Hitler's Furies

Recently I finished Wendy Lower's book, Hitler's Furies: Women in the NaziKilling Fields (2014).

As the title suggests, this book examines the role of women in the Holocaust, and it does a pretty decent job of it. There is an important clue in the title though: killing fields. The book doesn't touch upon the role of women in the concentration camps, save for a passing mention.

Instead Lower shines a light on the massacres in the east, most notably in the Ukraine. Also, the book stays clear of the more famous monsters like Ilse Koch, which is fine. Much has already been written about them, and this is a more general look at the subject.

We get to follow the lives of a few select women, how they came to be in the Ukraine during WWII and what they did there. Being a book about the Holocaust it naturally focuses on the atrocities the Nazis committed in the east, and we are told the story of a few women who were willing participants in killing Jews. It's worth noting that these murderesses went east mostly with their husbands, most of whom were in the SS. A few of the women who worked in the administration system and became lovers to Nazi killers, also joined in. It seems no women went east expressly to kill. There were no women in the Einsatzgruppen.

We also follow a few women who, though brought up in Nazi Germany, traveled to the front as nurses and did not commit atrocities. I'm not sure why the author decided to include these stories, except perhaps to illustrate that not all German women who traveled east participated in the killings. In my opinion these anecdotes don't really contribute all that much to the book. Sure they witnessed some of the horrors, but we already know that they happened anyway. They are well written, but fairly uninteresting. If this had been a work of fiction, they might have been more valid. You decide.

Another aspect of Hitler's Furies analyses how being a part of the Nazi system affected women in general. On one hand Germany at the time was extremely conservative. Women were expected to go from dutiful daughters to respectable mothers and hausfraus. But with so many men in the army, SS and SA, the system had a desperate need of workers. And they were not shy about employing women. This created a mass of women who were independent both socially as well as economically. Perhaps more so than in the rest of Europe at the time.

To my great surprise, I found out that there were even high ranking female inspectors in the Gestapo. In all my time studying the Third Reich I have never come across this. Sadly the book leaves this part pretty much unexplored. I suppose this is due to the lack of solid evidence left behind, but it's a shame none the less.

Finally we follow the aftermath, and the ultimate fates of these killing women. Or rather lack of fates. Very few women were ever punished for their crimes. Naturally they downplayed their participation as much as possible, but interestingly enough, the allied investigators and prosecutors were unwilling to believe that women could do such things. Yes, a few were executed, mostly in East Germany, but the majority got away with it.

Final verdict? Definitely worth reading. I was a bit disappointed, mostly because I expected more. Perhaps it would be fair to say that Hitler's Furies could have been a bit more hard hitting. I get the feeling that the author didn't want to wallow in the horror and sheer vileness of the subject matter, but in pulling back lost something vital. The book becomes somewhat clinical, and being an objective observer which is what the author should be, the book lacks passion. Historical works shouldn't take sides and they mustn't preach, but the tone is a bit dull.

I don't know how to say it better. If the subject matter is of interest to you, by all means read it.

Until we see each other again, have a great week!