Overview

Wendy Lower's stunning account of the role of German women on the Eastern Front-not only as plunderers and direct witnesses but as actual killers-powerfully revises history. Many young nurses, teachers, secretaries, and wives saw the emerging Nazi empire as a kind of Wild East of opportunity, yet they could not have imagined what they would do there. Lower, drawing on twenty years of archival research and fieldwork on the Holocaust, access to post-Soviet documents, and interviews with German witnesses, presents compelling evidence that these women went on shopping sprees and romantic outings to the Jewish ghettos of Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus, and that they were present at killing-field picnics, not only providing refreshment but also taking part in the shooting of Jews. And Lower uncovers the stories of SS wives-with children of their own-whose brutality is as chilling as any in history. Hitler's Furies will challenge our deepest beliefs using evidence hidden for seventy years: women can be just as brutal as men.

Full Product Details

9781482929058

Table of Contents

Reviews

Hitler's Furies is a long overdue and superb addition to the history of the Holocaust. The role of women perpetrators during the Final Solution has been too much glossed over. Wendy Lower's book provides an important and stunning corrective. It is a significant addition to our understanding of the role of ordinary Germans in the Reich's genocide. -- Deborah Lipstadt, National Jewish Book Award-winning author Hitler's Furies will be experienced and remembered as a turning point in both women's studies and Holocaust studies. -- Timothy Snyder, New York Times bestselling author A virtuosic feat of scholarship, signaling a need for even more research. -- Kirkus Reviews Delivering a book that profiles Nazis must pose a challenge for a narrator. Be too repulsed, and you shortchange the author. Be too clinical, and your work comes off flat. Suzanne Toren strikes a nice balance...The author's goal is to dispel the myth of women's limited involvement in the Holocaust, and Toren ably complements Lower's intent. Toren's impressive command of German and Polish names and places makes the reading flow more easily. -- AudioFile Lower (history, Claremont McKenna Coll.) undertook extensive archival research in European, US, and Israeli archives to address the 'puzzling omission' of German women in Holocaust history...Lower shows that the Nazi killing fields were not merely the isolated concentration camps but the occupied territories as well and that women played a large role, one that was neither punished nor subsequently studied. Perhaps that will now change. -- Library Journal Lower shifts away from the narrow focus on the few thousand female concentration camp guards who have been at the center of previous studies of female culpability in Nazi crimes and identifies the cluster of professions-nurses, social workers, teachers, office workers-that in addition to family connections brought nearly one-half million women to the German East and into close proximity with pervasive Nazi atrocities. Through the lives of carefully researched individuals, she captures a spectrum of career trajectories and behavior. This is a book that artfully combines the study of gender with the illumination of individual experience. -- Christopher R. Browning, National Jewish Book Award-winning author Lower, a consultant for the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, sheds some much-needed light on an aspect of WWII history that has remained in the shadows for decades...Based on two decades of research and interviews, the book looks at the role of women in Nazi Germany, in particular women who participated in the Nazi extermination of the Jews...Surprising and deeply unsettling, the book is a welcome addition to the literature on the Holocaust. -- Booklist Ms. Lower's findings shed new light on the Holocaust from a gender perspective, according to experts, and have further underlined the importance of the role of the lower echelons in the Nazi killing apparatus. -- New York Times

A virtuosic feat of scholarship, signaling a need for even more research. -- Kirkus Reviews Lower, a consultant for the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, sheds some much-needed light on an aspect of WWII history that has remained in the shadows for decades...Based on two decades of research and interviews, the book looks at the role of women in Nazi Germany, in particular women who participated in the Nazi extermination of the Jews...Surprising and deeply unsettling, the book is a welcome addition to the literature on the Holocaust. -- Booklist Lower (history, Claremont McKenna Coll.) undertook extensive archival research in European, US, and Israeli archives to address the 'puzzling omission' of German women in Holocaust history...Lower shows that the Nazi killing fields were not merely the isolated concentration camps but the occupied territories as well and that women played a large role, one that was neither punished nor subsequently studied. Perhaps that will now change. -- Library Journal Delivering a book that profiles Nazis must pose a challenge for a narrator. Be too repulsed, and you shortchange the author. Be too clinical, and your work comes off flat. Suzanne Toren strikes a nice balance...The author's goal is to dispel the myth of women's limited involvement in the Holocaust, and Toren ably complements Lower's intent. Toren's impressive command of German and Polish names and places makes the reading flow more easily. -- AudioFile Hitler's Furies is a long overdue and superb addition to the history of the Holocaust. The role of women perpetrators during the Final Solution has been too much glossed over. Wendy Lower's book provides an important and stunning corrective. It is a significant addition to our understanding of the role of ordinary Germans in the Reich's genocide. -- Deborah Lipstadt, National Jewish Book Award-winning author Lower shifts away from the narrow focus on the few thousand female concentration camp guards who have been at the center of previous studies of female culpability in Nazi crimes and identifies the cluster of professions-nurses, social workers, teachers, office workers-that in addition to family connections brought nearly one-half million women to the German East and into close proximity with pervasive Nazi atrocities. Through the lives of carefully researched individuals, she captures a spectrum of career trajectories and behavior. This is a book that artfully combines the study of gender with the illumination of individual experience. -- Christopher R. Browning, National Jewish Book Award-winning author Ms. Lower's findings shed new light on the Holocaust from a gender perspective, according to experts, and have further underlined the importance of the role of the lower echelons in the Nazi killing apparatus. -- New York Times Hitler's Furies will be experienced and remembered as a turning point in both women's studies and Holocaust studies. -- Timothy Snyder, New York Times bestselling author

Lower, a consultant for the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, sheds some much-needed light on an aspect of WWII history that has remained in the shadows for decades...Based on two decades of research and interviews, the book looks at the role of women in Nazi Germany, in particular women who participated in the Nazi extermination of the Jews...Surprising and deeply unsettling, the book is a welcome addition to the literature on the Holocaust. -- Booklist Delivering a book that profiles Nazis must pose a challenge for a narrator. Be too repulsed, and you shortchange the author. Be too clinical, and your work comes off flat. Suzanne Toren strikes a nice balance...The author's goal is to dispel the myth of women's limited involvement in the Holocaust, and Toren ably complements Lower's intent. Toren's impressive command of German and Polish names and places makes the reading flow more easily. -- AudioFile Lower shifts away from the narrow focus on the few thousand female concentration camp guards who have been at the center of previous studies of female culpability in Nazi crimes and identifies the cluster of professions-nurses, social workers, teachers, office workers-that in addition to family connections brought nearly one-half million women to the German East and into close proximity with pervasive Nazi atrocities. Through the lives of carefully researched individuals, she captures a spectrum of career trajectories and behavior. This is a book that artfully combines the study of gender with the illumination of individual experience. -- Christopher R. Browning, National Jewish Book Award-winning author Hitler's Furies will be experienced and remembered as a turning point in both women's studies and Holocaust studies. -- Timothy Snyder, New York Times bestselling author A virtuosic feat of scholarship, signaling a need for even more research. -- Kirkus Reviews Lower (history, Claremont McKenna Coll.) undertook extensive archival research in European, US, and Israeli archives to address the 'puzzling omission' of German women in Holocaust history...Lower shows that the Nazi killing fields were not merely the isolated concentration camps but the occupied territories as well and that women played a large role, one that was neither punished nor subsequently studied. Perhaps that will now change. -- Library Journal Hitler's Furies is a long overdue and superb addition to the history of the Holocaust. The role of women perpetrators during the Final Solution has been too much glossed over. Wendy Lower's book provides an important and stunning corrective. It is a significant addition to our understanding of the role of ordinary Germans in the Reich's genocide. -- Deborah Lipstadt, National Jewish Book Award-winning author Ms. Lower's findings shed new light on the Holocaust from a gender perspective, according to experts, and have further underlined the importance of the role of the lower echelons in the Nazi killing apparatus. -- New York Times

Author Information

Wendy Lower is the John K. Roth Professor of History at Claremont McKenna College and research associate of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. A historical consultant for the US 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 and Munich. Suzanne Toren has over thirty years of experience in narration. She has won the American Foundation for the Blind's Scourby Award for Narrator of the Year, AudioFile magazine named her the 2009 Best Voice in Nonfiction & Culture, and she is the recipient of multiple Earphones Awards. She performs on and off Broadway and in regional theaters and has appeared on Law & Order and in various soap operas.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available