Nazi Women of the Third Reich

Serving the Swastika

• Four months pregnant, Vera Wohlauf, wife of a serving SS officer, took sadistic pleasure in rounding up victims for Treblinka.

• Like creatures from a Grimms' fairytale, female members of a Nazi 'welfare' organization scoured the towns and villages of Poland and Slovenia, luring blond children out of hiding with bread and sweets. They were abducted to be raised as Germans by 'Aryan' families who told them their parents were dead.

• Test pilot Hanna Reitsch flew on a suicide mission to rescue Hitler from his bunker.

• Not even Hitler could resist the charms of Princess Stephanie, a femme fatale and Nazi agent who smoked cigars which she lit by striking a match on the heel of her shoes.

The Nazis had no doubts about a woman's place in the Third Reich. Hermann Goering urged every woman to 'take a pot, a dustpan and brush, and marry a man.' Many women welcomed the arrival of Hitler's regime with childlike enthusiasm believing that the dictatorship would make Germany master of Europe, but as the war dragged on, their blind faith in Hitler was betrayed.