Of Swastika Sisters and Chocolate Girls: Gender and Fascism in Southern Austria during the Short 20th Century

Dagmar Wernitznig

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Chapter 3 Of Swastika Sisters and Chocolate Girls: Gender and Fascism in Southern Austria during the Short 20th Century

In: Gendering Fascism

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Dagmar Wernitznig

Dagmar Wernitznig
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 69–90

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004703766_005

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This chapter contextualises gender and fascism, both during the inter-war period and the immediate post-1945 years in the Austrian southern provinces of Carinthia and Styria. Two phenomena of gendered fascism are examined: firstly, the early adoption of Nazi ideology amongst Carinthian women in the era after the pro-Austrian plebiscite of 1920 facilitated a swift and fervent Carinthian drift towards ideas of ‘Germanic pride’, ‘Teutonic glory’, and the ‘Balkan threat’ of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Secondly, at the end of the Second World War, the so-called Schokoladenmädchen (chocolate girls), who were accused of fraternising with Allied—especially British—troops over the commodity of chocolate,were stigmatised not exclusively but mainly by returning Wehrmacht soldiers. Whereas before Austria’s annexation by Germany in 1938 female activism in Carinthia gravitated around images and iconographies of maternity, patriotism, and ideologies of Germanness, the end-of-war misogynist Wehrmacht posters of ‘traitor chocolate girls’ in Carinthian and Styrian towns epitomised continuing fascist attitudes and male fantasies, as investigated by Klaus Theweleit. Case studies of individual women illuminate the intersections of gender and fascism and their transnational connotations on a microhistorical level. This analysis is part of a larger project, namely the ERC Advanced Grant ‘EIRENE—Post-War Transitions in Gendered Perspective: The Case of the North-Eastern Adriatic Region’ (https://project-eirene.eu).

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Gendering Fascism

Individual Actors, Concepts, and Transnational Connections

Series: Brill's Specials in Modern History, Volume: 9

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004703766

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 21 Feb 2025

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Chapter 3 Of Swastika Sisters and Chocolate Girls: Gender and Fascism in Southern Austria during the Short 20th Century

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Gendering Fascism

Individual Actors, Concepts, and Transnational Connections

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