Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich [Paperback]

Alison Owings (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1995

Twenty-nine German women recall memories of the Third Reich. What they have to say will surprise Americans, just as they surprised the women themselves. Not since Marcel Ophuls' controversial film The Sorrow and the Pity have we been on such intimate terms with "the enemy."

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A vivid picture of Germany under the Nazis emerges from this collection of unsettling interviews conducted by freelance TV writer Owings with 29 women of diverse backgrounds, both Aryan and Jewish. Among the women whose lives in Germany's war-torn homefront are chronicled are the widow of a resistance leader and the wife of an SS guard, who refers to her husband's work in the Ravensbrook and Buchenwald "manufacturing plants." Not only did Hitler attract the young but, according to one supporter, "he understood how to fascinate women." Some of these women claim that they privately protested mistreatment of Jews and prisoners and risked their lives to assist them. Only one non-Jewish woman, however, admits to "hearing" that Jews were gassed.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Owings, a freelance television writer who is neither a German nor a Jew, has compiled and edited a groundbreaking set of oral histories. She interviews women from many spectrums of the Third Reich: Germans, Jews, individuals of "mixed" parentage, a countess, a camp guard, women who hid Jews, Nazi supporters, Communists, and other women who witnessed and participated in everyday and extraordinary events. Owings has tried, as much as possible, to quote her interviewees directly yet still manages to create an even and engaging text. This volume is an excellent companion to Claudia Koonz's Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, Family Life, and Nazi Ideology , 1919-1945 ( LJ 11/1/86). Highly recommended.
- Jenny Presnell, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, Ohio
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 536 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (February 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813522005
• ISBN-13: 978-0813522005
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #208,156 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars frauen, May 18, 2000

By 

rita wasserman (birmingham, mi, usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich (Paperback)

i am german, 45 years of age, living in the u.s. since 1991. i grew up with the so-called guilt and shame of the post-war generation who was trying to understand. this book is so incredible. you do not need to study history. all answers, if there is ever any good ones, are in this book. it reflects the times the way i read about it and learned about it from personal encounters. it is a very brave, very well researched, brutally honest book. it helped me a lot to understand better. i know some germans' answers including my parents' who are now in their seventies. i cannot imagine americans being able to understand the stories of the women that were interviewed. this book should have the highest ratings. live is too good and sophisticated in the u.s. especially now half a century after the war. people here have no imagination of how the mindset would have been in a narrow minded society at that time. i feel like i owe alison owings for her phantastic idea and research which brought about a better understanding for me. i am telling all my german friends but cannot find this book translated into german. i am sure germans would be anxious to read this book.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What history is all about, December 21, 2000

By 

Glenn M. Harden (Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich (Paperback)

Yes, Alison Owings writes more like a journalist than a historian. No matter. This is an excellent book and well worth reading. While Owings is much more "present" in the book than your typical historian, she writes with a raw honesty that compensates for any lack of subtlety on her part. Fundamentally, her work is an exploration of complex ethical decisions and her own reactions to them. Their story becomes part of Owings's story, and that's what history is all about. Some reviewers criticized her for not writing the book they wanted her to write. This is an unfair criticism, but does show that the topic is not exhausted. Another reviewer criticized her approach to oral history, with which, as a historian, I found no fault. I highly recommend this book for lay readers with an interest in the social history of the Third Riech. Readers who liked this book may also like Philip Hallie's LEST INNOCENT BLOOD BE SHED.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Important Book Causing Fascination and Soul-Searching, April 21, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich (Paperback)

I agree with just about all the comments of all the other reviewers of this book, both positive and critical. The author interviewed a wide array of German women that lived through the Third Reich and were able to tell about it during the time she interviewed them (mostly the mid-to-late '80s). I am as upset about the treatment of Jews in the Holocaust as anyone, yet I agree with the reviewer who pointed out that the author focused all the passion of her interviews just about exclusively to this topic. I would have very much liked to have seen more about other aspects of lives and decisions made during the Third Reich, such as the people giving up their civil rights so quickly after the Nazis were in power and then so soon after that there was no such thing as free speech and I don't know what it was like in Germany before the Nazis, but there was definitely zero freedom of the press during the Third Reich. One thing I learned that I did not know before was that people would be arrested for even the barest comment that Germany might not win the war (not to mention any criticism of Jewish stores being boycotted). Shoot, a person could be arrested apparently just for showing any outward sign of compassion to Jews or prisoners and informers were everywhere. Anyhow, it is fascinating reading and I would recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about this era of history. I had not realized some things before I read this book, such as the role of women in Nazi Germany. Women were definitely repressed far beyond what I had realized before. The most frustrating thing for me in reading this book was the poor translations (or poor editing of translations). There were sentences that no matter how many times I read them, they simply did not make any sense to me at all. Also, often words or phrases were left untranslated, and knowing no German myself, this too was frustrating, nicht? I also would have liked to hear less of the personal slant of the author's perspective. All in all, though, I think I would have given this book 5 stars if it has been edited to reasonable readability. Yes, some of the German style of pigeon-English would have been lost, but then again, these women (or most of them) were not speaking English anyhow; they were speaking German, and what they said was translated into English. Why not translated into a more readable English? I believe a lot more people would read and benefit from reading this book had that been the case. I love the diversity of the women interviewed -- not only in social status and roles they played during the Third Reich but also their different ways of coping and different attitudes toward life. Some lived in great fear; others made little room in their hearts or minds for fear, because they were too busy doing what was clear they must do -- whether hiding a Jew or whatever. Very interesting stuff and terribly relevant even today in a world that still has not yet learned how to come to terms with its problems without war and the crimes endemic of war.