Women and the Nazi East: Agents and Witnesses of Germanization

This pioneering book examines the role of women in Nazi Germany’s “nationality struggle” during the 1930s and in measures to Germanize occupied Poland during World War 2. Drawing on previously untapped materials from Polish and German archives, as well as memoirs and oral testimony from German women who were sent to wartime Poland, Elizabeth Harvey analyzes the function of female activism within Nazi imperialism, its significance, and the extent to which women embraced policies intended to segregate Germans from non-Germans and to persecute Poles and Jews.
Casting fresh light on women’s attitudes and involvement in Nazi policies, the book emphasizes the distinctive nature of female complicity in the system of racist domination. Harvey offers a new perspective on Nazi occupation policies, with vivid insights into regime practices at the grass roots and German civilian responses to the treatment of the Polish and Jewish population. In addition, she explores the complex ways in which Germans after 1945 remembered the Nazi East.