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[[File:Herztorte zum Muttertag.jpg|thumb|Mother's Day cake in [[Germany]]]]
In the 1920s, [[Germany]] had the lowest birthrate in Europe, and the declining trend was continuing. This was attributed to women's participation in the labor market. At the same time, influential groups in society (politicians of left and right, churchwomen, and feminists) believed that mothers should be honored but could not agree on how to do so. However, all groups strongly agreed on the promotion of the values of motherhood. In 1923, this resulted in the unanimous adoption of ''Muttertag'', the Mother's Day holiday as imported from America<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9SlB2qcb0NIC&pg=PA423|last=Weindling|first=Paul |title=Health, Race & German Politics Between National Unification & Nazism|page=423|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=052142397X|year=1993|access-date=9 July 2019}}</ref>
The holiday was then seen as a means to encourage women to bear more children, which nationalists saw as a way to rejuvenate the nation. The holiday did not celebrate individual women, but an idealized standard of motherhood. The progressive forces resisted the implementation of the holiday because it was backed by so many conservatives and because they saw it as a way to eliminate the rights of working women. ''[[Die Frau]]'', the newspaper of the Federation of German Women's Associations, refused to recognize the holiday. Many local authorities adopted their own interpretation of the holiday: it would be a day to support economically larger families or single-mother families. The guidelines for the subsidies had [[eugenics]] criteria, but there is no indication that social workers ever implemented them in practice, and subsidies were given preferentially to families in economic need rather than to families with more children or "healthier" children.<ref name="mouton" />
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