Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields by Wendy Lower

Hitler’s Furies is a remarkable story of German women whose participation in the Holocaust contributed to the deaths of millions on the Eastern Front. Wendy Lower follows the intriguing stories of twelve women whose loyalty to Adolf Hitler and desire for a better life propels them to commit atrocities to Jewish people.  The story Lower presents is one of normal, every day women who are products of their time. Lower beautifully demonstrates how their background as women coming of age after the defeat of World War I and the emergence of the Nazi party helped to cultivate them into being comfortable with racism, which in turned created an atmosphere where there is no question of morality when Jewish people are concerned. Lower’s research highlighted the atrocities committed by these women using interviews and documents found in Russian and German archives. Although some evidence has clearly been destroyed after the war either through warfare or the purposeful destruction of documents, Lower makes a good case against these women who got away with murder; however, the numbers she uses are not always substantiated by the evidence she presents in Hitler’s Furies. For example, her claim that over a half-million women are culpable and should be exposed and prosecuted is not convincing because of the lack of evidence. Lower admits that the documentation is not there to substantiate this overwhelming claim.