Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich

New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993. xxxix, 494 pages; 24 cm. SIGNED. Boldly signed by the author on the title page, no dedication. Dust spotting/top edge. Dust jacket, with light shelfwear, protected in a mylar cover. "What were the women of Germany doing during the Third Reich? What were they thinking? And what do they have to say a half century later? In Frauen we hear their voices - most for the first time. Alison Owings interviewed and here records the words of twenty-nine German women who were there: Working for the Resistance. Joining the Nazi Party. Outsmarting the Gestapo. Disliking a Jewish neighbor. Hiding a Jewish friend. Witnessing "Kristallnacht." Witnessing the firebombing of Dresden. Shooting at Allied planes. Welcoming Allied troops. Being a prisoner. And being a guard. The women recall their own and others' enthusiasm, doubt, fear, fury, cowardice, guilt, and anguish. Alison Owings, in her pursuit of such memories, was invited into the homes of these women. Because she is neither Jewish nor German, and because she speaks fluent colloquial German, many of the women she interviewed felt comfortable enough with her to unlock the past. What they have to say will surprise Americans, just as it surprised the women themselves. Not since Marcel Ophuls's controversial film The Sorrow and the Pity have we been on such intimate terms with "the enemy." In this case, the story is that of the women, those who did not make policy but who lived with its effects and witnessed its results. What they did and did not do is not just a reflection on them and their country - it also leads us to question what actions we might have taken in their place. The interviews do not allow for easy, smug answers." - Publisher. CONTENTS: Idealism and chasm, by Frau Margarete Fischer; Motherhood times ten and food to spare, by Frau Wilhelmine Haferkamp; A matter of fate, by Frau Marianne Karlsruhen; National Socialism and Christianity, by Frau Ursula Meyer-Semlies; Retrospective guilt, by Frau Liselotte Otting; The history lesson, by Frau Mathilde Mundt; An exotic past, by Frau Verena Groth; A cosmopolitan view of the world, by Frau Maria von Lingen; Learning how communism works, by Frau Irene Burchert; Solidarity and survival, by Frau Charlotte Muller; We did lover our fuhrer, really!, by Frau Ellen Frey; Before, During, and After the firebombing, by Frau Ursula Kretzschmar; The ambivalence of avoidance, by Frau Martha Brixius; From the emperor to a mud hole, by Frau Margarete Sasowski; Rural perspectives, by Frau Barbara Amschel, Frau Anna Lieb, Frau Anna Maier; A modest woman of the resistance, by Mrs. Freya von Moltke; The schisms of a Flakwaffenhelferin, by Frau Erna Tietz; On megalomaniacs and little people, by Frau Anna Rigl; Dissident clergy and dissident actions, by Frau Emmi Heinrich; A job in its own category, by Frau Anna Fest; A child not of the times, by Frau Karma Rauhut; A very unpolitical woman, by Frau Anne Hepp; I was alone . And I had the whole city against me., by Frau Doktor Margret Blersch; I am never dishonest, by Frau Regina Frankenfeld; Life as a cabaret, by Frau Christine Weihs; A natural matter of friendship, by Frau Erna Dubnack; Talking about silence, by Ms. Rita Kuhn.. SIGNED. 1st. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo. Collectible.