 If you were young, German and female in 1939 you were at the poorer end of the gender scale. Unable to hold professional posts, ill-educated, your role was defined politically, ideologically and socially as a servant, assistant, mother. You’d taken part in political youth activities, but had no outlet for personal develop and no chance of a career.
By early 1945, you were very likely manning an anti-aircraft gun in a cold field all night, wearing a thick serge Luftwaffe uniform, or working a signals link in a military unit under bombardment, and serving alongside male soldiers, praying it would all end soon.
So how did the ideological and gender norms change so radically in Nazi Germany? Why were young women, the future mothers of the nation, in uniform, under fire and playing a crucial role in their nation’s war efforts. And why have they had to bury such experience, fearing to be seen as part of a criminal regime? Now in their 80s and 90s, many former Helferinnen are speaking out.
500,000 young women worked in the German armed forces by the end of the Second World War. Uniformed, under military discipline, posted to every corner of the German Reich and occupied territories, could they still be regarded as civilians or were they truly military?
Military or Civilians? The curious anomaly of the German Women’s Auxiliary Services during the Second World War is available as an ebook on Amazon
Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, starts the Foundation stories. The sequel, EXSILIUM, is now out.
Updated 2024: Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
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 I stood on the rounded road stones, warmed by spring sunshine under a deep blue sky, and gazed up the road as it rose to the horizon. Red-tiled and grey stone shop fronts each side of the road. I steadied my breath, shut my eyes and heard the noises of nineteen hundred years ago.
This was Pompeii for me a week ago. Maybe I’m fanciful, but when I get to a location and I stand quietly, closing off the visual and aural senses, I try to draw on those other hidden intuitive senses to feel the place I’m in. I imagine the crowds, the smells, the rattling carts, the cheeky kids, pickpockets, shopkeepers, the noise of humans shouting, pack-animals braying, dogs barking.
Then I can start writing…
More pictures of my Roman tour here.
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 Writing a romance, thriller, historical, whodunit, sci-fi adventure? Whichever it is, it’s a depressing thought, but all the stories have been done before. There are only supposed to be seven plots:
man vs. nature
man and woman/man
man vs. society
man vs. machines/technology
man vs. the supernatural
man vs. self
man vs. God
(‘man’ obviously taken as including ‘woman’!)
But basically it boils down to a series of conflicts, often summarised into the rather clinical GMC – goal, motivation, conflict – and their resolution.
So what’s left for you to write about?
You should write the story you want to, the one you’re passionate about, the one with the characters you love, hate or are fascinated by. But you have a secret weapon: your own memory. Nobody else feels about things the way you do. Nobody else gets wound up about things the way you do. Nobody else’s memories are triggered by tiny things the way yours is.
I blogged before about the power of memory unlocked and double memories. Another one was triggered this morning when I took a suitcase to the tip. Memories of trips over the past twenty-five years flooded back as it went in the skip: queues at airports, hugs on platforms, arm-ache as I tugged it along, crushing it closed with new purchases. But most of all, times with friends overseas, holidays, new scents and sights and that time it fell into the harbour in Malta…
And these memories are mine, uniquely, to do with as I choose.
How have you used your memories in your writing?
Updated 2023: Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, a new Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, is now out.
Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
If you enjoyed this post, do share it with your friends!Like this:Like Loading...
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