In 1900, German legislators passed the Civil Code, a controversial law that designated women as second-class citizens with regard to marriage, parental rights, and marital property. Despite the upheavals in early twentieth-century Germany - the fall of the German Empire after the First World War, the tumultuous Weimar Republic, and the destructive Third Reich - the Civil Code remained the law of the land. After Nazi Germany's defeat in 1945 and...