Spotlighting the women of the Nuremberg trials

Historian and author Natalie Livingstone is shining a light on the women whose work helped expose Nazi crimes at the Nuremberg trials, arguing that many of their stories have long been overlooked in mainstream accounts of history.

Livingstone’s new book, The Nuremberg Women, examines the lives of eight women connected to the post-war trials, including journalists, interpreters, lawyers and Holocaust survivors whose contributions helped shape public understanding of Nazi atrocities.

The trials, held in the German city of Nuremberg between November 1945 and October 1946, prosecuted leading Nazi figures including Hermann Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Rudolf Hess. Nuremberg itself had earlier become synonymous with Nazi propaganda rallies and the antisemitic Nuremberg Laws.

Speaking to Jewish News UK, Livingstone said the idea for the book began after she saw British artist Dame Laura Knight’s famous painting of Courtroom 600 at the Imperial War Museum.

“The more familiar I became with the image, the more I found it impossible to see beyond a glaring absence. There is not a single woman in the picture.”

She said the courtroom scene appeared to be “just a sea of men”, despite women playing significant roles throughout the proceedings. So she dove deep, unearthing the women’s remarkable stories. She eventually whittled her list down to eight, deciding to tell the story of Nuremberg from the beginning to the end, using the women to illustrate the key moments.

Among the women featured in the book is Harriet Zetterberg, an American lawyer who assembled evidence against Hans Frank, the Nazi governor-general of occupied Poland known as the “Butcher of Poland”.

Livingstone said Zetterberg’s work was central to Frank’s conviction, yet she was unable to present the case herself because women still faced legal restrictions in courtrooms at the time.

“In order to stand up in court in 1946, Harriet would have had to have been provided with a waiver of disability – and that disability was being a woman.”

Another figure highlighted is French Resistance fighter and Auschwitz survivor Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier, who became the first female witness to testify at the trials in January 1946.

Vaillant-Couturier detailed the conditions inside Auschwitz after being deported there in 1942. Her testimony included descriptions of starvation, brutality and mass murder carried out by the Nazis.

According to Livingstone, her evidence completely transformed the climate inside the courtroom.

“She changed the atmosphere of the Nuremberg trial and changed the course of history,” Livingstone said.

Vaillant-Couturier later reflected on the significance of her testimony, saying: “I speak for all those who are no longer here.”

The book also profiles Erika Mann, daughter of German author Thomas Mann, who reinvented herself from a cabaret performer into a war correspondent, and Russian interpreter Tatiana Stupnikova, who worked during the trials under the constant fear that a mistranslation could have severe consequences if she returned to the Soviet Union.

Hungarian countess Ingeborg Kalnoky also features in the book after being tasked by the Americans with overseeing accommodation for witnesses connected to the trials, including Holocaust survivors and people testifying for Nazi defendants.

Livingstone said the research revealed how women were involved in documenting evidence, assisting prosecutions, reporting on proceedings and giving testimony that helped the world understand the scale of Nazi crimes.

The author, whose previous works include The Women of Rothschild, said she became particularly attached to Vaillant-Couturier’s story because she viewed the French survivor as one of the first women to publicly describe the Holocaust to an international audience.

The Nuremberg Women is published by Hachette, $34.99 rrp