The Nuremberg Women

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Natalie Livingstone's deeply researched, unfailingly fascinating book gives the many extraordinary women at or near the centre of the Nuremberg trials their proper, important, and often ignored place in history' Salman Rushdie 'Brilliant . . . History erased these women. Natalie is righting that wrong. So fascinating, you've got to get this book in your life' Chris Evans ' A book that is as interesting as it is important. Beautifully written and immaculately researched, Livingstone transforms what we think and know about a terrible moment in history by focusing on a group of remarkable women, their incredible stories and why their example should inspire us all' Peter Frankopan 'If you think you know all about the Nuremberg trials, you don't; not until you have read Natalie Livingstone's enthralling book ' Simon Schama 'Paints eight talented and courageous women back into the picture . . . a masterclass in the restoration of sidelined voices . . . Poignantly told and magnificently written, I found it absolutely unputdownable' Hallie Rubenhold, author of The Five 'Nuremberg as you've never imagined it . . . passionately written and wrought in riveting detail, The Nuremberg Women delivers a hugely timely corrective to the historical record. A book that I will return to again and again' Damien Lewis 'Vivid, gripping and timely . . . restores the women of Nuremberg to their rightful place at the moral and emotional heart of the story . . . As pacy as a thriller and as powerful as its rawest testimony: a coruscating portrayal of courage, creativity and resilience in the face of unprecedented horror' Catherine Ostler 'Perceptive, meticulous and full of humanity. Expands our understanding of a critical episode of 20th century history' Jonathan Freedland, author of The Escape Artist 'A landmark book, urgent history for our current age' Kate Williams, author of Royal Women NUREMBERG, 1945. The eyes of a world desperate for truth, hope and justice turn to a courtroom where the leaders of the defeated Nazi regime sit in the dock. In this revelatory history, Natalie Livingstone sheds new light on the trial of the century, through the stories of extraordinary women whose importance has long been ignored. Anti-fascist journalist Erika Mann - daughter of Germany's most famous writer - came to Nuremberg seeking a reckoning with a Germany she had fled more than a decade before, while Hungarian countess Ingeborg Kálnoky found herself presiding over a guest house in which perpetrators and survivors of the Nazi's worst crimes lived side by side. Russian interpreter Tatiana Stupnikova would be forced to confront terrifying revelations about her country's recent history, and German writer Ursula von Kardorff, reporting on the trials for domestic audiences, found herself torn between the evidence of the courtroom and a selective memory of her work for the Third Reich. Although she was barred from speaking in court on account of her gender, American lawyer Harriet Zetterberg assembled some of the most important prosecution cases, while British painter Laura Knight produced the most famous image of the courtroom. Rebecca West, the celebrated writer, arrived feeling lost and depleted and hoped the proceedings at Nuremberg might somehow shock her back to life. And Auschwitz survivor and French Resistance fighter Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier's defiant, devastating testimony laid the foundations for the world's awareness of the Holocaust. Seen through the eyes of these astonishing women, the story of Nuremberg is a monumental human drama full of hope and romance, terror and conflict. It is the story of a search for truth among misinformation, love among ruins and light in overwhelming darkness. Eighty years after the trials, The Nuremberg Women offers a gripping new account of one of the defining events of the twentieth century. 'Livingstone has an eye for drama and an effortless fluency that keeps the pages turning . . . such a fresh and compelling narrative' The Spectator 'This is a kaleidoscopic eight-life biography with electrifying stories. . . . And like a knife, it brilliantly slices through the machismo, violence and mass horror inflicted by men in the war, in the absence of female influence' Independent 'Livingstone is skilful at building a rounded picture of the trials in the course of giving the reader a vivid sense of these women's experiences' Observer