US women flew a lot of planes from place to place in the US, some were killed in accidents.

Originally Posted by perseus

My Mother used to tell me that the American army women sent over to the UK were amazed at what the British Women were expected to do. Women also flew aircraft between manufacturer and bases. The Russians also expected a lot, putting women in the front line air squadrons and tanks, although perhaps they were desperate for personnel, and less concerned about life than gender equality!

This was probably the Germans greatest mistake, not putting women to work and supporting tasks in the military, although they relaxed this rule when it was too late.

Both Britian and especially the USSR did so out of utter necessity. As we both know England stood alone for ~ a year. The USSR could not afford to lose due to Hitler's racist policy's against the Slav's. I know the USSR had many fighter-bomber female pilots as well. One famous group was called the night witches. They had woman driving and manning tanks as well. The Soviets tactics improved as the war dragged on but they were never overly concerned about causalities if it brought them a victory. In many of their big victories Stalingrad, Kursk, battle of the (Dnieper + Kiev) they lost many times over the number of men than did the Ostheer.
I don't remember hearing of German woman in combat roles? But they became ridiculous near the end pressing 13 years olds into service.

Originally Posted by perseus

This was probably the Germans greatest mistake, not putting women to work and supporting tasks in the military, although they relaxed this rule when it was too late.

This is a widespread but wrong assumption : more women were put to work in Germany than in Britain and the US .

Order of rank :

1)SU

2) Germany

3) Britain

4) US

Originally Posted by lljadw

This is a widespread but wrong assumption : more women were put to work in Germany than in Britain and the US .

Order of rank :

1)SU

2) Germany

3) Britain

4) US

Good point however I think we were referring to woman taking on military related roles, not roles in industry.

According to an article in a Danish history magazine, these figures are mentioned with regard to female service in the armed forces.

SU: 800,000

UK: 600,000

Germany: 500,000

USA. 350,000

These figures from 1945 are estimated.

Originally Posted by lljadw

This is a widespread but wrong assumption : more women were put to work in Germany than in Britain and the US .

Order of rank :

1)SU

2) Germany

3) Britain

4) US

the first part refers only to the UK, the latter regarding German workers seems to confirm what Geoffrey Regan wrote in his 'More Great Military blunders' which was my original source.

[UK] Women in WW2 - 1945:

The war in Europe ended in May 1945. At this time there were 460,000 women in the military and over 6.5 million in civilian war work. Without their contribution, our war effort would have been severely weakened and it is probable that we would not have been able to fight to our greatest might without the input from women.

Ironically, in Nazi Germany, Hitler had forbidden German women to work in German weapons factories as he felt that a woman’s place was at home. His most senior industry advisor, Albert Speer, pleaded with Hitler to let him use German female workers but right up to the end, Hitler refused. Hitler was happy for captured foreign women to work as slaves in his war factories but not German. Many of these slave workers, male and female, deliberately sabotaged the work that they did - so in their own way they helped the war effort of the Allies.

There is also a Wiki on 'Women in Nazi Germany

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.[46]

so it's 6.5 million workers in the UK verses 1.2 million in Germany out of a larger population.

These are debunked by Overy and Tooze (The Wages of Destruction)

From Overy :

% of women in the workforce


Germany :

1939:37.4

1940: 41.4

1941: 42.6

1942: 46

1943: 48

1944: 51.6

Britain (same years):

26.4

26.4

29.8

33.2

36.1

37.7


US:
1940: 25?8

1941 : 26.6

1942: 28.8

1943 :34.2

1944: 35.7


Two other points :

1) the distinction between arms industry and civilian war work is something artificial : already in 1940 more than 50 % of the German workforce was working for the WM


2)Any article using Speer as a source should be discarded: there are a lot of proofs that he was an expert in lying.


About the number of women in the armed forces : the figure of 500000 for Germany seems correct, but I am curious about sources for the numbers in the US and Britain .I doubt that there are any reliable sources for the number of 800000 in the SU .

Originally Posted by JOC

Good point however I think we were referring to woman taking on military related roles, not roles in industry.

I am not sure I agree with that as any job where a woman replaces a man in order to free up that man for military service could be considered a military related role.

Originally Posted by MontyB

I am not sure I agree with that as any job where a woman replaces a man in order to free up that man for military service could be considered a military related role.

Piloting an aircraft and being a part of an AA battery is not quite the same as tightening bolts or soldering wires. My perspective.

Lets face it during the war every one had to do some thing or other, even the Queen Elizabeth was driving trucks and is one of the few people in public office that had served in WW2. I will say that there was vast input by the women of the UK that kept the armed forces going.

In Germany Hitler was not worried to much about the German women working in factories when he had some eight million slaves from all over Europe forced to work in the factories