majdanek  camps beginning in 1942. The following year, the Nazis began the conscription of women because of the shortage of guards. Later, during the war, women were also assigned on a smaller scale in the camps  Neuengamme  Auschwitz (I, II and III),  Plaszow   Flossenbürg ,  Gross-Rosen   Vught  and  Stutthof  and in the  death camps  of  Bełżec ,  Sobibór   Treblinka  and  Chełmno . Seven Aufseherinnen served at  Vught , 24 were at  Buchenwald , 34 at  Bergen-Belsen , 19 at  Dachau , 20 at  Mauthausen , three at  Mittelbau-Dora , seven at  Natzweiler-Struthof , twenty at Majdanek, 200 at Auschwitz and its sub-camps, 140 at  Sachsenhausen , 158 at  Neuengamme , 47 at Stutthof, compared with 958 who served at  Ravensbrück , 561 at  Flossenbürg  and 541 at  Gross-Rosen . Many supervisors worked in the sub-camps in Germany and some in Poland, France, Austria, and  Czechoslovakia .


There was a hierarchy within the  Aufseherin  position, including the following higher ranks: the  Rapportaufseherin  (head Aufseherin), the  Erstaufseherin  (first guard), the  Lagerführerin  (head of the camp), and finally, the  Oberaufseherin  (senior inspector), a post only occupied by  Anna Klein  and  Luise Brunner .


Under the same threats as men who were Jews or  Romani , women belonging to these communities were equally discriminated against, then deported and for some exterminated. In many concentration camps there were sections for female detainees (notably at  Auschwitz  and  Bergen-Belsen ) but the camp at  Ravensbrück , opened in May 1939, distinguished itself as a camp solely for women, by 1945 numbering about 100,000 prisoners. The first women's concentration camp had been opened in 1933 in  Moringen , before being transferred to Lichtenburg in 1938.


In concentration camps, women were considered weaker than men, and they were generally sent to the gas chambers more quickly, whereas the strength of men was used to work the men to exhaustion. Some women were subjected to medical experiments.


Some took the path of the Resistance, such as the Polish member  Haika Grossman , who participated in the organization for aid for the ghetto of  Białystok , during the night of August 15 to 16, 1943. On October 7, 1944, members of the Sonderkommando, 250 prisoners responsible for the bodies of persons after gassing, rose up; they had procured explosives stolen by a Kommando of young Jewish women ( Ala Gertner ,  Regina Safir ,  Estera Wajsblum  and  Roza Robota ) who worked in the armament factories of the  Union Werke . They succeeded in partially destroying Crematorium IV.


In addition to the resistors forced into their commitment because of their risk of being deported and exterminated because of their race, some were also committed against the German Nazi regime. Women represented approximately 15% of the Resistance. Monique Moser-Verrey notes however:


If we can say that, among the persecuted minorities, women are more often spared than men, it is their low status in a society dominated by men that did not make them sizeable enemies of the regime, however, it is they who understood the need to hide or flee before their misled spouses, whose social inclusion was more complete. [ 78 ]


The student Communist  Liselotte Herrmann  protested in 1933 against the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor and managed to get information to foreign governments about the rearmament of Germany. In 1935 she was arrested, sentenced to death two years later and executed in 1938. She was the first German mother to suffer the death penalty since the beginning of the regime. Twenty women from Düsseldorf, who saw their fathers, brothers and son deported to the camp  Börgermoor , managed to smuggle out the famous  The Song of the deportees  and make it known.  Freya von Moltke ,  Mildred Harnack-Fish  and  Libertas Schulze-Boysen  participated in the  Resistance  group  Kreisau Circle  and  Red Orchestra ; the last two were arrested and executed. The 20-year-old student  Sophie Scholl , a member of  The White Rose  was executed February 22, 1943 with her brother  Hans Scholl  and  Christoph Probst , for posting leaflets. The resistor  Maria Terwiel  helped to spread knowledge of the famous sermons condemning the Nazi movement given by  Clemens von Galen , Bishop of Munster, as well as helping Jews escape to abroad. She was executed on 5 August 1943. The successful protests of women can also be noted, called the  Rosenstraße , racially " Aryan " women married to Jews who, in February 1943, obtained the release of their husbands.


Women also fought for the  Resistance  from abroad, like  Dora Schaul , a Communist who had left Germany in 1934 and involved from July 1942 with clandestine networks, Deutsch Arbeit (German Labour) and Deutsche-Feldpost (My German countryside), from the School of Military Health in  Lyon .  Hilde Meisel  attempted in 1933 to galvanize British public opinion against the Nazi regime. She returned to Germany during the war but was executed at the bend of a road.


A little over half of the  Righteous Among the Nations  recognized by  Yad Vashem  are women. While many of them acted in cooperation with other family members, some of these courageous women were the initiators of the rescue and acted independently to save Jews. [ 79 ]


Although women did not have political power in Nazi Germany, a circle of influence did exist around Adolf Hitler. Within this circle, Hitler became acquainted with the British  Unity Mitford  and  Magda Goebbels , wife of the Minister of Propaganda  Joseph Goebbels . Magda Goebbels became known by the nickname "First Lady of the Third Reich": she represented the regime during State visits and official events. Her marriage to Goebbels on December 19, 1931, was considered a society event, where  Leni Riefenstahl  was a notable guest. [ 80 ]  She posed as the model German mother for  Mothers Day .  Eleonore Baur , a nurse and acquaintance of Hitler since 1920 (she had participated in the  Beer Hall putsch ) was the one of few woman to receive the  Blood Order ; she also participated in official receptions and was close to  Heinrich Himmler , who gave her the privileges of an  Oberführer  of the SS and permitted her free access to the concentration camps, which she went to regularly, particularly  Dachau . [ 31 ]  Hitler did not forget that he owed part of his political ascension to women integrated in the society world (aristocrats or industrialists), such as  Elsa Bruckmann .


Women were also able to distinguish themselves in certain domains, but they were exceptions. Thus  Leni Riefenstahl  was the official film director of the regime and was given enormous funding for her cinematic productions ( Triumph of the Will , and  Olympia ).  Winifred Wagner  directed the highly publicized  Bayreuth Festival , and soprano  Elisabeth Schwarzkopf  was promoted as the "Nazi diva", as noted by an American newspaper.  Hanna Reitsch , an aviator, distinguished herself with her handling of test aircraft and military projects of the regime, notably the  V1 flying bomb .


The little daughter's on the mattress,
 Dead. How many have been on her
 A platoon, a company perhaps?
 A girl's been turned into a woman,
 A woman turned into a corpse.
 It's all come down to simple phrases:
 Do not forget! Do not forgive!
 Blood for blood! A tooth for a tooth!


After the collapse of Nazi Germany, many German women nicknamed  Trümmerfrauen  ("Rubble Women") participated in the rebuilding of Germany by clearing up the ruins resulting from the war. In the Soviet occupation zone, more than two million women were victims of rape. [ 82 ]  One of them would publish a memoir recalling this experience:  Eine Frau in Berlin  ("A Woman In Berlin"). As the Soviets entered German territory, German women typically had no choice, save suicide, to comply. Age did not matter with victimization crossing the generational strata entirely. [ 83 ]  Famed Russian author  Alexander Solzhenitsyn , outraged by finding the body of a small girl murdered following a gang rape, wrote a scathing poem to mark the moment for posterity  (right) .


What Solzhenitsyn's poem also reveals is the penchant for revenge the Red Army exacted upon Germany, a recompense promulgated by Soviet leaders. Soviet troops were given a certain degree of license in the early victories in repulsing the Germans, as even Josef Stalin expressed outright indifference towards rape. An example is discernible in what Stalin once asked Yugoslav's communist leader  Milovan Djilas , "Can’t he understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometers through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle?" [ 84 ]  Many German women died in the midst of such trifles, their husbands and families suffering immeasurable grief along with them, and some of them chose to take their own lives in lieu of being raped. Even when not raped, women hid in apartments, cellars, and closets for fear of being violated, experiencing hunger, fear, and loneliness which left psychological scars for years to come. [ 85 ]  For more background see:  Rape during the occupation of Germany .


The question of the culpability of the German people in their support of Nazism has long overshadowed the women, who had little political power under the regime. Thus, as explained by the German historian  Gisela Bock , who was involved with the first historians to highlight this issue, by asking women during the Nazi era. [ 86 ]  In 1984, in "When Biology Became Destiny, Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany", she wrote that women who are enslaved economically and morally, cannot exercise their freedom by being confined in the home and placed under the rule of their husbands. [ 87 ]  Thus, we associate studies on the subject during the 1980s mainly with perceptions that women were victims of "machismo" and a "misogynist"  fascism . In terms of voting patterns, a higher proportion of male voters supported the Nazi party compared to female voters. [ 18 ]


However, the simplicity of this analysis tends to disappear with recent studies. In 1987, historian  Claudia Koonz , in "Mothers in Fatherland, Women, the Family and Nazi Politics" questioned this statement and acknowledged some guilt. She states as follows: "Far from being impressionable or innocent, women made possible State murder in the name of interests that they defined as maternal." [ 87 ]  For her, the containing of housewives just allowed them to assert themselves and grasp an identity, especially through women's associations led by Nazi  Gertrud Scholtz-Klink . They therefore helped to stabilize the system. The women took pleasure in politics and eugenics of the state, which promised financial assistance if the birth rate was high, so they would help to stabilize the system "by preserving the illusion of love in an environment of hate." [ 87 ]  In addition, if Gisela Bock denounced the work of her colleague as "anti-feminist", others as  Adelheid von Saldern  [ de ]  refuse to stop at a strict choice between complicity and oppression and are more interested in how Nazism included women in their project for Germany. [ 87 ]


Kate Docking, in her book review of  Female Administrators of the Third Reich  writes that, "The key merit of this monograph is that it makes visible the women who ultimately allowed the Holocaust to occur: as the author notes, while these women did not execute orders for the persecution of Jews themselves, the genocide could not have been accomplished without those who typed the orders, answered the telephones, and sent the telegrams. Female administrators had the opportunity to question their orders and find out more about the Holocaust, but generally, they did not. They had some awareness of the Holocaust, and did nothing. Many recalled their time working for the Third Reich with fondness and nostalgia." [ 88 ]  Recent work from historian  Wendy Lower  (consultant to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum), demonstrates that a substantial number of women were accomplices to Nazi atrocities, and sometimes direct participants. [ 89 ]  Lower writes:


The entire population of German women (almost forty million in 1939) cannot be considered a victim group. One-third of the female population, thirteen million women, were actively engaged in a Nazi Party organisation, and female membership in the Nazi Party increased steadily until the end of the war. Just as the agency of women in history more generally is under-appreciated, here too – and perhaps even more problematically, given the legal and moral implications –the agency of women in the crimes of the Third Reich has not been fully elaborated and explained. Vast numbers of ordinary German women were not victims, and routine forms of female participation in the Holocaust have not yet been disclosed. [ 90 ]


Such realities make it abundantly clear that by the time the war ended, German women had traversed the full-circle of being once sheltered incubators for the Aryan future to effectual contributors in the Nazi concentration camp system.


There are many militant neo-Nazis or defenders of former Nazis, such as the Germans  Helene Elisabeth von Isenburg  [ de ]  or  Gudrun Himmler  (daughter of  Heinrich Himmler ), who are active through the organization  Stille Hilfe , and the French citizens  Françoise Dior  and  Savitri Devi .


Workers' Front  ( Spanish :  Frente Obrero ,  FO ) is a  left-wing [ 16 ]  to  far-left [ 17 ]  Spanish  political party  founded as a mass organization by the  anti-revisionist  party  PML (RC)  in October 2018 and registered as a separate political party in March 2019. As of 2024, it is headed by  Roberto Vaquero . It considers itself a "patriotic and revolutionary movement that fights for and on behalf of workers, for and on behalf of Spain", with the goal of implementing "drastic changes" in Spain and "ending the current regime". [ 18 ]  It is considered a communist formation [ 19 ]  that adheres to  Marxism–Leninism , but one with deeply conservative stances on social and cultural issues. [ 20 ]


The Workers' Front was established on October 14, 2018 at the  Ateneo de Madrid  as a  front organization  of the  Marxist–Leninist Party (Communist Reconstruction)  (PML (RC)). [ 1 ]  Subsequently, the Workers' Front expanded to several cities in Spain, such as  La Coruña ,  León ,  Ponferrada ,  Zaragoza , and  Cádiz . [ 21 ]


The party was founded by  Roberto Vaquero , who also founded the PML (RC) in 2009. The party was temporarily suspended from activities in 2016 when Vaquero was arrested in 2016 for organizing the transport of Spanish militias to the  People's Defense Units  in Syria to fight against  ISIS ; Vaquero was suspected to have ties with the  Kurdistan Workers' Party , which is considered a terrorist organization by the  European Union , although no evidence was found. Vaquero was in jail for 49 days, and the party resumed activities in 2017, before Vaquero founded Frente Obrero (FO) in 2018. [ 22 ]


In 2021, the party participated in Okupas, a Spanish  squatting  movement. FO occupied a prestigious building in the  Mercado de Colón  district in  Valencia . It organized a food bank and the homeless shelter in the building, attacking the local government for not helping over 1000 homeless people in Valencia. The party also hung the flag of the  Second Spanish Republic  on the building. [ 23 ]


In May 2021, members of the party organized a protest against the leader of the  Podemos  party  Irene Montero , in Valencia. The party accused Montero and her party of "leaving the workers in the lurch", claiming that Podemos organizes bailouts to banks and companies while Spanish workers are going "months without pay and suffering evictions". FO protesters argued that the feminist and pro-LGBT stances taken by Montero are "symbolic struggles that do not represent reality". [ 24 ]


On June 12, 2022, their first congress was held. During the congress the decision to become a political party was approved by the members. Representatives from other organizations, such as the  Polisario Front , spoke during the congress. [ 25 ]


In the  2023 Spanish general election , the party gained 46,530 and won no seats. [ 13 ]


In late 2023, the group announced they would be participating in the  2023 Spanish protests  against the  PSOE  government. [ 26 ]


Since then, they, and especially their leader Vaquero, have gained a presence on social media and even national television in Spain, participating in debates on current political issues in programs such as  Horizonte , on channel  Cuatro . [ 27 ]


In the  2024 European Parliament election in Spain , the party won 66,242 votes, improving its result from the 2023 general elections where it received 46,274 votes. [ 28 ]


Frente Obrero has been described as a party that adheres to Marxism–Leninism with conservative stances on social and cultural issues. [ 20 ] [ 29 ]  It has also been described as  Stalinist . [ 30 ]  However, despite being strongly connected with the PML (RC) and supporting  far-left  ideologies such as Marxism–Leninism, the FO is not explicitly  communist . However, the party is described as communist by the Spanish  newspapers of record , such as  El Mundo , who classified FO as "a communist, republican, anti-oligarchic party". [ 31 ]  The party rejects the labels of political left and right, arguing that they "are two sides of the same coin". [ 7 ]  However, it is considered left-wing by political commentators as well as political scientists; [ 12 ] [ 13 ] [ 14 ] [ 15 ]  it has also been commonly described as far-left, [ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ] [ 11 ]  with one Valencian newspaper arguing that the party is "about as far left as you can get". [ 23 ]   The European Conservative  described the party as a representative of the "patriotic, pre-woke, pro-work left." [ 7 ]


The leader of Frente Obrero, Roberto Vaquero, wrote of the party: "The need for workers' reorganization is vital, it is necessary to fight for workers' and revolutionary unity in a broad, united front of all workers. With this aim in mind, the Frente Obrero was born, which only tries to serve the unity of all those who want to rebuild a revolutionary, working class and militant left, which truly resists this system and its single thinking, which defends the workers, our country and which of course is aimed at the transformation and progress of our society." He defined FO as a "national political and revolutionary front with the aim of fighting for the unity of the workers and for the transformation of our society, it is committed to a popular and Republic aimed at socialism." [ 32 ]


In their program  A Spain for the Workers , they defend  Hispanic identity , the  nationalization  and socialization of the Spanish economy,  nuclear energy , increasing the  minimum wage , supporting the rural sector, promoting  birth rates , creating more  public housing , introducing  rent control  and limiting  immigration . [ 33 ]  The party also focuses on class struggle and a planned economy. FO also wants to preserve the "classical, Christian" culture of Spain, and supports  Spanish republicanism . [ 34 ]