What was the experience of women in Nazi Germany in peacetime and during the Second World War?

Through a consideration of race, reproduction and sexuality, employment patterns and opportunities, education and socialization, and the wartime fate of both favoured 'Aryan' women and the Nazi regime's designated 'racial enemies' and its opponents, this history challenges both myths which have persisted and theories which have recently dominated debate about this subject.

Concluding with a discussion of the 'perpetrators and victims' debate, the salience of 'class' in Nazi Germany and the extent to which Nazism provided new opportunities for women, the text is supported by a Documents Section which includes many sources previously unpublished in English.

Part One: Introduction. 1. German women and national socialism. Part Two: Women in the racial state. 2. Reproduction, family, sexuality. 3. Women at work. 4. Education, socialization, organization. 5. The crisis of war
6. Opponents, perpetrators. Part Three: Assessment. 7. Three issues: class, empowerment and international comparisons. Part Four: Documents.