Hitler's Housewives: German Women on the Home Front

by Tim Heath

Overview

Draws upon a wealth of previously unpublished material to deliver a dramatic and unrivaled experience of life, death and love in the Third Reich.

The meteoric rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party cowed the masses into a sense of false utopia. During Hitler’s 1932 election campaign over half those who voted for Hitler were women. Germany’s women had witnessed the anarchy of the post-First World War years, and the chaos brought about by the rival political gangs brawling on their streets. When Hitler came to power there was at last a ray of hope that this man of the people would restore not only political stability to Germany but prosperity to its people.

As reforms were set in place, Hitler encouraged women to step aside from their jobs and allow men to take their place. As the guardian of the home, the women of Hitler’s Germany were pinned as the very foundation for a future thousand-year Reich. Not every female in Nazi Germany readily embraced the principle of living in a society where two distinct worlds existed, however with the outbreak of the Second World War, Germany’s women would soon find themselves on the front line.

Ultimately Hitler’s housewives experienced mixed fortunes throughout the years of the Second World War. Those whose loved ones went off to war never to return; those who lost children not only to the influences of the Hitler Youth but the Allied bombing; those who sought comfort in the arms of other young men and those who would serve above and beyond of exemplary on the German home front. Their stories form intimate and intricately woven tales of life, love, joy, fear and death. Hitler’s Housewives: German Women on the Home Front is not only an essential document towards better understanding one of the twentieth century’s greatest tragedies where the women became an inextricable link, but also the role played by Germany’s women on the home front which ultimately became blurred within the horrors of total war.

This is their story, in their own words, told for the first time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781526748072
Publisher:	Pen and Sword
Publication date:	05/10/2020
Pages:	232
Sales rank:	1,080,732
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)

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 vi

Chapter 1 A New Euphoria 1

Chapter 2 War? What War? 15

Chapter 3 Hammer Blow 30

Chapter 4 A View of Heaven Through a Bullet Hole 43

Chapter 5 What the Devil Brings 60

Chapter 6 A Haunting Picture 73

Chapter 7 City of Ghosts 87

Chapter 8 Sumpfwascher! 103

Chapter 9 The Wolf at the Door 115

Chapter 10 Eintopf Kotzen (One-pot Puke) 125

Chapter 11 A Nation's Pain 138

Chapter 12 Traitors Have no Grave 152

Chapter 13 A Little Town Called Seelow 164

Chapter 14 Exequy 175

Afterword 194

Sources 197

Acknowledgements 198

About the Author 200

Index 201