P's Simpsons Appearance: A Transcription (Spoiler Alert)

[Terrance]

>Because the most man were at the front, millions of women, often girls, 16, 17 years >old from the BDM (Bund Deutscher Mädel) were forced to work in factories, a lot of them >in ammunition factories. There they met the "bald heads" (Kahlköpfe), the shaven slave >workers, POW's from Russia and KZ-prisoners. It was strongly forbidden for the women to >speak with them, but some had pity and gave them some food. But the most women tried to >ignore what they saw. 

I'm not going to disagree since I know very little about all this, but
let me ask a few questions: 

1. I thought that the Nazi labor policy, at least in part,  grew out of
a self-imposed dilemma that included Hitler's romantic view of the role
of females. Unlike the Yanks, who put women to work during the war and
then sent them home to Betty Crocker and all that fancy kitchen
machinery, the Germans (Hitler) held on to his conviction that a women's
place was at home with children. While it did encourage women to
volunteer for work, it granted generous allowances to soldier's
dependents and allowed shirkers to go unpunished. (see Leila Rupp,
"Women, Class and Mobilization in NAzi Germany,: Science and Society, 43
(1979), pp. 51-69. 

2. It seems to me that the population knew what was going on, first
because it was so big, second because we know about the efforts of some
to stop it. 

So, just to put a number on it, between May 1939 and September 1944, the
number of German working women rose by only 300,000. By late 1944, there
were 7.5 million involuntary laborers, prisoners of war laborers,
foreign laborers, concentration camp inmates, or 21% of the Reich's work
force and 29% of industrial labor. 

3. It was widely reported. How else could industry explain the huge drop
in productivity? Couldn't be German workers! In fact, at one point a
report claiming that the fault was with women, who were coddled and
lacked industriousness, was countered by a report that identified the
cause of productivity decline, sick unmotivated non-German labor. The
daisy chain turned. The Germans responsible for productivity were
punished and the losses owed to weak productivity was made up with
German labor elsewhere. 

4. The labor shortage was known to everyone, the early solution that
industry came up with was also very public, this included, the use of
women and automation, but it was widely known that these measured failed
and that other solutions were in place. 

5. As early as 1941, over one million foreign workers and prisoners were
working in German Industry.