Nazi women and Nazi Wives

Fascinating book. Most of the women in this book were highly dedicated to Hitler and his ideas. Magda Goebbels married the 'next best'. They paid a high price for their dedication after the war: destitution, imprisonment, even life.* Yet, several of them defended the Third Reich onto their dying bed.

The book gives a peek behind the scenes of the Nazi party. The stories of Geli Raubal, Hitler's favourite niece, and Carin Göring, the Swedish aristocrat that left her husband for Hermann, provide insight to the workings and social sphere of Hitler's entourage in the Kampfzeit, ie before the Nazis came to power.

It shows that the Nazis were human. Göring was a true romantic, whilst Goebbels was an adulterer with a penchant for adoration and self doubt. Even Hitler felt a moral obligation to take care of Eva Braun after suicide attempts, and although he ordered her to stay out of sight when foreign dignitaries visited the Berghof.

None of these women held any personal power. Women were considered unfit for the political sphere in Nazi ideology. Despite the huge services rendered for the party by benefactresses in the Kampfzeit, their opinions counted for little. Even the staunch Nazi organiser Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, in charge of the party (and later state) women's organisations, never actually got to talk to Hitler.

So all influence these women had was through their men. Whilst Emmy Göring and Henriette von Schirach slowly faded into the background as the influence of their husbands waned, Eva Braun slowly increased her hold on Hitler's private life.

Is there a lesson in these stories?


* That's not saying it wasn't just or deserved or both.