What a fascinating peek behind the curtain into the lives of the women surrounding Hitler and his leadership team... I have seen a fair amount about the men in his world over the years, but never much of anything about the women - and this was a fascinating look at a group of people who surely played a significant role in all that developed in the Third Reich...

The writing is engaging and the stories are as well - even when they are describing horrible... My one issue is that it skips very rapidly between people and their relationships, which I occasionally found a little disjointed and confusing because there are a lot of people involved in this book. Still, on the whole it was very informative as well as easy to read, and added a lot of depth to my understanding of the era.

This book was really interesting, I have read many books about WWII, but never a book like this.
This book focuses on the women who loved and supported the men in Hitlers inner circle.
It also looked at the relationship Hitler himself had with many of these women, and the hold he had on them.
Well researched and well written.

This is a very well researched and interesting book.
I struggled to keep the names straight at first. I made a list of the major players, their wives and their jobs to help me keep the people and their actions straight.

It was eye opening to learn the wives were so involved in the SS. They loved being part of the Hitler clique! And what a strange fascination most of them had for Hitler!

Looking back, it’s easy to see how wrong they were, but that early group of Nazis chose their path without any doubts or hesitation. They were ruthless and determined to control the world with their elite race.

The wives were like mean girls in the popular group at school. They enjoyed their status, their power, their glamour and their connections. They were competitive and went to any lengths to remain in good standing with Hitler. They were also heartless in their opinions of the Jews and wanted them removed from Europe.

It’s obvious they knew the extent of their evil by the end of the war. Suicidal decisions were made knowing the world would view them as monsters. I’m glad the book continued through the Nuremberg trials and beyond with the stories of those who lived.

Advanced reader copy courtesy of the publishers at NetGalley for review.

I always enjoy when you get to hear the other half of a well-known story, (or in this case stories) and this book does just that. The women in the lives of the major Nazi players were important both in supportive roles and sometimes by taking direct actions, and they often get forgotten to the archives of history.

This well-researched and interesting book does a good job remedying that. In this book, the reader gets to experience what these women went through, both on and off the stage of the public spotlight. I found their stories interesting and valuable. Whilst it can be hard to understand how someone could have supported a spouse during this time all the while knowing about their direct involvement, or that seems to be the common assumption, one comes to learn from reading this book just how many gaps in knowledge there actually were among those closest to the Nazi leaders.

I was impressed with the depth of information provided in this book and the way it brought these often forgotten women out of the shadows. This is a fascinating non-fiction title and one that anyone interested in WWII should take the time to check out.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher, provided through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Simultaneously fascinating and horrifying. I haven't read that much about Nazi Germany, but this book gave a lot of behind the scenes information that I hadn't encountered before. Includes photographs, notes, bibliography, and index.

Read if you: Want an investigation into the inner lives of the women married to (and/or dating) Germany's Nazi elite.

Librarians/booksellers: This is definitely well-written and well-researched, and readers deeply interested in all aspects of WWII history will find it useful.

Many thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Nazi Wives is a fascinating look at the women who stood alongside some of the most powerful men of the Nazi regime, looking at them directly rather than as historical side notes. Considering how little has been written about these women, I found Wyllie's book to be a valuable read that added a whole new depth to the people involved. I think this also successfully pushed back against the idea that the wives had no influence or the same extent of the hardline ideas that their husbands did. These women wielded a huge amount of influence behind the scenes, and in many cases were as intense in their antisemitism and other views as the men they were involved with. I appreciated the organization of the book as well, moving chronologically through time and cycling through the different women, though I did find at times that it was hard to remember who was who since there were so many names to keep track of. I also appreciated the post-war follow up on many of the women in this book as they all set off on fascinatingly different paths. The wider events of the Nazi reign that Wyllie incorporated also served well to contextualize the stories of the women amidst what was going on at the time and made sure that even those who may not be as well-versed in this history could understand what was going on.That being said, the ideal audience for this are those who have at least some understanding of the circumstances of the Nazi rule in the '30s and '40s, as it would add a lot more to the reading experience. Overall, I think it's a great introduction to the topic and portrays these women in a very complex way.

Absolutely fascinating book! One of my more-rare five star reviews!

In developing my knowledge of WWII history, I was so happy to come across this book that described the lives of some of the wives of top Nazi officials. I often wondered how they could have stood by and seen so many horrors and not tried to do something or get away, or if they were trapped, or if they actually were proponents of the movement. This book explains a lot of that.

The stories are told in a way that was quite interesting and not dry or boring at all. It felt more like a novel.

I received an ARC as a reviewer for NetGalley.

Sometimes you're just in the mood for nonfiction. I was in that kind of mood the day I began combing the new releases over on NetGalley. When I stumbled across Nazi Wives: The Women at the Top of Hitler's Germany by James Wyllie (St. Martin's Press, 2020, I knew I needed to read that. How could they? Why would these women support something so heinous? What was wrong with them that they were all in on such devastation? My request was accepted, and, with some trepidation, I began reading. This is *not* an easy subject to read, and James Wyllie pulls no punches in laying it all out there. He's never gratuitous and there are only a few sections where he goes into any graphic detail, but brace yourself, because this is a tough read.

The last names of Hitler's most loyal followers are known to those who are familiar with the history of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust, but those last names also belonged to the wives of those monsters. Emmy Goering, Magda Goebbels, Gerda Bormann, Lina Heydrich, Margarete Himmler, these were the women married to the men who perpetrated untold horrors upon their fellow man, and most of the wives were fierce antisemites before marrying their husbands. They were all in on their own, zero convincing necessary, a thought that will chill you throughout the book.

Because this book is chilling. Knowing the outcome of their attitudes makes Nazi Wives an emotionally difficult read, but what makes it even harder is Mr. Wyllie's pairing of the horror with the wives' more blasé complaints about the disappointments and difficulties of such mundane things as their husbands' work schedules and their marital struggles- things for which readers might have had sympathy if not for the untold deaths stemming from their husbands' blind allegiance to Hitler. At least some of these women knew what their husbands were doing and how Jewish people were being slaughtered; that Mr. Wyllie is able to contrast so effectively the wives' selfishness with their inability to view the humanity of the people suffering around them, makes the book that more gut-wrenching. The one wife who seems to have some tattered shreds of humanity remaining is shown to be dismissive and cavalier at the book's end; there are no heroes in this story.

If you're looking for nonfiction that reads like a novel, Nazi Wives isn't *quite* there, but Wyllie's literary treatment of unfathomably horrible people is engaging- though stomach-turning- for the average reader who's looking to expand their knowledge on the history behind the monsters responsible for World War II and the Holocaust. You'll want to send your copy of the book flying across the room multiple times per chapter because the stories inside are just so awful, but you'll walk away with a clearer picture of who these monsters were, and a sense of dread for what we're once again facing as fascism rises again around the world.

Nazi Wives: The Women at the Top of Hitler's Germany was originally released in 2019, but it's up for a re-release on November 3, 2020.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with a review copy!

One never gets the feeling that the followers of Hitler, the men involved in the upper echelons of the Nazi Party during the Second World War ever truly trusted each other much less liked each other and after reading Nazi Wives the same could be said for the women married to them. A cold-hearted, self-righteous, self-important, arrogant, conceited group of women you could never hope to meet. Not once was the author able to ever make the women seem kind, gentle or even decently human? They were a bunch of conniving women who played backroom politics to further establish their own husbands’ power and their perceived standing within the Nazi Reich and were dedicated to fulfilling and upkeeping the vitriol that Hitler spewed. They were brazen in their hatred of people different from themselves and the anti-Semitism they expressed was truly horrifying. These women enjoyed the privileges of the high life with fashion, food and travel that they were exposed to in the early days of the Nazi regime and were full of self-pity when the hardships fell upon them after their defeat at the end of the war. They revelled in the importance of being married to important men and ultimately felted cheated when they were brought crashing down after the war. Whether by choice or the unlikely sheer stupidity, the women all denied the evil that their husbands had been central to, and felt innocent of all charges of any crimes they were accused of, despite often treating fellow human beings as slaves, ignoring the cruelty of the ‘Final Solution’ or disgustingly even having furniture made out of the skin of other people like a bit of amusement. Ruthless, vile, snobbish, willing to endure lousy marriages to keep in with the high life or to win the approval of Hitler, himself a sexually twisted individual who was in a relationship with a family member, these women only bleated about mistreatment when it came to their own handling after the war, never once acknowledging the vicious cruelty they had been privy to. It is a slap in the face of all the people who suffered during the war that these women were given little more than a slap on the wrists for their part in the war.

One issue within this book is that the seven women focused on were referred to by their first names only without a surname, so keeping track of who was married to whom became a puzzle for readers who have a less than stellar memory. Keeping notes from the start of the book to keep track of each wife will alleviate the problem. This book manages to make interesting people for whom history has long relegated to the inconsequential pile, but one can't help but wonder if that was because they truly were only ‘bit players’ within the Nazi Reich or if it is a typically male slant on history and the women were just deemed as unimportant that is only now being set right. One can hope that this is the beginning of much more academic research into the lives of the women who were involved with the horror of the Nazi regime.

Fascinating yet hateful reading.

This was a very informative read about the wives of high-ranking Nazi officials. The author did a great job of relating the dynamic between the couples and how their relationship with Hitler dictated their ability to function in the Third Reich. Sometimes it was difficult to keep track of who was married to who in the book because it switches from couple to couple quite suddenly throughout the chapter. The book definitely gave us more insight into the personality of some of the Nazis and how they treated their wives and families. I think that this is a good addition to the literature on what it was like inside the lives of Nazi families.

Nazi Wives by James Wyllie

For readers of WWII history and Nazi culture, this book is a refreshing behind the scenes look at this era. Stories about the loyal women of the leaders of the Nazi Party are taken from letters and diaries, and mostly concentrate on seven of the wives.

All were equally as devoted to Adolph Hitler and his quest for the “Final Solution,” a utopian society free of all Jews and others deemed harmful or worthless by the Nazi Party. The ladies turned a blind eye or feigned ignorance of the horrors around them.

These women tolerated all kinds of bad behavior from their husbands to stay married to them. The stakes were high. Parties, travel, copious amounts of food while others were starving, castles, cars and luxuries were the norm. They bore as many children as they could to be good German women and to keep Hitler’s approval.

No one accepts the terms of such evil however, without karma catching them-both the husbands and the wives. It’s satisfying to know that, though some lived to an old age, suffering, in one form or another, came to them in the end.

Many thanks to #StMartinsPress and #NetGalley for and ARC for my review.

I was glad to see that someone had done a book on the female main players around Hitler, instead of acting as if they didn’t exist. So I was happy to get a chance to read this ARC on the subject. I’ve read about different things involving World War II from many aspects, and this would be a new one to add. If you like books about this era, and would like one that’s a bit different, you may want to give this one a look over. It could end up on your TBR list.

There was a bit more intrigue than I would have imagined between the women, but they were very different and had different agendas at times too. And of course there was a lot going on at that time. Advance electronic review copy was provided by NetGalley, author James Wyllie, and publisher St. Martin's Press.

Up until now, the women of the German commanders have often been ignored. While their husbands dominated the battlefields, and their legacy has horrified those who have read about the war, the wives were never given much thought.

This was an interesting read, looking into the women who stood beside their husbands, looking for favor within the growing Nazi party, and gives them a voice in history, other than a footnote beside their husbands.

I enjoyed the book and getting to know a few more shadow figures from history.

I tried to put off reading this one until closer to the release date but I was just so excited to dive into it and I’m really happy that I did because I absolutely loved it. I’ve never put much thought into the women at the top of the Nazi Party so this was a fascinating read.

The book is both informative and atmospheric, it paints a really vivid picture of the world that these women were born and brought up in and explains how they fell in with the Nazis and met their future husbands. It doesn’t focus on one woman at a time but instead all their stories are interwoven which I really loved. I also just really liked the way it was written, the author provided all the details of their lives but never let you get into a lull where you forgot who you’re reading about. (Not that you could forget that these are horrible people, but I hope you know what I mean.)

This was just a really well researched and well written book that I couldn’t put down. In some non fiction I find that the subjects of the book are a bit two dimensional but I feel like I got a really good idea of who these women were. This is a weird review to write because the book is obviously about terrible people, but it was still really interesting to read. I don’t know. It was a really great book, I learned some new things, and I now I need to check out more by the author.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Recently, I’ve read a few books about women of the Resistance, spies who worked for the Allies. When this book selection came up, my immediate thought was what is it like to be married to a monster? We’ve read all about the infamous leading men in Hitler’s Reich, but what about the wife behind the man. Could they truly not know?

Wyllie focuses on the lives of the top Nazi women, who couldn’t be more different yet still the same. Some of the younger wives were indoctrinated into the Nazi culture at a young age, some began to fall under Hitler’s spell in adulthood and all endured troubled marriages. The book doesn’t provide excuses for their behavior, and Wyllie doesn’t attempt to change anyone’s mind about their guilt or innocence, or try to exonerate these women. And in the end, I still don’t believe for a second that any of them did not know of the horrors for which their husbands were responsible. These were women who had power and wielded it, had access to wealth and sought it and each had an aberrant fantasy of Hitler that was fed by their nearness to him. Never did any of them show any remorse, except for their own treatment after the war ended.

This is an engrossing behind-the-scenes look at women who “existed apart from everybody else, for who the concerns of the real world were an irrelevance.”

https://candysplanet.wordpress.com/

Nazi Wives is a comprehensive look at some of the families that were most prominent in the rise of the Nazi Party and Hitler. The women’s stories stories are told with the context of the actions of their husbands, and information is taken from source material, when possible, that includes journals and letters. The end was incredible to me, that the women who supported the rise of a regime that tortured and killed so many millions cried outrage at any and every slap on the wrist they received. These women often received pensions and no punishment, yet bemoaned any punishment or judgement of those who had perpetrated such horrors. The survivors by and large finished out their lives comfortably while continuing to support and push Nazi values. This was an eye opening, chronological account behind the scenes of the people who most benefited from the Third Reich and a scary narrative of the abuses of power and privilege free from empathy.

I took a risk on this book when I was burnt out on WWII books because it sounded unique and interesting, but sadly nope I’m still burnt out and just couldn’t get into it. But I wouldn’t judge the book based on my review cause I just honestly read way to many WWII books and now don’t enjoy them.

WWII history is some of the most consistently popular for readers and writers. Nazi Wives provides a unique perspective on a well trod subject.

These Nazi wives boggle the mind. Margaret Himmler, a WWI front line nurse who was so self-centered she couldn’t care about anyone’s suffering. Visiting Poland, she was offended by the appearance of the locals: “most of them don’t even look like human beings.”
Emmy Goering helped Jewish theater friends, but throughout the war, she ignored the general suffering in Germany and threw lavish parties. She benefited from the regime, so ignored its brutality.
Gerda Borman grew up in a rabidly Nazi home and married a hard-core Hitler devotee. Since she died the year after the war, we’ll never know if she would have endlessly defended him.
Ilse Hess was a total believer in the Nazi regime and Hitler. She liked to boss people, but lost her exalted spot when her husband flew off to England on his own peace mission.
Lina Heydrich could be as ruthless as her husband. Like Margaret, she was a snob.
Magda Goebbels idolized Hitler, and for him she put up with her philandering husband. She may have questioned Hitler’s philosophies, but that didn’t stop her from murdering her children and herself because she couldn’t envision living without him.
At least four of the husbands were unfaithful, but the wives had to put up with them to maintain their positions. Most of them didn’t get along with each other; Magda and Emmy competed, as did Margaret and Lina.
Considering the turmoil Germany experienced after WWI, it’s understandable that people would look for a deliverer, no matter how evil. These women’s refusal to admit after WWII how wrong Hitler (and they) were is incredible.