Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich

Rating:
Summary: An Important Book Causing Fascination and Soul-Searching
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: frauen
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: interested reader
Review: I think it's fascinating to read this collection of German women, elderly now, telling the stories of their lives. The shocking and disturbing thing to me about their recollections is how incidental ideology seems to have been in their involvement for good or evil. A thought-provoking look at the ambigouus ways histery interacts with real lives.

Rating:
Summary: Good topic, bad book....
Review: It's wonderful that someone decided to do an oral history of German women during the Nazi era. It's less fortunate that Alison Owings undertook this work. She has managed to find some fascinating interview subjects, but does not use them to best advantage. This may be partly for language reasons; despite the book jacket claim that she is fluent in colloquial German, there are several occasions where she has obviously mistranslated her subjects' statements, though at least many of these are of minor importance. Also, she betrays a less than thorough grounding in the history and culture of the place and time she is examining, which sometimes results in insensitive or inane parenthetical comments on her part. She often seems surprised, and not a little put out, that a woman she interviews should attach greater importance to, for example, the death in action of her husband than to the Holocaust, and wants to see this as some kind of moral failing on the part of the woman. Owings is to be commended on the originality of her idea for the book, which despite all does manage to elicit some interesting and surprising responses from her interviewees. A first-hand report by a female concentration camp guard, for example, is something I've never seen anywhere else. Nonetheless, Ms. Owings should stick to her metier, TV journalism, and leave history writing to the better informed.

Rating:
Summary: Flawed, but not fatally
Review: Owlings' book is a thought-provoking, and not infrequently tragic, account of Nazi era Germany as seen from an often unrepresented viewpoint. Yes, her interviewing may lack some subtlety, and yes, she may not have the firmest grasp on modern German history. However, her naïvety may have allowed her to ask the questions, and have them answered, that an interviewer more concerned with propriety would have avoided.

Two subjects I wish she had spent more time developing in her interviews are the question of the "conquests" of the Allied occupying forces in their respective zones, and the forced migrations westward from East Prussia, and later, East Germany.

Overall, especially for somebody interested in the events of the 1930s and 1940s in Germany, this book provides a decent account to the non-historian.

Rating:
Summary: An Important Book Causing Fascination and Soul-Searching
Review: This book is incredible, one I'll re-read several times through the years. I've been living in Germany for the past three years, and will soon return to America. The people here, while VERY friendly, are quite reserved, so it's amazing that Alison Owings was able to get so many women from that era to open up about this sensitive subject. Not only do I applaud Ms. Owings's effort, but I thank the women who shared their lives and thoughts with her. We should never be afraid to look at the past - even the horrors.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I've ever read
Review: This book is incredible, one I'll re-read several times through the years. I've been living in Germany for the past three years, and will soon return to America. The people here, while VERY friendly, are quite reserved, so it's amazing that Alison Owings was able to get so many women from that era to open up about this sensitive subject. Not only do I applaud Ms. Owings's effort, but I thank the women who shared their lives and thoughts with her. We should never be afraid to look at the past - even the horrors.

Rating:
Summary: a very enlightening and rewarding book
Review: This book was one of the best books I have ever read.To read about women like myself going through all the trials and tribulations of war really opened up my eyes.The author really did her research,and I felt like I knew these women that she interviewed.I honestly hated to finish the book-I was genuinely concerned about these peopleand what they went through during WWII.Maybe this book or a book like it should be required reading for all students so they would get a real picture of what war is like:not just the men in uniforms and patriotism for your country,but the real victims of war:women and children.I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: What history is all about
Review: 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.