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The Nuremberg Women
The most famous trial of the twentieth century - told through the eyes of the women history forgot.
In November 1945, the world turned its gaze to Nuremberg. Inside a courtroom built by and for men, justice was being sought for crimes almost beyond comprehension. The spotlight fell on Nazi leaders, Allied prosecutors and military judges - but in the shadows, women were recording, interpreting, witnessing, painting, testifying. Yet their names were often missing from the headlines. Eighty years on, this book finally returns them to the centre of the story.
The Nuremberg Women follows eight extraordinary a young Soviet interpreter balancing political survival with truth-telling; a British painter capturing justice in oils; a French resistance fighter who survived Auschwitz to confront her persecutors; a Hungarian countess hosting both Nazis and survivors in a single house. Alongside them stand the sharpest literary minds of the day - Erika Mann, Rebecca West and others - each wielding the pen as a tool of reckoning.
Far from the official narrative, Natalie Livingstone reveals a trial that was more intimate, chaotic and human than history has allowed. It was a place of intense love affairs and political tensions, of personal reckonings and the first tremors of the Cold War. These women, often dismissed or sidelined, shaped how the trial unfolded - and how it was remembered.
This is Nuremberg as you've never seen not only a reckoning with the horrors of war, but a story of erasure, courage and transformation. The women's voices - once silenced - now ring out with clarity, offering a powerful new vision of the past, and of justice itself.
In November 1945, the world turned its gaze to Nuremberg. Inside a courtroom built by and for men, justice was being sought for crimes almost beyond comprehension. The spotlight fell on Nazi leaders, Allied prosecutors and military judges - but in the shadows, women were recording, interpreting, witnessing, painting, testifying. Yet their names were often missing from the headlines. Eighty years on, this book finally returns them to the centre of the story.
The Nuremberg Women follows eight extraordinary a young Soviet interpreter balancing political survival with truth-telling; a British painter capturing justice in oils; a French resistance fighter who survived Auschwitz to confront her persecutors; a Hungarian countess hosting both Nazis and survivors in a single house. Alongside them stand the sharpest literary minds of the day - Erika Mann, Rebecca West and others - each wielding the pen as a tool of reckoning.
Far from the official narrative, Natalie Livingstone reveals a trial that was more intimate, chaotic and human than history has allowed. It was a place of intense love affairs and political tensions, of personal reckonings and the first tremors of the Cold War. These women, often dismissed or sidelined, shaped how the trial unfolded - and how it was remembered.
This is Nuremberg as you've never seen not only a reckoning with the horrors of war, but a story of erasure, courage and transformation. The women's voices - once silenced - now ring out with clarity, offering a powerful new vision of the past, and of justice itself.
390 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 23, 2026
About the author
Natalie Livingstone
3 books108 followersNatalie Livingstone was born and raised in London. She graduated with a first class degree in history from Christ's College, Cambridge in 1998. She began her career as a feature writer at the Daily Express and now contributes to Tatler, Harper's Bazaar, US Vogue, Elle, The Times and the Mail on Sunday. Natalie lives in London with her husband and two children.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
Review of advance copy
A much-needed but ultimately flawed book. Enormous research on a riveting topic. Some of the chapters are as fascinating as the women they’re devoted to; for the same reason, others are comparatively duller, and the pages of pre-Nuremberg biography strike as tedious.
The weaving of character biography and historical account of the Trials is likewise weak. Notes on the women’s personal lives mud the chronology of the Trials.
The key message, beyond the long overdue insight into the women of Nuremberg, is confused. The depiction of the USSR is simplistic and biased. Bearing in mind the number of Soviet women who took part in the Trials, it’s definitely a choice that the only one covered in this book held anti-Soviet views and went on to describe Nazism and Soviet communism as “twins”. Although the author doesn’t shy away from necessary criticisms to the limitations of the Nuremberg Trials, particularly when it came to prosecuting the genocide, the USSR’s efforts to punish the Nazis more harshly and to extend the scope of the crimes are underestimated.
The weaving of character biography and historical account of the Trials is likewise weak. Notes on the women’s personal lives mud the chronology of the Trials.
The key message, beyond the long overdue insight into the women of Nuremberg, is confused. The depiction of the USSR is simplistic and biased. Bearing in mind the number of Soviet women who took part in the Trials, it’s definitely a choice that the only one covered in this book held anti-Soviet views and went on to describe Nazism and Soviet communism as “twins”. Although the author doesn’t shy away from necessary criticisms to the limitations of the Nuremberg Trials, particularly when it came to prosecuting the genocide, the USSR’s efforts to punish the Nazis more harshly and to extend the scope of the crimes are underestimated.
May 27, 2026
I really enjoyed this book. The stories of the 8 women were fascinating, and presented well (kind of in parallel to the story of the Nuremberg trial). Perhaps the thing that truly made it 5 stars for me was the second part of the book with the continuation of their stories post Nuremberg: with several brilliant women having to settle for traditional lives, being forced to abandon their careers and passions because of attitudes of the time. The range of countries covered , including the perspectives and reflections from the Soviet Union and Germany, allowed Livingstone to cover a wide scope of history. Most fascinating perhaps was the story of the witness house, presided over by Ingeborg Kalnoky, revealing a window into both the experience of witnesses (worthy and not) as well as contemporary attitudes towards them, shaped by the times they had lived through.
Review of advance copy
Well researched but a little dry for me, I didn't find it as gripping as I'd hoped. But it was fascinating to see a different side to the trials, a feminine perspective of the time and from different countries.
Review of advance copy received from Author
Absolutely sensational. it names eight women who played crucial roles in the Nuremberg trials - from the woman who ran the chateau that housed witnesses (both nazis AND concentration camp survivors in the same dining room) to a lawyer who prepared the brief, but wasn't allowed to advocate in court because, you know, she was a woman, so she had to feed her notes to a male lawyer to speak on her behalf, to the artist who painted the famous picture hanging in the Imperial war rooms. The books explains their contributions to the trial, and what went on in the evenings after court adjourned (lots of alcohol, lots of sex), and how their lives were affected by what they bore witness to.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews