History of women in Germany#Women's rights movements

File:Ambraserheldenbuch.jpg, Fol. 149. Kudrun. The early sixteenth century epic collection Ambraser Heldenbuch, one of the most important works of medieval German literature, focuses largely on female characters (with notable texts being its versions of the Nibelungenlied, the Kudrun and the poem Nibelungenklage) and defends the concept of Frauenehre (female honour) against the increasing misogyny of the time. The work was written by the tax collector Hans Ried in Bolzano for emperor Maximilian I.{{cite book |last1=Haub |first1=Horst |title=Partnerschaftlichkeit im Mittelalter: Der Stricker – Ein Dichter mit modernen Ideen zu Liebe und Ehe |date=3 April 2014 |publisher=Diplomica Verlag |isbn=978-3-8428-9442-6 |page=24 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fWWQAwAAQBAJ |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=de}}{{cite journal |work=Medieval Feminist Forum |date=1996 |publisher=Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship |volume=22 |url=https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1405&context=mff |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en | title=Review: Frakes, Jerold C. Brides and Doom: Gender, Property, and Power in Medieval German Women's Epic. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994 |last=Rose |first=Kathleen| pages=43–45 | doi= 10.17077/1054-1004.1405}}{{rp|43}}{{cite book |title=Dietrichs Flucht |url=https://katalog.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/cgi-bin/titel.cgi?katkey=68866427 |publisher=De Gruyter |access-date=23 July 2022 |date=2022| doi=10.1515/9783110719123 | isbn=9783110719123 | editor-last1=Klarer | editor-first1=Mario }}]]

The Ottonian queens and empresses (including Matilda of Ringelheim, Adelaide of Italy, Theophanu, Cunigunde of Luxembourg) were among the most powerful women of the entire Middle Age.{{cite book |last1=Görich |first1=Knut |title=Imperial Ladies of the Ottonian Dynasty (reviewed by Knut Görich) |via= recensio.net |date=2021 |pages=91–93 |publisher=Springer |isbn=9783319773056 |url=https://www.recensio.net/rezensionen/zeitschriften/german-historical-institute-london-bulletin/vol-xliii-2021/2/ReviewMonograph715948032 |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en |archive-date=15 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220715211753/https://www.recensio.net/rezensionen/zeitschriften/german-historical-institute-london-bulletin/vol-xliii-2021/2/ReviewMonograph715948032 |url-status=live }}{{cite web |title=The Ottonian queen as 'consors regni' – After Empire |url=https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/after-empire/2017/08/08/the-ottonian-queen-as-consors-regni/ |website=arts.st-andrews.ac.uk |access-date=23 July 2022 |archive-date=9 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211209025106/https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/after-empire/2017/08/08/the-ottonian-queen-as-consors-regni/ |url-status=live }} The Salian empresses, although not as visible (due to certain circumstances), were also powerful. The most notable and talented was perhaps Gisela of Swabia.{{cite book |last1=Tanner |first1=Heather J. |title=Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100–1400: Moving beyond the Exceptionalist Debate |date=9 January 2019 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-030-01346-2 |page=181 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HxyDDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA181 |access-date=24 July 2022 |language=en}}{{cite web |title=Agnes |url=https://saeulen-der-macht-ingelheim.de/agnes-2/ |website=Säulen der Macht Ingelheim |access-date=24 July 2022 |language=de-DE}} Abbesses, especially those of Imperial abbeys wielded tremendous power, with influence encompassing spiritual, economic, political and intellectual realms.{{cite book |last1=Wiesner |first1=Merry E. |title=Gender, Church and State in Early Modern Germany: Essays by Merry E. Wiesner |date=4 February 2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-88688-4 |page=48 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NMbKAgAAQBAJ |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Jansen |first1=S. |title=Reading Women's Worlds from Christine de Pizan to Doris Lessing: A Guide to Six Centuries of Women Writers Imagining Rooms of Their Own |date=25 April 2011 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0-230-11881-2 |page=217 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-cBeAQAAQBAJ&pg=PT217 |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}} Matilda of Quedlinburg and Matilda of Quedlinburg were notable examples. Matilda of Quedlinburg formed a triad of regents with Adelaide of Italy and Theophanu in Otto III's reign when Matilda of Essen wielded great political power while being one of the most prominent patrons of arts of the time as well. The following centuries witnessed women who were not only patrons but artists and writers themselves.{{cite book |last1=Janson |first1=Horst Woldemar |last2=Janson |first2=Anthony F. |title=History of Art: The Western Tradition |date=2004 |publisher=Prentice Hall Professional |isbn=978-0-13-182895-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MMYHuvhWBH4C&pg=SA8-PA72-IA33 |access-date=24 July 2022 |language=en}}

Hrotsvitha, Gerberga II, Abbess of Gandersheim, Ava, Hildegard of Bingen, Elisabeth of Schönau, Herrad of Landsberg, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Mechthild of Hackeborn, Gertrude the Great, and Argula von Grumbach were among the most accomplished female writers of the entire Middle Age.{{cite book |last1=Bain |first1=Jennifer |title=The Cambridge Companion to Hildegard of Bingen |date=4 November 2021 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-47135-0 |page=79 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kWlHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA79 |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Classen |first1=Albrecht |title=The Power of a Woman's Voice in Medieval and Early Modern Literatures: New Approaches to German and European Women Writers and to Violence Against Women in Premodern Times |date=13 February 2012 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-089777-7 |page=9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OPSu6UQ_YyIC&pg=PA9 |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Stevenson |first1=Jane |title=Women Latin Poets: Language, Gender, and Authority, from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century |date=2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-818502-4 |page=24 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iiMbQDFUfPoC&pg=PA24 |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}} They pursued fields as diverse as medicine, music composition, religious writing, and government and military politics, with the prime example being the polymath Hildegard von Bingen, who has been praised as "the greatest mystic ever" and one of "the greatest intellectuals of the West".{{cite book |last1=Beer |first1=Frances |title=Women and Mystical Experience in the Middle Ages |date=1992 |publisher=Boydell Press |isbn=978-0-85115-343-8 |page=15 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e4JcL8Lm7N0C&pg=PA15 |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Bod |first1=Rens |title=World of Patterns: A Global History of Knowledge |date=10 May 2022 |publisher=JHU Press |isbn=978-1-4214-4345-4 |page=179 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k_hSEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA179 |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Rush |first1=John A. |title=Entheogens and the Development of Culture: The Anthropology and Neurobiology of Ecstatic Experience |date=30 July 2013 |publisher=North Atlantic Books |isbn=978-1-58394-624-4 |page=175 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O45aDYWOL-oC&pg=PA175 |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}} Through sources like the Annals of Quedlinburg (the chief source on Ottonian history, presided over by the abbess Adelheid and likely written by female scribes), female intellectuals left their accounts of German and European history.{{cite book |last1=Greer |first1=Sarah |title=Commemorating Power in Early Medieval Saxony: Writing and Rewriting the Past at Gandersheim and Quedlinburg |date=26 October 2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-885013-7 |page=141 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=quFDEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA141 |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Lerner |first1=Gerda |title=The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-seventy |date=1993 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-509060-4 |page=253 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7eYM2NWzQugC&pg=PA253 |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}} Ava, the first German woman poet, was also the author of the first German epic and the first woman to write in a European vernacular.{{cite book |title=The Poems of Ava |date=2003 |publisher=Liturgical Press |isbn=978-0-8146-5154-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TL8fRSo7J0sC&pg=PA1 |access-date=28 July 2022 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Schaus |first1=Margaret C. |title=Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia |date=20 September 2006 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-45967-3 |page=847 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zb22AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA847 |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}}

Salic (Frankish) law, which was applied in many regions, placed women at a disadvantage with regard to property and inheritance rights. Germanic widows required a male guardian to represent them in court. Unlike Anglo-Saxon law or the Visigothic Code, Salic law barred women and descendants from (only) female lines from royal succession.

The imperial dignity was elective. In the beginning, imperial succession was not strictly regulated. In the case of Empress Theophanu, it was expected that she would have become emperor had Otto II had no sons.{{cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=Peter H. |title=The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe's History |date=28 January 2016 |publisher=Penguin Books Limited |isbn=978-0-14-195691-6 |page=18 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I5lFCgAAQBAJ&pg=PR18 |access-date=21 August 2022 |language=en}} In many cases, the imperial throne came to descendants from a female line, such as the Salians who were descendants of Otto the Great through the female line;{{cite book |last1=Beem |first1=Charles |title=Queenship in Early Modern Europe |date=5 December 2019 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-137-00506-9 |page=151 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0B9HEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA151 |access-date=21 August 2022 |language=en}} Frederick Barbarossa who descended from the Salian through his grandmother Agnes of Waiblingen and had connection with the Hohenstaufen's powerful rival family, the Welfs, through his mother Judith of Welf;{{cite book |last1=Arnold |first1=Benjamin |title=Princes and Territories in Medieval Germany |date=29 January 2004 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-52148-2 |page=148 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n3A4Sg3Q7PMC&pg=PA148 |access-date=21 August 2022 |language=en}} Albert II, who was the son-in-law and heir of Emperor Sigismund, the last male Luxembourg through his marriage with Elizabeth of Luxembourg.{{cite book |last1=Detwiler |first1=Donald S. |title=Germany: A Short History |date=1999 |publisher=SIU Press |isbn=978-0-8093-2231-2 |page=265 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-M4dwX_X0PoC&pg=PA265 |access-date=21 August 2022 |language=en}} When the imperial throne became practically hereditary under the Habsburgs in the Early Modern period, the effort to make the princess Maria Theresa his heir by Emperor Charles VI met with many difficulties. While most European governments recognized his Pragmatic Sanction (that would allow female right of succession), in practice, Maria Theresa's inheritance was still contested. In the end, she gained the Hungarian, Bohemia and Austrian thrones while the elective imperial office went to her husband Francis.{{cite book |last1=Boggis-Rolfe |first1=Caroline |title=The Baltic Story: A Thousand-Year History of Its Lands, Sea and Peoples |date=15 April 2019 |publisher=Amberley Publishing Limited |isbn=978-1-4456-8851-0 |page=232 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p5OSDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT232 |access-date=21 August 2022 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Beem |first1=Charles |title=Queenship in Early Modern Europe |date=5 December 2019 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-137-00506-9 |page=134 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0B9HEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA134 |access-date=21 August 2022 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Armour |first1=Ian D. |title=A History of Eastern Europe 1740-1918: Empires, Nations and Modernisation |date=22 November 2012 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-84966-660-2 |page=44 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SijNDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT44 |access-date=21 August 2022 |language=en}}

The status of women in general varied, depending on the period. Jestice and Görich write that Ottonian sources reveal no misogyny and basically the society recognized the roles and abilities (except physical strength) of women, thus the commonly deemed special status of empresses and queens actually did not stand out in this context.{{sfn|Görich|2021|p=89}} According to Sagarra, social status was based on military and biological roles, a reality demonstrated in rituals associated with newborns, when female infants were given a lesser value than male infants. The use of physical force against wives was condoned until the 18th century in Bavarian law.{{cite book|last=Sagarra|first=Eda|title=A Social History of Germany: 1648 – 1914|url=https://archive.org/details/socialhistoryofg0000saga|year=1977|page=[https://archive.org/details/socialhistoryofg0000saga/page/405 405]|isbn=9780841903326 }}Judith M. Bennett and Ruth Mazo Karras, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe (2013).

The early sixteenth century epic collection Ambraser Heldenbuch, one of the most important works of medieval German literature, focuses largely on female characters (with notable texts being its versions of the Nibelungenlied, the Kudrun and the poem Nibelungenklage) and defends the concept of Frauenehre (female honour) against the increasing misogyny of the time. The work was written by the tax collector Hans Ried in Bolzano for emperor Maximilian I.{{cite book |last1=Haub |first1=Horst |title=Partnerschaftlichkeit im Mittelalter: Der Stricker - Ein Dichter mit modernen Ideen zu Liebe und Ehe |date=3 April 2014 |publisher=Diplomica Verlag |isbn=978-3-8428-9442-6 |page=24 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fWWQAwAAQBAJ |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=de}}{{cite book |title=Medieval Feminist Newsletter |date=1996 |publisher=Medieval Feminist Newsletter |page=43 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qceyAAAAIAAJ |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}}

{{gallery

| Matilda of Ringelheim.jpg

| Matilda of Ringelheim, the first Ottonian queen

| Otto_Mathilden_Kreuz.jpg

| Cross of Otto and Mathilde, commissioned by Mathilde, Abbess of Essen, a powerful kingmaker of the Ottonian time

| Hitda Codex - dedication miniature f6r - DarmBib 1640.jpg

| The eleventh century Hitda Codex, commissioned by Hitda, abbess of Meschede

|Crucifixion-vita-mors-uta-codex-clm-13601-f3v-c1025.jpg

| Uta Codex, commissioned by Abbess Uta von Niedermünster

| Hortus_Deliciarum,_Die_Philosophie_mit_den_sieben_freien_Künsten.JPG

| Hortus deliciarum, presided over by Herrad of Landsberg

| Gisela von Schwaben.JPG

| Gisela of Swabia, Salian empress

| Codex_Gisle_-_Resurrexi_et_adhuc_tecum_sum.jpg

| Codex Gisle, created by the artist Gisela of Kerzenbroeck

| Ambraserheldenbuch.jpg

| Ambraser Heldenbuch, Fol. 149. Kudrun

}}

Before the 19th century, young women lived under the economic and disciplinary authority of their fathers until they married and passed under the control of their husbands. In order to secure a satisfactory marriage, a woman needed to bring a substantial dowry. In the wealthier families, daughters received their dowry from their families, whereas the poorer women needed to work in order to save their wages so as to improve their chances to wed. Under German laws, women had property rights over their dowries and inheritances, a valuable benefit as high mortality rates resulted in successive marriages. Before 1789, the majority of women lived confined to society's private sphere, the home.Ruth-Ellen B. Joeres and Mary Jo Maynes, German women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: a social and literary history (1986). Sagarra notes that The Age of Reason did not bring much more for women: men, including Enlightenment aficionados, believed that women were naturally destined to be principally wives and mothers. Within the educated classes, there was the belief that women needed to be sufficiently educated to be intelligent and agreeable interlocutors to their husbands. However, the lower-class women were expected to be economically productive in order to help their husbands make ends meet.Eda Sagarra, A Social History of Germany: 1648 – 1914 (1977). The closure of monasteries by the Protestant Reformation, as well as the closure of other hospitals and charitable institutions, forced numerous women into marriage. While priests' concubines had previously received some degree of social acceptance, marriage did not necessarily remove the stigma of concubinage, nor could a wife claim the wage to which a female servant might be entitled. Marriages to Protestant clerics became a means for urban bourgeois families to establish their commitment to the Reformation.Marjorie Elizabeth Plummer, "'Partner in his Calamities’: Pastors' Wives, Married Nuns and the Experience of Clerical Marriage in the Early German Reformation." Gender & History 20#2 (2008): 207-227.

According to Kay Goodman, feminist scholars trace the beginning of German female literature (which paved the way for nineteenth-century feminism) to the era of Romanticism (eighteenth century). Dorothea Erxleben, the first German woman doctor, challenged the social restrictions on the role of women, that defined them only as wives, mothers and caretakers.{{cite book |last1=Powers |first1=Miriam Ute |title=Powerful Women Writers in Eighteenth Century Germany: A Comparison of the Two German Women Writers Sophie Von La Roche (Gutermann) and Dorothea Schlegel (Mendelssohn), Exploring Their Upbringing, Marriages, Love, Literary Works, and Social Atmospheres |date=2019 |publisher=Wright State University |pages=9, 10 |url=https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1404&context=mff |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}}

There was a large number of female territorial regents between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries.{{cite book |last1=Wunder |first1=Heide |last2=DUNLAP |first2=THOMAS J. |title=He is the Sun, She is the Moon: Women in Early Modern Germany |date=1998 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-38321-0 |page=154 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HX5RmYlhXs4C&pg=PA154 |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}} By the eighteenth century, generally elite women could only attain political power (such as Maria Theresa or Maria Antonia of Saxony; Catherine the Great was ethnically German but attained political power in Russia) in the name of their husbands and sons.{{cite book |last1=Krimmer |first1=Elisabeth |author-link=Elisabeth Krimmer |title=Realities and Fantasies of German Female Leadership: From Maria Antonia of Saxony to Angela Merkel |date=2019 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |isbn=978-1-64014-065-3 |page=39 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8GKtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA39 |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}}{{cite journal |last1=Baumgartner |first1=Karin |title=Realities and Fantasies of German Female Leadership: From Maria Antonia of Saxony to Angela Merkel ed. by Elisabeth Krimmer and Patricia Anne Simpson (review) |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/776935 |website=Feminist German Studies |access-date=23 July 2022 |pages=119–121 |doi=10.1353/fgs.2020.0028 |date=2020|s2cid=232675273 }} Empress Eleonore Magdalene of Neuburg was one of the most powerful Habsburg imperial consorts.

The process of elimination of gender guardianship was a complex process, that primarily benefited businesswomen.{{cite book |last1=Green |first1=David R. |last2=Owens |first2=Alastair |title=Family Welfare: Gender, Property, and Inheritance since the Seventeenth Century: Gender, Property, and Inheritance since the Seventeenth Century |date=30 June 2004 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-0-313-05808-0 |page=209 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fCxS23zgPtwC&pg=PA209 |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}} Some of the most notable German businesswomen of this period included Glückel of Hameln, Anna Vandenhoeck, Karoline Kaulla, Aletta Haniel, Helene Amalie Krupp.{{cite book |last1=Craig |first1=Béatrice |title=Women and Business since 1500: Invisible Presences in Europe and North America? |date=1 December 2015 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-137-03324-6 |page=56 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tiBHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA56 |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Fabian |first1=Bernhard |title=Selecta Anglicana: buchgeschichtliche Studien zur Aufnahme der Englischen Literatur in Deutschland im achtzehnten Jahrhundert |date=1994 |publisher=Harrassowitz |isbn=978-3-447-03535-4 |page=106 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RgAFAQAAIAAJ |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Probst |first1=Anke |title=Helene Amalie Krupp: eine Essener Unternehmerin um 1800 |date=1985 |publisher=Franz Steiner |isbn=978-3-515-04279-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3S80AAAAMAAJ |access-date=21 August 2022 |language=de}}

Katharina Henot, possibly the first German postmistress, was executed as an alleged witch in the midst of a legal battle between her family and the House of Thurn und Taxis.{{cite news |title=German 'witch' pronounced innocent... after 385 years · The Daily Edge |url=https://www.dailyedge.ie/german-witch-pronounced-innocent-after-385-years-355240-Feb2012/ |access-date=21 August 2022 |work=www.dailyedge.ie}}{{cite book |last1=Millar |first1=Peter |title=The Germans and Europe: A Personal Frontline History |date=10 December 2020 |publisher=Quercus |isbn=978-1-911350-44-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uZ5BEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT387 |access-date=21 August 2022 |language=en}} The position of Imperial Postmaster became hereditary through the female line in 1621 under Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor (it became hereditary through the male line in 1615). In 1628, Alexandrine von Taxis, née de Rye, became Imperial Postmaster.{{cite book |last1=Killy |first1=Walther |last2=Vierhaus |first2=Rudolf |title=Thibaut - Zycha |date=30 November 2011 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-096116-4 |page=34 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1NVRfl4gCw0C&pg=PA34 |access-date=21 August 2022 |language=en}}

{{gallery

| A-E Walhalla.JPG

| Bust of Amalie of Hesse-Kassel in the Walhalla. She was one of the three original enshrinees of this temple alongside Maria Theresa and Catherine the Great. There are now six.{{cite book |last1=Pohlsander |first1=Hans A. |title=National Monuments and Nationalism in 19th Century Germany |date=2008 |publisher=Peter Lang |isbn=978-3-03911-352-1 |page=137 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1TK-YaXNpH0C&pg=PA137 |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Niven |first1=B. |last2=Paver |first2=C. |title=Memorialization in Germany since 1945 |date=18 December 2009 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0-230-24850-2 |page=163 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HB2BDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA163 |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}}

| Eleonor Magdalene of the Palatinate - Merkantilmuseum, Bozen.png

| Empress Eleonore Magdalene of Neuburg

| Rathausturm Köln - Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld, Katharina Henot (0840-42).jpg

| Katharina Henot (right), probably the first German postmistress, prominent witch-hunting victim. The man depicted is Friedrich Speevon Langenfel. The deaths of Henot and other innocent victims inspired him to write his work Cautio Criminalis.{{cite book |last1=Weyland |first1=Uli |title=Strafsache Vatikan: Jesus klagt an |date=2002 |publisher=Verlag Das Weiße Pferd |isbn=978-3-9808322-2-9 |page=345 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JKcztmtae3UC&pg=PA345 |access-date=21 August 2022 |language=de}}

| Alexandrine von Taxis.jpg

| Alexandrine von Taxis, imperial postmaster

| Aletta_Haniel.jpg

| Aletta Haniel, prominent trade and transport magnate

| MadameKaulla-1.jpg

| Karoline Kaulla, one of the most prominent Court Jews of her time

}}

The most notable women associated with the Romantic movement was the composer, illustrator and writer Bettina von Arnim and the poet Karoline von Günderrode, who formed a homosocial network between female intellectuals.{{cite book |last1=Römhild |first1=Juliane |title=Femininity and Authorship in the Novels of Elizabeth von Arnim: At Her Most Radiant Moment |date=25 June 2014 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-61147-704-7 |page=59 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-p_0AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA59 |access-date=28 July 2022 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Schade |first1=Richard E. |title=Lessing Yearbook: 1997 |date=1998 |publisher=Wayne State University Press |isbn=978-0-8143-2814-9 |page=224 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZMBD6r4EMAwC&pg=PA224 |access-date=28 July 2022 |language=en}}

In the nineteenth century, the literary salons (generally presided over by women) played a great role in civilizing society.{{cite book |last1=Cahan |first1=David |title=Helmholtz: A Life in Science |date=11 September 2018 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-54916-3 |page=476 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m-tmDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA476 |access-date=23 July 2022 |language=en}} Right under the shadow of Bismarck, the salonists Marie von Schleinitz and Anna von Helmholtz operated successful and influential scholarly circles predominated by liberal ideas.{{cite book |last1=Freund |first1=Michael |title=Abendglanz Europas: 1870-1914. Bilder und Texte |date=1967 |publisher=Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pmqgAAAAMAAJ&q=%22+Wer+in+den+exklusiven+Salon+der+Frau+von+Schleinitz+zugelassen+war,+hatte+das+Zulassungsexamen+f%C3%BCr+die+h%C3%B6here+Gesellschaft+Preu%C3%9Fens+bestanden.%22 |page=200 |access-date=1 November 2020}}{{cite book |last1=Wilhelmy |first1=Petra |title=Der Berliner Salon im 19. Jahrhundert (1780-1914) |date=2011 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=9783110853964 |pages=287–289 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L8sJ-Lzhp10C&pg=PA288 |access-date=1 November 2020}}

Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann were the two notable female composers of the nineteenth century, although they only began to receive recognition long after their deaths.{{cite book |last1=Prys |first1=Renee P. |last2=Cherry |first2=Mary Jane |last3=Popham |first3=Susan |last4=Macnabb |first4=Elizabeth L. |title=Transforming the Disciplines: A Women's Studies Primer |date=31 October 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-18755-2 |page=49 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3QbfAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA49 |access-date=28 July 2022 |language=en}}

Emmy Noether, often considered the greatest female mathematician of all eras, developed new branches of algebra.{{cite book |last1=Lederman |first1=Leon M. |last2=Hill |first2=Christopher T. |title=Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe |date=29 November 2011 |publisher=Prometheus Books |isbn=978-1-61592-041-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e9AQ5zH13qQC&pg=PA67 |access-date=28 July 2022 |language=en}}

Amélie de Dietrich was an important industrialist in the Napoleonic era.{{cite book |last1=Derdak |first1=Thomas |last2=Grant |first2=Tina |title=International Directory of Company Histories |date=2000 |publisher=St. James Press |isbn=978-1-55862-390-3 |page=157 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YhgeAQAAMAAJ |access-date=21 August 2022 |language=en}} Elisabeth Berenberg, the heiress of the Berenberg family, was a prominent banker.Percy Ernst Schramm, Neun Generationen: Dreihundert Jahre deutscher "Kulturgeschichte" im Lichte der Schicksale einer Hamburger Bürgerfamilie (1648–1948). Vol. I and II, Göttingen 1963/64."Johann Hinrich Gossler," in Hamburgische Biografie-Personenlexikon, Vol. 2, ed. by Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke, pp. 153–154 Therese Krupp played an important role in the development of the Krupp business dynasty.{{cite book |last1=Hast |first1=Adele |title=International Directory of Company Histories |date=1991 |publisher=St. James Press |isbn=978-1-55862-060-5 |page=85 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c3kRAQAAMAAJ |access-date=21 August 2022 |language=en}}

{{gallery

| Marie Schleinitz 03.jpg

| Marie von Schleinitz, the most powerful salonist in Berlin in Bismarck's time. "Anyone who was admitted to Frau von Schleinitz's exclusive salon had passed the admission exam for Prussia's higher society".{{sfn|Freund|1967|p=200}}

| Rosa Luxemburg.jpg

| Rosa Luxemburg, Polish-German revolutionary

| Franz Hanfstaengl - Clara Schumann (1857).jpg

| Clara Schumann, composer and pianist

|Fanny_Hensel_1842.jpg

|Fanny Mendelssohn

|Noether.jpg

|Emmy Noether

|Elisabeth Berenberg.jpg

|Elisabeth Berenberg

|Bettina von Arnim (colored portrait).jpg

|Bettina von Arnim

}}

File:Richter-"Mein Nest"-1869.jpg, 1869, a Romantic image of the emerging inner-directed nuclear familyNipperdey, p 104.]]

A major social change 1750-1850 Depending on the region, was the end of the traditional whole house" ("ganzes Haus") system, in which the owner's family lived together in one large building with the servants and craftsmen he employed.Marion W. Gray, Productive men, reproductive women: the agrarian household and the emergence of separate spheres during the German Enlightenment (2000). They reorganized into separate living arrangements. No longer did the owner's wife take charge of all the females in the different families in the whole house. In the new system, farm owners became more professionalized and profit-oriented. They managed the fields and the household exterior according to the dictates of technology, science, and economics. Farm wives supervised family care and the household interior, to which strict standards of cleanliness, order, and thrift were applied. The result was the spread of formerly urban bourgeois values into rural Germany.Marion W. Gray and June K. Burton, "Bourgeois Values in the Rural Household, 1810–1840: The New Domesticity in Germany," The Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, 1750-1850 23 (1994): 449–56.

The lesser families were now living separately on wages. They had to provide for their own supervision, health, schooling, and old age. At the same time, because of the demographic transition, there were far fewer children, allowing for much greater attention to each child. Increasingly the middle-class family valued its privacy and its inward direction, shedding too-close links with the world of work.Nipperdey, ch 2.Well Furthermore, the working classes, the middle classes, and the upper classes became much more separate physically, psychologically and politically. This allowed for the emergence of working-class organizations. It also allowed for declining religiosity among the working class who were no longer monitored on a daily basis.Eda Sagarra, An introduction to Nineteenth-century Germany (1980) pp 231-33.

The era saw the Demographic Transition take place in Germany. It was a transition from high birth rates and high death rates to low birth and death rates as the country developed from a pre-industrial to a modernized agriculture and supported a fast-growing industrialized urban economic system. In previous centuries, the shortage of land meant that not everyone could marry, and marriages took place after age 25. After 1815, increased agricultural productivity meant a larger food supply, and a decline in famines, epidemics, and malnutrition. This allowed couples to marry earlier, and have more children. Arranged marriages became uncommon as young people were now allowed to choose their own marriage partners, subject to a veto by the parents. The high birthrate was offset by a very high rate of infant mortality and emigration, especially after about 1840, mostly to the German settlements in the United States, plus periodic epidemics and harvest failures. The upper and middle classes began to practice birth control, and a little later so too did the peasants.Nipperdey, Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck: 1800–1866 (1996) pp. 87-92, 99

{{See also|Feminism in Germany}}

Germany's unification process after 1871 was heavily dominated by men and gave priority to the "Fatherland" theme and related male issues, such as military prowess.Brigitte Young, Triumph of the fatherland: German unification and the marginalization of women (1999). Nevertheless, middle-class women enrolled in the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine, the Union of German Feminist Organizations (BDF). Founded in 1894, it grew to include 137 separate women's rights groups from 1907 until 1933, when the Nazi regime disbanded the organization.{{cite book|last=Guido|first=Diane J.|title=The German League for the Prevention of Women's Emancipation: Anti-Feminism in Germany, 1912-1920|year=2010|page=3}} The BDF gave national direction to the proliferating women's organizations that had sprung up since the 1860s. From the beginning the BDF was a bourgeois organization, its members working toward equality with men in such areas as education, financial opportunities, and political life. Working-class women were not welcome; they were organized by the Socialists.{{cite book|first=Patricia M. |last=Mazón|title=Gender and the Modern Research University: The Admission of Women to German Higher Education, 1865-1914|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_SKPLZtwulQC&pg=PA53|year=2003|publisher=Stanford U.P.|page=53|isbn=9780804746410}}

Formal organizations for promoting women's rights grew in numbers during the Wilhelmine period. German feminists began to network with feminists from other countries, and participated in the growth of international organizations.

In Sex in Education, Or, A Fair Chance for Girls (1873), American educator Edward H. Clarke researched educational standards in Germany. He found that by the 1870s, formal education for middle and upper-class girls was the norm in Germany's cities, although it ended at the onset of menarche, which typically happened when a girl was 15 or 16. After this, her education might continue at home with tutors or occasional lectures. Clarke concluded that "Evidently the notion that a boy's education and a girl's education should be the same, and that the same means the boy's, has not yet penetrated the German mind. This has not yet evolved the idea of the identical education of the sexes."{{cite book|last=Clarke|first=Edward H.|title=Sex in Education, Or, a Fair Chance for Girls|year=1873|publisher=Project Gutenberg|page=173|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18504/18504-h/18504-h.htm}} Education for peasant girls was not formal, and they learned farming and housekeeping tasks from their parents. This prepared them for a life of harsh labor on the farm. On a visit to Germany, Clarke observed that: {{blockquote|"German peasant girls and women work in the field and shop with and like men. None who have seen their stout and brawny arms can doubt the force with which they wield the hoe and axe. I once saw, in the streets of Coblentz, a woman and a donkey yoked to the same cart, while a man, with a whip in his hand, drove the team. The bystanders did not seem to look upon the moving group as if it were an unusual spectacle.{{cite book|last=Clarke|first=Edward H.|title=Sex in Education, Or, a Fair Chance for Girls|year=1873|publisher=Project Gutenberg|page=178|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18504/18504-h/18504-h.htm}}}}

Young middle-class and upper-class women began to pressure their families and the universities to allow them access to higher education. Anita Augspurg, the first woman university graduate in Germany, graduated with a law degree from the University of Zurich, Switzerland. Several other German women, unable to gain admittance to German universities, also went to the University of Zurich to continue their education. In 1909, German universities finally allowed women to gain admittance—but women graduates were unable to practice their profession, as they were "barred from private practice and public administrative posts for lawyers". The first women's legal aid agency was established by Marie Stritt in 1894; by 1914, there were 97 such legal aid agencies, some employing women law graduates.{{cite book|last=Clark|first=Linda L.|title=Women and Achievement in Nineteenth-Century Europe|year=2008|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521650984|page=231}}

Lower-middle-class women often found career roles as dietitians and dietary assistants. The new jobs were enabled by the rapid development of nutritional science and food chemistry. Physicians, furthermore, paid much more attention to diet, emphasizing that the combination of scientific selection of ingredients and high quality preparation was therapeutic for patients with metabolic disturbances. Their social origins in the lower middle class meant dietitians never received professional status.Ulrike Thoms, "Zwischen Kochtopf und Krankenbett. Diätassistentinnen in Deutschland 1890-1980," [Between the cooking pot and the sick bed: dietetics in Germany, 1890-1980] Medizin, Gesellschaft und Geschichte. (2004), Vol. 23, pp 133-163.

The Weimar era (1919-1933) was in general a favorable time for German women, although there were severe economic hardships during the early inflation years, and the depression years at the end. When the Republican governments suddenly and unexpectedly gave all women the right to vote in 1919, conservative women's groups that had opposed suffrage now reversed positions and threw themselves into their new civic duties, with an emphasis on educational programs on how to vote. The largest of all women's groups, the Evangelische Frauenhilfe (Protestant Women's Auxiliary) hurriedly and successfully mobilized its membership. Turnout of women was 82 percent in January 1919.{{cite journal | last1 = Woodfin | first1 = Carol | year = 2004 | title = Reluctant Democrats: The Protestant Women's Auxiliary and the German National Assembly Elections of 1919 | journal = Journal of the Historical Society | volume = 4 | issue = 1| pages = 71–112 | doi=10.1111/j.1529-921x.2004.00087.x}}

Educational opportunities that began to open up in the 1880s and 1890s now came to fruition, and women began graduating universities and technical schools in significant numbers.Despina Stratigakos, "'I Myself Want to Build': Women, Architectural Education and the Integration of Germany’s Technical Colleges." Paedagogica Historica 43#6 (2007): 727-756. They began professional careers, but typically they were cut short by the reactionary policies of the Nazi regime after 1933.Marynel Ryan Van Zee, "Shifting Foundations: women economists in the Weimar Republic." Women's History Review 18#1 (2009): 97-119.

{{main|Women in Nazi Germany}}

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-14418, Berlin, Goebbels bei Ausstellung "Die Frau".jpg, March 18, 1933, with Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels]]

Historians have begun turning their attention to the role of women in the Nazi years.Adelheid Von Saldern, "Innovative Trends in Women's and Gender Studies of the National Socialist Era." German History 27#1 (2009): 84-112.Atina Grossmann, "Feminist debates about women and National Socialism." Gender & History 3#3 (1991): 350-358.

Women in Nazi Germany were subject to doctrines of the Nazi Party promoting exclusion of women from the political world.{{cite web|url=http://www.histoire-en-questions.fr/deuxieme%20guerre%20mondiale/allemagne%20femmes.html |title=La femme sous le regime Nazi |publisher=Histoire-en-questions.fr |access-date=June 21, 2013}}{{cite book|last=Franz-Willing|first=Georg|author-link=Georg Franz-Willing|title=Die Hitlerbewegung.|year=1962|publisher=R. v. Deckers Verlag G. Schenck, Hamburg}} While the Nazi party decreed that "women could be admitted to neither the Party executive nor to the Administrative Committee", this did not prevent numerous women from becoming party members. The Nazi doctrine elevated the role of German men, emphasizing their combat skills and the brotherhood among male compatriots.{{cite web|title=le-iiie-reich-et-les-femmes|url=http://deuxiemeguerremondia.forumactif.com/t7692-le-iiie-reich-et-les-femmes|access-date=August 21, 2011}}

Women lived within a regime characterized by a policy of confining them to the roles of mother and spouse and excluding them from all positions of responsibility, notably in the political and academic spheres. The policy of Nazism contrasted starkly with the evolution of emancipation under the Weimar Republic, and is equally distinguishable from the patriarchal and conservative attitude under the German Empire, 1871–1919. The regimentation of women at the heart of satellite organizations of the Nazi Party, as the {{Lang|de|Bund Deutscher Mädel}} or the {{Lang|de|NS-Frauenschaft}}, had the ultimate goal of encouraging the cohesion of the "people's community" {{Lang|de|Volksgemeinschaft}}.

First and foremost in the implied Nazi doctrine concerning women was the notion of motherhood and procreation for those of child-bearing ages.Stephenson (2001). Women in Nazi Germany, p. 16. The Nazi model woman did not have a career, but was responsible for the education of her children and for housekeeping. Women only had a limited right to training revolving around domestic tasks, and were, over time, restricted from teaching in universities, from medical professions and from serving in political positions within the NSDAP.Stephenson (2001). Women in Nazi Germany, pp. 17-20. Many restrictions were lifted once wartime necessity dictated changes to policy later in the regime's existence.

File:Deutsches Frauenwerk M1-102 (Frank & Reif Stuttgart) obverse.JPG, a Nazi association for women founded in October 1933]]

File:Mutterkreuz1940.jpg during World War II]]

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1973-034-56, Magda Goebbels.jpg (1941)]]

Historians have paid special attention to the efforts by Nazi Germany to reverse the gains women made before 1933, especially in the relatively liberal Weimar Republic.{{cite book | first1=Renate |last1=Bridenthal |first2=Atina |last2=Grossmann | first3=Marion |last3=Kaplan | title=When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany | year=1984}} It appears the role of women in Nazi Germany changed according to circumstances. Theoretically the Nazis believed that women must be subservient to men, avoid careers, devote themselves to childbearing and child-rearing, and be a helpmate of the traditional dominant father in the traditional family.{{cite book | first=Jill |last=Stephenson | title=Women in Nazi Germany |year=2001}}

However, before 1933, women played important roles in the Nazi organization and were allowed some autonomy to mobilize other women. After Hitler came to power in 1933, the activist women were replaced by bureaucratic women who emphasized feminine virtues, marriage, and childbirth. As Germany prepared for war, large numbers were incorporated into the public sector and with the need for full mobilization of factories by 1943, all women were required to register with the employment office. Women's wages remained unequal and women were denied positions of leadership or control.{{cite book | first=Claudia |last=Koonz | title=Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family and Nazi Politics | url=https://archive.org/details/mothersinfatherl00koon | url-access=registration | year=1988|publisher=St. Martins Press |isbn=9780312022563 }} Large numbers of German women played subordinate roles, such as secretaries and file clerks, in wartime agencies, including guards in the system of concentration camps, extermination camps, and the Holocaust.Rachel Century, Dictating the Holocaust: Female administrators of the Third Reich (PhD Dissertation, University of London, 2012) [http://pure.rhul.ac.uk/portal/files/16138925/2013CenturyRphd.pdf online] {{dead link|date=November 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}. Bibliography pp 277-309

With the exception of Reichsführerin Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, no women were allowed to carry out official functions; however, some exceptions stood out in the regime, 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.

A few women were exempt from the constraints for propaganda purposes. The Nazi regime emphasized technological advances, especially in aviation, and made female aviators the centerpiece of their publicity. These "flying ambassadors" were sent abroad as citizen pilots promoting Berlin's economic and political agenda. The proliferation of German women sports pilots in the 1920s and early 1930s camouflaged the much larger scale quiet training of male sports pilots as future Luftwaffe officers. The overwhelmingly male aviation environment was hostile to the presence of women but reluctantly went along with the propaganda efforts. Berlin capitalized on the enormous attention these women received, citing them as evidence of the greatness of German aviation. But by 1935 Germany had built up its Luftwaffe and was interested only in displaying power through its aviation and had less use for the women. However, in 1944, with the declaration of "total war," women were recruited to fly for the Luftwaffe's ferrying unit and to work as gliding instructors.Evelyn Zegenhagen, "'The Holy Desire to Serve the Poor and Tortured Fatherland': German Women Motor Pilots of the Inter-War Era and Their Political Mission." German Studies Review (2007): 579-596. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/27668374 in JSTOR] Hanna Reitsch (1912–79) was Germany's famous female aviator. During the Nazi era, she served as a loyal representative internationally. She was not especially political. After the war, she was sponsored by the West German foreign office as a technical adviser in Ghana and elsewhere in the 1960s.{{cite journal | last1 = Rieger | first1 = Bernhard | year = 2008 | title = Hanna Reitsch (1912–1979) The Global Career of a Nazi Celebrity | journal = German History | volume = 26 | issue = 3| pages = 383–405 | doi=10.1093/gerhis/ghn026}}

Many women filled staff roles at the heart of the Nazi system, including minor posts in the Nazi concentration camps.Wendy Lower, Hitler's furies: German women in the Nazi killing fields pp 97-144. A few were secretly engaged in the German resistance and paid with their lives, such as Libertas Schulze-Boysen and Sophie Scholl.Nathan Stoltzfus, Resistance of the heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse protest in Nazi Germany (2001).

In 1944-45 more than 500,000 women were volunteer uniformed auxiliaries in the German armed forces (Wehrmacht). About the same number served in civil aerial defense, 400,000 volunteered as nurses, and many more replaced drafted men in the wartime economy.{{cite journal | last1 = Hagemann | first1 = Karen | year = 2011 | title = Mobilizing Women for War: The History, Historiography, and Memory of German Women's War Service in the Two World Wars | journal = Journal of Military History | volume = 75 | issue = 4| pages = 1055–1094 }} In the Luftwaffe they served in combat roles helping to operate the anti—aircraft systems that shot down Allied bombers.{{cite journal | first=D'Ann |last=Campbell | title=Women in Combat: The World War Two Experience in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and the Soviet Union | journal = Journal of Military History | date=April 1993 | volume =57 |issue=2 |pages =301–323 | url = http://americanhistoryprojects.com/downloads/ww2/combat.htm | doi=10.2307/2944060|jstor=2944060 }}

Until 1977, married women in West Germany could not work without permission from their husbands.{{cite web| url = https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-12-07/women-germanys-east-earn-close-what-men-do-can-we-thank-socialism| title = Women in Germany's east earn close to what men do. Can we thank socialism for that? {{!}} The World from PRX}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.euronews.com/amp/2019/01/17/germany-celebrates-100-years-of-women-s-suffrage|title = Germany celebrates 100 years of women's suffrage|date = 17 January 2019}}

From 1919 through the 1980s, women comprised about 10 percent of the Bundestag. The Green Party had a 50 percent quota, so that increased the numbers. Since the late 1990s, women have reached a critical mass in German politics.

Women's increased presence in government since 2000 is due to generational change. They have completed a long march from the basic to more advanced institutions. While the left took the lead, the conservative CDU/CSU worked hard to catch up in the representation of women.Sarah Elise Wiliarty, The CDU and the politics of gender in Germany: Bringing women to the party (2010). By winning more than 30% of the Bundestag seats in 1998, women reached a critical mass in leadership roles in the coalition of the Social Democratic and Green parties. At the state level, the proportion of women ranged from 20 to 40 percent. Women in high office have pushed through important reforms in areas of gender and justice; research and technology; family and career; health, welfare, and consumer protection; sustainable development; foreign aid; migration; and human rights.Joyce Mushaben, "Girl Power, Mainstreaming and Critical Mass: Women's Leadership and Policy Paradigm Shift in Germany's Red-Green Coalition, 1998–20021." Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 27#1-2 (2005): 135-161.{{cite journal | last1 = Meyer | first1 = Birgit | year = 2003 | title = Much ado about nothing? Political representation policies and the influence of women parliamentarians in Germany | journal = Review of Policy Research | volume = 20 | issue = 3| pages = 401–422 | doi=10.1111/1541-1338.00028}}

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was Germany's chancellor from 2005 to 2021, is widely popular among the public and admired as well by commentators who note her success in building coalitions, in focusing on the issues of the day, and changing her position as needed.Myra Marx Ferree, "Angela Merkel: What does it mean to run as a woman?." German Politics & Society 24#1 (2006): 93-107.

• Bonn Women's Museum
• Economic history of Germany
• EMMA (magazine)
• Feminale
• Feminism in Germany
• Women in Germany
• Women in Nazi Germany
• Women's history

• Abrams, Lynn and Elizabeth Harvey, eds. Gender Relations in German History: Power, Agency, and Experience from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century (1997).
• Evans, Richard J. The feminist movement in Germany, 1894-1933 (1976).
• {{cite journal | last1 = Evans | first1 = Richard J | year = 1976 | title = Feminism and Female Emancipation in Germany 1870–1945: Sources, Methods, and Problems of Research | journal = Central European History | volume = 9 | issue = 4| pages = 323–351 | doi = 10.1017/S0008938900018288 | s2cid = 145356083 }}
• Frevert, Ute. Women in German History from Bourgeois Emancipation to Sexual Liberation (1989).
• Goldberg, Ann. "Women And Men: 1760–1960." in Helmut Walser Smith, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Modern German History (2011): 71– 90.
• Harvey, Elizabeth. Gender Relations in German History: Power, Agency, and Experience from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century (1997).
• Zwicker, Lisa and Jason Rose. “Marriage or Profession? Marriage and Profession? Marriage Patterns Among Highly Successful Women of Jewish Descent and Other Women in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century German-Speaking Central Europe.” Central European History 53, no. 4 (2020): 703–40. doi:10.1017/S0008938920000539.

• Anthony, Katharine Susan. Feminism in Germany and Scandinavia (New York: 1915). [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_EUEKAAAAIAAJ/page/n10 online]
• Fout, John C. German Women in the Nineteenth Century: A Social History (1984) [https://www.questia.com/library/7126752/german-women-in-the-nineteenth-century-a-social-history online]
• Heal, Bridget. The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Early Modern Germany: Protestant and Catholic Piety, 1500–1648 (2007)
• Joeres, Ruth-Ellen B., and Mary Jo Maynes. German Women in the 18th and 19th Centuries (1985).
• Kaplan, Marion A. The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family, and Identity in Imperial Germany (1991).
• Nipperdey, Thomas. Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck: 1800–1866 (1996). [https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=FYMABAAAQBAJ excerpt]
• Ogilvie, Sheilagh. Germany: A New Social and Economic History, Vol. 1: 1450–1630 (1995) 416pp; Germany: A New Social and Economic History, Vol. 2: 1630–1800 (1996), 448pp
• Ogilvie, Sheilagh. A Bitter Living: Women, Markets, and Social Capital in Early Modern Germany (2003) DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205548.001.0001 online
• Ogilvie, Sheilagh, and Richard Overy. Germany: A New Social and Economic History Volume 3: Since 1800 (2004)
• Ozment, Steven. Flesh and Spirit: Private Life in Early Modern Germany (2001).
• Prelinger, Catherine M. Charity, Challenge, and Change Religious Dimensions of the Mid-Nineteenth-Century Women's Movement in Germany (1987).
• Rowold, Katharina. The educated woman: minds, bodies, and women's higher education in Britain, Germany, and Spain, 1865-1914 (2011).
• Sagarra, Eda. A Social History of Germany 1648–1914 (1977, 2002 edition).
• Sagarra, Eda. An Introduction to 19th century Germany (1980) pp 231–72

{{Further|Women in Nazi Germany#Further reading}}

• Brodie, Thomas. "German Society at War, 1939–45." Contemporary European History 27.3 (2018): 500-516 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960777318000255
• Harsch, Donna. Revenge of the Domestic: Women, the Family, and Communism in the German Democratic Republic (2008)
• Koonz, Claudia. Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, Family Life, and Nazi Ideology, 1919–1945. (1986). 640 pp. The major study
• {{cite journal | last1 = Mason | first1 = Tim | year = 1976 | title = Women in Germany, 1925-1940: Family, Welfare and Work. Part I. | journal = History Workshop | volume = 1 | pages = 74–113 | doi=10.1093/hwj/1.1.74}}
• Nelson, Cortney. "Our Weapon is the Wooden Spoon:" Motherhood, Racism, and War: The Diverse Roles of Women in Nazi Germany." (2014).
• Stephenson, Jill. Women in Nazi Germany. Routledge, 2014.
• Stibbe, Matthew. Women in the Third Reich, 2003, 208 pp.

• Hagemann, Karen, and Jean H. Quataert, eds. Gendering Modern German History: Rewriting Historiography (2008)
• {{cite journal | last1 = Hagemann | first1 = Karen | year = 2007 | title = From the Margins to the Mainstream? Women's and Gender History in Germany | journal = Journal of Women's History | volume = 19 | issue = 1| pages = 193–199 | doi=10.1353/jowh.2007.0014| s2cid = 143068850 }}

Women

Category:Women in Germany