The criminalisation of abortion in Germany, c. 1933-1955

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Under Nazism, the policing of abortion was racialised, with forced abortions being performed on thosedeemed 'undesirable', while abortions performed on consenting 'Aryan' women were repressed. Immediately after the war, the legal situation in Germany varied greatly, with several Nazi-era regulationsremaining in place and the judicial repression of abortion reaching extreme heights. Similarly, contemporary (female) perceptions of everyday life were not ruptured in 1945. Thus, my DPhil examines the criminalisation of abortion across the year 1945, c. 1933-1955. Firstly, to contribute to a history of gender 'from below', I will ask: what does the criminalisation of abortion in this period reveal about gender relations within the communities targeted? Secondly, examining the other side of the courtroom: how did this state repression encode a gendered relationship between the citizen and the state?The historiography has yet to adequately examine the practical impacts of the German criminalisation ofabortion from the 1930s-1950s. Regarding Nazi Germany, historians have focused on the deeply necessary task of delineating practices of forced abortions performed on Jewish women, forced labourers or for 'eugenic' reasons. The comparative lack of research on the repression of abortion is thus in many ways justified. Nonetheless, I believe that to fully understand the interrelation of the regime's pro- and anti-natalist policies, it is necessary to examine more quotidian methods of fertility control - while guarding against victimising 'racially desirable' women who otherwise benefited from Nazism.While the bulk of the historiography on Germany post-1945 is still characterised by a focus on the discursive, more recent contributions have started exploring abortion's criminalisation in practice. Here, the overwhelming focus lies on abortions performed following the mass rapes by Allied soldiers. This research's exclusive focus on abortion in relation to rape poses a twofold danger. Firstly, through the imbalance it creates in identifying foreign perpetrators, it furthers narratives of German self-victimisation. Secondly, the focus on rape risks casting abortion as an invariably tragic procedure that followed a cruel violation.By examining popular conceptions of abortion and their targeting by the state, my research couldintervene in several historiographical debates.Historians of sexuality have established that women were increasingly (recognised as) sexually independent due to wartime conditions and Nazi-era incitements. Yet, the extent to which this development was 'liberatory' remains debated. Examining defendants' behaviour and justifications in court, as well as the authorities' evaluations of these, provides an insight into sexual norms, double-standards and practices. By examining the role of male partners, I will contribute to research on the role of men and masculinity in the domestic sphere.Thus, my research is also situated in the history of private life in Nazi and post-war Germany. Historians have pointed to a tension between the Nazi regime's simultaneous erosion and sanctification of private life. Interventions in citizens' reproductive lives provide a lens through which to view the relationship between the state and citizens, particularly the working-class citizens disproportionately targeted.My main source base will be comprised of judicial and police records sampled from different German regions. In using these records to examine local gender relations, I am greatly indebted - both methodologically and theoretically - to the work of Cornelie Usborne, Regina Schulte and others, who read documents constructed to criminalise women as sources for re-claiming women's perceptions of their bodies and social obligations. To contextualise defendants' statements, I will piece together fragments from multiple other sources, including medical discourse, ego-documents as well as uncensored advertisements.