Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields

Description

A shocking new history of the role of German women in the Holocaust, not only as plunderers and direct witnesses, but as actual killers on the Eastern Front A shocking and timely reminder of the role Nazi women played in the Holocaust, not only as plunderers and direct witnesses, but on the Eastern Front. History has it that the role of women in Nazi Germany was to be the perfect Hausfrau and a loyal cheerleader for the F hrer. However, Lower's research reveals an altogether more sinister truth. Lower shows us the ordinary women who became perpetrators of genocide. Drawing on decades of research, she uncovers a truth that has been in the shadows - that women too were brutal killers and that, in ignoring women's culpability, we have ignored the reality of the Holocaust. 'Shocking' Sunday Times 'Compelling' Washington Post 'Pioneering' Literary Review

Wendy Lower is the John K. Roth Chair of History at Claremont McKenna College and former research associate of the Ludwig-Maximillians-Universitat in Munich. A historical consultant for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, she has conducted archival research and field work on the Holocaust for twenty years. She lives with her family in Los Angeles, CA, and Munich, Germany.

Hitler's Furies will be experienced and remembered as a turning point in both women's studies and Holocaust studies * Timothy Snyder, author of Bloodlands * As pioneering as it is readable * Literary Review * She writes engagingly, wears her considerable erudition lightly...never allowing her analysis to outweigh the fundamental humanity of the stories * New Statesman * As gripping and eye-opening as it is chilling -- Andrea Walker * People * Hitler's Furies turns on its head the idea that women are innately more nurturing, kind and moral than men... While the accepted wisdom on female participation in the Holocaust singles out the sadistic behaviour of a few women guards in the concentration camps, such behaviour is usually contrasted with the myth of German female ignorance of the horrors. A veil has largely been drawn over the actions of the rest. Not any more -- Eleanor Mills * Sunday Times (News Review) *