I Will Not Abandon You: Queer Women in Nazi Germany

by Samuel Clowes Huneke

I Will Not Abandon You brings to life the unrelenting defiance of queer women in fascist Germany.

In his latest book, award-winning historian Samuel Clowes Huneke shows how love, queer resistance, and collective action survived in the harrowing circumstances of Nazi rule. Drawing on a decade of archival research, Huneke takes readers into a hidden world, from the wartime balls that lesbian activists continued to organize to the concentration camps where women accused of loving women were imprisoned. Following a diverse cast of characters, Huneke reveals both the oppression that queer women faced and how they resisted fascism in solidarity with one another. Arguing that this solidarity – which transcended race, class, and gender – offers a compelling alternative to today’s fractured identity politics, I Will Not Abandon You is a vital, new history of queer life under fascism and a call to rethink the foundations of progressive politics today.

Genres: Nonfiction, Queer

304 pages, Paperback

Published April 14, 2026

About the author

Samuel Clowes Huneke is a historian of modern Europe, with a focus on the social and political history of twentieth-century Germany. He is broadly interested in how everyday life intersects with and shapes the relationships between citizens and states. His research foci include the history of gender and sexuality, legal history, and the history of dictatorship and democracy. Dr. Huneke received a B.A. summa cum laude in German and Mathematics from Amherst College, an M.Sc. with Distinction in Applicable Mathematics from the London School of Economics, and a Ph.D. in History from Stanford University. He is current an assistant professor of history at George Mason University.

Reviews

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Serving up important meditations on the nature of power and agency as well as a rockstar vocabulary

[Zach Strassburger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Important historical work. Goes beyond “this happened” to “this is why this matters,” and “this is how this often gets interpreted, but here’s this other interpretation and why that matters.” Basically, lesbian sex was never itself criminalized, but queer women and transmasculine people were seen as asocial. Some were punished for that itself and others because of the compounding effects of other “othering” like race and political beliefs plus the sexuality/gender difference.
Dense, academic, but definitely worth a read if you like queer history/historiography.

[Hillary Smith-Maddern · Rating 5 out of 5]

A complicated history treated with thoughtful kindness. Huneke deeply understands that history — dark, devastating history in particular — isn’t a singular narrative of despair but rather a complex constellation of joy, solidarity, humor, fear, and loss. Well-researched. Well-written. Please give to all the homophobes/transphobes in your life.

[Rosalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75/5

well-researched and actually questions past historiography to bring a new perspective on the table. However, a lot of back-and-forth in chapters and some repetition in paragraphs