Hitler's Furies

This “intriguing and chilling” WWII history follows thirteen ordinary German women who worked—and killed—on the Eastern Front (Chicago Tribune).

A National Book Award Finalist

Drawing on twenty years of archival research and fieldwork, Wendy Lower introduces thirteen women who took jobs in Nazi-occupied Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus. She 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.

Lower’s work offers a rare window into the lives of German women, opening up a previously unexplored aspect of the Holocaust. Hitler’s Furies makes “an unsettling but significant contribution to our understanding of how nationalism, and specifically conceptions of loyalty, are normalized, reinforced, and regulated” (Los Angeles Review of Books).