Rosenstrasse

Goebbels motivation in backing down was not explored. In the aftermath of Stalingrad the Reich had decided to go for 'total war'. This is referred to in the film. Part of this was to use women in the war effort, which Germany had not previously done to any great extent. An SS massacre of women would have faced Goebbels with a public relations disaster of massive proportion. His preference was to make the problem go away as quietly as possible, on the basis that the Jewish men could always be rounded up later. I understand the majority survived the war.

His other problem was that the 'Red' Berlin had never been very enthusiastically behind the Nazi cause and had to be handled cautiously. Again a massacre of women could have cost the Nazis what mediocre level of support they had in their capital city.

It was interesting that the majority of SS uniforms showed patches which indicated that the men wearing them were not of German nationality, but were from German origins in other countries such as Lithuania or Latvia