Women of the Third Reich: From Camp Guards to Combatants

by Tim Heath

Overview

From camp guards to combatants and typists to telephone operators, Tim Heath shines a light on the experience and activities of women embroiled in the Third Reich.

The women of the Third Reich were a vital part in a complex and vilified system. What was their role within its administration, the concentration camps, and the Luftwaffe and militia units and how did it evolve in the way it did?

We hear from women who issued typewritten dictates from above through to those who operated telephones, radar systems, fought fires as the cities burned around them, drove concentration camp inmates to their deaths like cattle, fired Anti-Aircraft guns at Allied aircraft and entered the militias when faced with the impending destruction of what should have been a one thousand-year Reich.

Every testimony is unique, each person a victim of circumstance entwined within the thorns of an ideological obligation. In an interview with Traudl Junge, Hitler’s private secretary, she remembers: ‘There was so much hatred within it’s hard to understand how the state functioned…I am convinced all this infighting and competition from the males in Hitler’s circle was highly detrimental to its downfall’.

Women of the Third Reich provides an intriguing, humorous, brutal, shocking and unrelenting narrative journey into the half lights of the hell of human consciousness – sometimes at its worst.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781526739469
Publisher:	Pen & Sword Books Limited
Publication date:	04/01/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	278
Sales rank:	294,308
File size:	16 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Born in to a military family, Tim Heath’s interest in history led him to research the air war of the Second World War, focussing on the German Luftwaffe and writing extensively for The Armourer Magazine. During the course of his research he has worked closely with the German War Graves Commission at Kassel, Germany, and met with German families and veterans alike.

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

Chapter 1 Dismembering Innocence 1

Chapter 2 Administrating Evil 13

Chapter 3 From the Beggar's Paw 33

Chapter 4 The Little Aryan 45

Chapter 5 My Infatuation 58

Chapter 6 Salon Kitty 71

Chapter 7 A French Adventure 79

Chapter 8 Keeper of Beasts 95

Chapter 9 The Devil's Daughter 109

Chapter 10 When Our City Burned 115

Chapter 11 Rotes Kreuz 130

Chapter 12 There be Monsters 144

Chapter 13 Surviving our Youth 156

Chapter 14 Shoot Straight 171

Chapter 15 Maidens of Iron 184

Chapter 16 Say Hello to God 199

Chapter 17 Victory, War is Over 209

Chapter 18 Erich 224

Chapter 19 In the Absence of Men 231

The Future 239

Afterword 249

Farther Reading 251

Acknowledgements 253

Editorial Reviews

"...a core and essential addition to community and academic library 20th Century Military History collections and supplemental studies reading lists."

Midwest Book Review

"an intriguing, but also shocking insight into the thoughts of those young German women and how they saw their part in Hitler’s thousand year Reich."

Armorama