In the last two-and-a-half decades, especially since the publication of the pioneering work of Ute Daniel , the subject of women and mobilisation for war in Imperial Germany has been extensively researched. Particularly significant here is the influence of contemporary mentalities and belief systems on ways of imagining the nation or empire.
This, in turn, played a crucial part in the mobilisation and remobilisation of popular and institutional confidence in the just nature of the war and the prospects for final victory. For women workers there began that gravest endurance test which suddenly threw all theories about female productivity in the workplace overboard.
Whereas previously women had been rejected, now they were in demand. To an ever increasing extent our industrial production, agriculture, business, trade and commerce, and with time even a great part of the education system and administration, lay in the hands of women. Her decision to remember the outbreak of war in in this way is interesting for two reasons. However, opportunities such as these were rare and few women had the time, freedom and resources to seek them out. A bigger problem for many working-class women was that the war initially took away their jobs.
This was a particular issue for those who worked in industries such as clothing, textiles, footwear and tobacco which relied heavily on imported and now tightly rationed raw materials. Many urban women found that they could no longer afford to rent their own homes and were forced to share with others or move in with relatives.
All of these factors militated against a mass self-mobilisation of women for war. By January , the number of recruits stood at 4,,, a more than fivefold increase in the size of the German army since August ; by the end of this figure had risen to 9 million. Few could envisage mobilisation as a process in which women might actually take part.
