LEADER 04110cam a2200421Ia 4500001 28225 005 20240621143536.0 008 980414s1993 xx r 000 0 eng d 035 (OCoLC)38198346 035 28225 049 LHMA 040 LHM |beng |erda |cLHM 090 HQ800.2 |b.H45 1993 100 1 Heineman, Elizabeth D., |d1962- 245 10 "Standing alone" : |bsingle women from Nazi Germany to the Federal Republic / |cby Elizabeth Diane Heineman. 264 1 [Place of publication not identified] : |b[publisher not identified], |c1993. 300 ix, 418 pages : |billustrations 336 text |btxt |2rdacontent 337 unmediated |bn |2rdamedia 338 volume |bnc |2rdacarrier 502 Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1993. 504 Includes bibliographical references. 520 This study examines German women who experienced the Second World War, the postwar crisis, and reconstruction West Germany without husbands by their sides. It considers unwed, divorced, separated, and widowed women both as a population "created" by the Second World War and as a group that played a crucial role in defining wartime and postwar society. The dissertation addresses state policy, single women's lived experience, and their symbolic functions. In its chapters on the Nazi era, the dissertation examines war and population policy as factors shaping women's marital status, single women who posed a threat to the goal of fully regulated social and sexual behavior, and single women's participation in the war effort. The study then turns to single women's experiences during the collapse and military occupation and to the ways single women's activities shaped Germans' understanding of the crisis years. The final section of the dissertation discusses single women and West German law, their lived experience in the face of decreasing visibility, and their impact on subsequent generations. "Standing Alone" adds a crucial angle to feminist scholars' consideration of difference and the poststructuralist challenge. The study argues that marital status is, for women, a critical category of difference. Individuals change their marital status, however, with far greater ease than they change their gender, racial, or even class identities. Because marital status is central to women's identity yet more flexible than other categories of difference, this work provides a case study of the fluid nature of difference. The dissertation also proposes a new understanding of Germans' ways of dealing with the Nazi past. The history of German women during the collapse and occupation offered Germans material with which they could construct a sympathetic understanding of their immediate past. In its popularized form, single women's history emphasized victimhood and the "phoenix rising from the ashes"; it did not include awkward issues about complicity with the Nazi regime. Recollections of single women, however, could also deflect attention from the Nazi past in a manner more damaging to single women. By symbolizing sexual chaos, single women gave West Germans the opportunity to interpret the military occupation, and not the Nazi period, as Germany's moral nadir. 530 Electronic version(s) |bavailable internally at USHMM. 533 Photocopy. |bAnn Arbor, Mich. : |cUMI Dissertation Services, |d1997. |e23 cm. 590 Dissertations and Theses 591 Record updated by Marcive processing 21 June 2024 650 0 Single women |zGermany |xHistory |y20th century. 650 0 Single women |zGermany |xSocial conditions |y20th century. 650 0 Women |zGermany (West) |xSocial conditions. 650 0 National socialism and women. 650 7 Women. |2homoit 650 7 Womyn. |2homoit 856 41 |uhttp://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=746006591&sid=15&Fmt=6&clientId=54617&RQT=309&VName=PQD |zElectronic version from ProQuest 956 41 |uhttp://dc.ushmm.org/library/bib28225/9415320.pdf |zHosted by USHMM. 852 0 |bstacks |hHQ800.2 .H45 1993 852 |bwww 852 |bebook