Women had played an increasingly important role in the war predeceasing the Second World War, especially in the Great War which thrust the world into total war and women took on significant roles in the military, and at the home front. Women took on roles as military nurses, a continuing advancement since Florence Nightingale and replaced men in the workforce during war time to ease the labour shortage. Women had continued to make significant advances in equality in the interwar period, including the right to vote in the United Kingdom. In Germany, under the National Socialist Party, women had strict restrictions on what she could and could not do and was taught to put her own family above all else if she was healthy and German woman. Women
