Building the Volksgemeinschaft: Women Doctors Working for the BDM and Reichsmütterdienst

That the construction and preservation of the Volksgemeinschaft was one of the main tenets of Nazism was no secret.  Women doctors working for the Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls; BDM) and the Reichsmütterdienst (Reich Mother Service), who had previously participated in population policy work that coincided with the goals of the Weimar state, grasped this fairly quickly after Hitler came to power.  In this paper, I argue that female physicians advocated that, because they came into daily contact with living members of the Volk, they were among the “most able” individuals to fulfill this task.  They usurped Nazi rhetoric focused on creating a healthy Volksgemeinschaft by showcasing their abilities to serve as a “doctor-mother” or Volksärztin (people’s doctor) under Nazism.  To help execute the aims of population policy under National Socialism, women doctors emphasized their unique abilities to develop personal relationships with patients and to awaken and educate women’s motherly instincts.  Women doctors could lead the way to the Volksgemeinschaft through example.  This paper will examine several instances in which they served as model mothers and supporters of the regime while working with women and children in the BDM and Reichsmütterdienst.  While female physicians found room for their medical and educational voices under a strict totalitarian regime, the Nazi state also benefited by relying on some women doctors to indoctrinate women and children to become supporters of the regime.