German propaganda in the Operation Zone Adriatic Littoral uses the image of women as a vehicle for conflicting messages, adapted to local contexts. Italian, Slovenian and Croatian women appear to be active only in the private sphere and are depicted in a traditional peasant world that the occupier wants to show he is defending against dangerous “modernity”. The Germans and Austrians, on the other hand, are intensively mobilised in the war effort, which justifies their liberation from their traditional role in the family. As artists, they also nurture the representation of a cultural connection to the Austro-German world, while female beauty contributes to delineating spaces removed from the wartime emergency and a future of serene “normality” under the aegis of the Third Reich. On the contrary, the condemnation of the enemy is reflected in a female condition marked by immorality and degradation.
