Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Hitler's Furies (German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields)


Hitler's Furies (German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields)

By: Wendy Lower

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Summary: In a surprising account that powerfully revises history, Wendy Lower uncovers the role of German women on the Nazi eastern front—not only as plunderers and direct witnesses, but as actual killers. Lower, drawing on twenty years of archival research and fieldwork, presents startling evidence that these women were more than “desk murderers” or comforters of murderous German men: they went on “shopping sprees” and romantic outings to the Jewish ghettos; they were present at killing-field picnics, not only providing refreshment but also shooting Jews. And Lower uncovers the stories of SS wives with children of their own whose brutality is as chilling as any in history.

Review: In Hitler's Furies Wendy Lower brings to light the role that women in the Nazi regime had in the holocaust and in the deaths of over six million people.  Women were not just passive watcher's who just chose not to help the people who were being murdered; they in some cases were the killer's and enjoyed the power they had over these innocent victims.  Some of the details in the stories about how women in the Nazi regime killed in their own right and by their own choice chilled me to the core.  These women killed children, the disabled and handicapped, mothers, the infirm; no one was safe if they were not considered to be part of the master Aryan race.

The biographies and different accounts of the women's lives were started in the first chapter and in later chapters the reader could see how the power that they were able to gain as Nazi party members or workers turned them from ordinary young girls into ruthless inhuman monsters.  I have read quite a bit about world war two, the holocaust, and its perpetrators; I never knew that women played such a key role in the death lists, literally torturing the victims, and the sadistic qualities that many of these women apparently had in their characters.  Even going as far as murdering children in cold blood; it is beyond my comprehension.

The book was very well researched; I mainly read historical fiction but this book pulled me in; the writer has a good tone and has definitely done her research. I tremble to think that most of these women got off scot free and just lived out the rest of their natural lives after the war was over; like they hadn't been a part of the murder of millions of innocent people. I would most definitely recommend this book if you are a fan of books dealing in the history of World War II .