The Second World War in Europe continues to captivate the attention of scholars and the general public even as the generation that lived through and fought in the war passes. The military and political histories of the war reveal the contribution of the men who fought as well as the men who led. Less attention has been directed to the experiences of women during the conflict who also served alongside the men in the military as nurses or auxiliaries, or as wives of spies. The articles in this special issue illustrate some of the hidden roles and choices women made during the conflict despite additional hurdles created by racism, and gender expectations.

Conquering Women: Women and War in the German Cultural Imagination Edited by Hillary Collier Sy-Quia and Susanne Baackmann Description: This volume, focused on how women participate in, suffer from, and are subtly implicated in warfare raises the still larger questions of how and when women enter history, memory, and representation. The individual essays, dealing with 19th and mostly 20th century German literature, social history, art history, and cinema embody all the complexities and ambiguities of the title “Conquering Women.” Women as the mothers of current and future generations of soldiers; women as combatants and as rape victims; women organizing against war; and violence against women as both a weapon of war and as the justification for violent revenge are all represented in this collection of original essays by rising new scholars of feminist theory and German cultural studies.