Oldal 210 [210]
OCR
208 Magdalena Zakowska The Female War: The Image of the Soviet Union in NS-Frauen-Warte The next question to answer is whether the content of NS-Frauen-Warte, the official Nazi-approved journal for women, tended to reveal more similarities with ‘traditional’ satirical newspapers or with the one more explicitly driven by Nazi ideology—Der Stiirmer. Paradoxically, in my opinion the differences between the journals for the general public and NS-Frauen-Warte are much more significant than the differences between Simplicissimus, Kladderadatch and Der Stiirmer. The magazines for the general public contained discourses on great politics, reflected in the most important events on the international stage: alliances, conferences, negotiations and military campaigns. NS-Frauen-Warte spread knowledge about the supposed daily life in the Soviet Union: the situation of children, customs, material and hygienic conditions, as well as, with respect to internal politics, the Bolshevik regime's persecution of the Russian people. ‘The press for the general public exploited the visual and verbal metaphors of Russians, Bolsheviks and the Soviet Union, which were built on images of bloody beasts and devils. NS-Frauen-Warte often exploited the image of the USSR asa giant on clay legs, and seemed to truly sympathise with its “backward”, “undemanding”, and suffering people (Figs 82, 83, 84). It is important to stress that the Soviet Union was generally not portrayed in NS-Frauen-Warte as a threat—articles would rather describe the country’s poverty, lack of resources, and inefficiency than its strength and might (compare Sharp 2000: 66). Furthermore, humoristic and realistic graphic style prevailed on its pages, and naturalistic and grotesque style was avoided. The major type of discourse concerning the USSR was based on such pairs of contradictions as good vs. evil, civilization vs. backwardness, child-friendly German culture vs. child-neglecting Bolshevik society, and therefore I would call it an ethical, humanitarian one (Fig. 85). I believe that the purpose of this type of propaganda was rather not to humiliate or demonise the Soviets, but to ridicule them and show them a kind of patronising compassion. The question remains as to why the differences in presenting anti-Soviet motifs in Nazi magazines intended for the general public on the one hand, and for women on the other, were so profound. In my opinion, these differences first of all reflected the dichotomy, as mentioned by Michelle Rosaldo, specifically the pair of contradictions of feminine/private vs. masculine/public. Through the prism of this pair of contradictions, a system of gender relations can be described in which women are assigned the activities associated with the private sphere, and men are destined to perform cultural and political actions in the public arena (Rosaldo 1980). I share the opinion that “National Socialism was the most repressive and reactionary of all modern political movements” (Mason 1995: 132) with a clearly defined illiberal and protective policy towards women, even if in practice “it turned out to be more illiberal and less protective than declared” (Ibid.: 132). The political leaders clearly regarded women as a very special category among the ruled, that is, “that part of the population on whom (...) novel, major and general hardships
