Women, war and 'totalitarianism': the Soviet and Nazi experiences compared

Abstract

Some 800,000 Soviet women saw military service in defence of their 'Motherland' against Hitler's onslaught during the Great Patriotic War, 1941-45. Half a million of these women actually joined the Red Army; either they volunteered or they were mobilised. Women field nurses, partisans, snipers, anti-aircraft gunners and fighter pilots became models of Soviet heroism. Female participation in military conflict on such a scale is historically unique. In stark contrast to all other combatant countries in the Second World War, in particular National Socialist Germany, Soviet women took on roles that were generally regarded as the exclusive domain of males: from heavy industrial work to front-line combat. In contrast, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union's mortal enemy, was reluctant to mobilise women for the home front let alone combat, even for total war