social secretary to jacqueline kennedy, reporters and others closest to recent presidential wives talk about the role of the first lady and now it is changed along with the nation monday

night at 9:00 eastern on c-span. >> historian when the lower discusses her soon-to-be published book hitler's theories, and german women in the nazi killing fields. she spoke to a book tv and book expo america. we have brought you several interviews of the past two weekends from the publishing industry's annual trade show and all of these can be viewed online at book tv -- booktv.org. >> host: no a preview of the new book "hitler's furies." german women in the nazi killing fields. what is your book about? >> it's about entire generations of german women, i call them the world war one baby boomers, an increase right after the first world war, the spike. 1918, 1919. that coincided with german women

getting the vote. the surge of the theme of population coinciding with the opening up of women's opportunities politically with the vote. so the stories about this generation that came of age during the time of the nazi regime in the 30's, who saw opportunities that they did not have before to be part of the political system, part of the revolution, all very exciting job opportunities, the first ways of getting out of their villages. many of these women lived in small, remote villages and wanted to get out into the city. so it is about these women who come of age that coincide with the establishment of a criminal the genocidal regime. so what happens with the political awakening is part of this political system. and raising the women to the

eastern territories of the present we see how they come and and then there mobilize to participate in these campaigns and territories. and men had not written before the placed books -- i had not written books before the placed women into these six. how they react to what they've seen. some of the move into the role of accomplices and then in the worst case, those a move into killers. we often think of german team of perpetrators as camp guards and in small numbers. 3,500 to miss a very sparse documentation. the reality is that this was a mass movement. german women were sent to the east as part of hitler's colonial imperial project, part of it was called a war of destruction.

imperial kind of developers, colonizers in all different capacities. and they directly participated in this imperial project which included the holocaust, which included the genocidal programs. i -- in understanding the magnitude of this, discovering the magnitude of this to the extent of the research i've done , i wanted to make the book accessible to as many people as possible. a lot of research. bin in the field for of 20 years the king and archives around the world. went to the ukraine initially in 1992 which is where discovered the material. ascetic collecting stories and it took all these years of going to is row, spending a lot of time at the u.s. holocaust in washington d.c. a fabulous collection there. going to archives in germany, going to collect material from the survivors museum. this massive collection effort of storage to place these women in these killing fields.

and concluded that there were at least a half a million, 500,000 women who are mobilized. this is new. not only that we are putting them in eastern territory, but in significant numbers and a variety of roles. that figure is obviously quite a contrast to when we think of female camp guards enclosed camps settings behind barbed wire, behind the walls, trained to be cruel. all different kinds of capacities in the open air settings where mass shootings were occurring. approximately half. forced marches, it became communities of violence the soda to develop. it very much included women.

with this large number i have to then kind of bring it down to about individual faces, to put human faces on these perpetrators in the history books. so often demonized. freaks of nature, pornographic place so. and i wanted to prevent the reality which is that these women when they came of age or people we could relate to. there were likable figures. and so the book, you warm up to them in the beginning in the new star to see how they are transformed by being moved to the east and witnessing this violence. now we see the different reactions. this is really the main story. >> were women supportive of the nazi regime as it came to power in the early 30's? >> they work, but this is the political awakening. the communist movement, a number

of people's movements, right-wing movements. and moderate, social democratic party, led to represent it. so there really, they acted and all of his movements. and you can say for instance that women were responsible for voting and other into power. he was actually -- during the height of 32, the election results, july 32, hitler was made chancellor in june of 1933, we can see in certain regions where the not to party with strong represented in german. female participation and in participation in the movement has sex and age, the storm troopers and so forth. but we could not predict. that's part of this kind of function and contingency that these women would go completely

100 percent not see. rushed off to the east and become killers. if they thought that the transformation, i am trying to delineate to the biography is. >> whose picture is on the front of this book? >> that is will announce, it is a very chilling data -- fadel. photo. she was a young woman who grew up in a working-class family in bizarre land which was a contested territory, a border region where there was a lot of attempts to rejoin with germany in the 30's. she worked on a chicken farm. she had eight grammar school, grades cool education. again, trying to get out and see

the world, these ambitions that are stirred, such an unusual time for women in particular. and trying to find their way. and she finds her way to announce the newspaper office and is working as a typist there. she has some clerical skills. and she meets her husband there who is a real rabble-rousers', real fog, a street fighter. showing off his scars and bruises to her. she is somehow enchanted by that , by the brutality. and he is in the ss. and so a rising career, part of the elite. in she attaches herself to him. her marriage application, the ss marriage application filed, the marriage had to be approved by heinrich himmler. >> because he was ss. >> yes. the racial examination, very evasive to the women commit an alleged examination, very

invasive examination drama their ancestry. just biological features. so the rest of the application, a full body image of her. and her husband, they traditionally made one of the most notorious, the biggest concentration camp in the ukraine. western ukraine. the site where hundreds of thousands of jews were transported to belgium before the war. many died in the camp as well. and they set up their villus outside the camp parameters. when she got their this said, well, i would like a balcony. that's the lay of the tile. and what did she do?

she brought the whole family with herbs. well, in this setting of this villa sitting on the balcony where there would have their ritual, after in ritual. she was -- she would pull out her pistol which was a typical weapon, domesticated weapon, booze,. you would shoot, turn-of-the-century, recreational kind of weapon. something of a gardener. so i have one of these theories to pull this out the jurors liver's down in her garden. then she would come over the wall. this is now one time kind of incident. developed this reputation.

shooting from balcony's. a pattern, but also brings home the fact that these are women killing in these intimate domestic selling -- settings. they're in these places where they feel like this is possible. everything is possible. >> have you find her story? >> i came across a story in the testimony of a very, very important -- a survivor by the name of philip friedman norris from this region and heard about her during the war through other

survivors. he wrote about this, i think it was as early as the fifties. and i was shocked by this. he, you know, identified her as a survivor who was astounded by the violence. and that was the first indication. here is someone who is an outstanding figure. let me test of whether not this is true. let me try to corroborate this particular testimony with other materials. and then i get into the primary german documentation and found her marriage application and verify your she was well, ron meyer feet. she was in fact sent there. she was a real person. they're with her daughter. and then continued to collect more victim's testimony about her. that really was related in this

case. there are other cases in my book , the 13 biographies where i headed by people through memoirs. they came out, have kind of the audacity to write their memoirs and leave out some of the history. i use that as a starting point and start to dig. mothers. >> where did these women go after the war? >> most of them went back to west germany. and women from vienna who were in the gestapo, secretary of the gestapo. they went back, women who went back to their towns and west germany. one couple one particular, what became east germany. and that particular woman figures very prominently in this book. she was responsible for in this plantation, she and her husband running a farm.

and this is another case. they were jews that were trying to flee from the railway transport, the boxcars and would end up trying to find refuge. in this couple would hunt him down. they had a special site on the farm, and actual killing site. and this figure, she was on her about gays serving coffee and cake and overheard the man talking or wish to be done. even how they should be killed, the proper method. so one day a jewish boy she flies along the side of the road leading to her state, brought him back to the house, calmed him down, fed than 70. they gained the trust.

then she is courted them to the back. that is a pretty detailed story. i can tell you that story because she was arrested by the east germans, by the stasi and subjected to some pretty harsh interrogation in 1960, 61 with her husband. so they confessed to these crimes. i have since corroborated her confessions with other testimony . master of what she said with the actual layout. talks to local witnesses there. her husband was guillotined and given the death penalty. she was given a life sentence. when these woman went back to these different places, they faced very -- i mean, a life sentence. this is not what happens in west germany.

another case of a secretary who was indicted for the murder of 9,000 jews and acquitted. the case of the austrian perpetrators but go back to vienna and dunn even -- i mean, their cases are heard in a kind of close court. they're treated with the utmost kind of respect. told to go on. >> so most of these women who worked with the nazis kind of faded back into so-called normal life. >> yes. yes. and this is really another a stunning piece of the story, how much context really brought out this behavior and how after the war they slip back into society. they got away with murder. what i would call a kind of establishment virgin. the committee in effect. this ability for the perpetrator

, you know, they don't go on. they're not psychopaths, who continue to come. they become normal. no longer a threat to society to. it's a different system. that nurtured, but behavior has been defeated. so they kind of slip back into the housewife, the mother, the secretary, the nurse. >> share of the history department at claremont mckenna college. >> john k. rowe professor, chair of history. of the chair of the department. this is our new book coming out in september. taylor's furies, german women in the nazi killing fields. this is book tv. >> visit booktv.org to watch any

of the programs you see here on line. type the author robert tuttle and the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. you can also share any thing you see on booktv.org easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. booktv.org streams live on line for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. >> with the help of comcast book tv local cable partner, we bring you a few interviews throughout this weekend. next we talk to us steven mars, archive director at the state of delaware bill for public archive we take a look in some of the rare books contained in the archives and walked to the steps of publication as it is our current. >> welcome to the delaware public archives. one of the oldest public archives. we have been in existence since

1905 and we are the repository for delaware history and particularly its public history. if you were either born, if you went to school, if she married come a few of property, that last chapter in the book they might pass in delaware, we have records of the in this particular facility. also, we have a big repository of materials here, historically related materials. over 10 million documents, over 800,000 photographs and over 6600 volumes that deal specifically with the economic, political, social history of delaware. i want to take a little bit of a look back into our fall. that is part of our recollection. a book of poems by john laughlin. he was a delaware author. it is a beautiful selection of

over 200 poems that are contained therein. we are also very pleased to note that within this particular book we actually have a cd of the author himself which is rare to have both together in one particular unit like that. our next book here is a book that is written in 1775, and it relates to the establishment of the swedes coming into delaware. there were one of the colonial peoples that actually came in to settle along with the dutch. and in that particular part. what is interesting to note here , you see a special type of binder or cover that we use. acid-free paper. specially made to precisely fit the book. you want the book to be able to fit into such a cover like that for.

one of the more significant that i feel is a book in relationship to the underground railroad and it is written by william still. what makes this book so unique is that history and the story but the underground railroad is written by an african-american. it's used very much by researchers as it relates to the underground railroad. the next book is a compendium of scenes. the delaware seem to my check louis. defined in hear some beautiful illustrations of this particular print that he had for delaware. he was the famous diller portrait artist and artist in

general for dollar. his works are displayed throughout many state buildings. and this list of hair he has limited edition of materials that he this going to be -- that he painted. this document. it is a beautiful surveyor's guide as it relates to one of our cities in delaware, nanticoke city. and it was a relationship, there were measuring property lines for the train service here, but what you will notice here is the beautiful coloring that they have here and have this particular book was an actual level of a map at the time. so this is used a lot by individuals that our research in property, homes that someone had been a particular area.

so this is one of the gems of our collection. and of particular interest is the state bible. we may be the only state -- i cannot say that for certainty -- that has a state bible. this bubble was printed back in the 15 thirties in france, and it was a gift to delaware back in the early 1700's, and it has been used continuously since about 1847 where governors would take their ropes for of office. and it was last used in january of this year when governor jack mccallum became governor as war is allegiance to the state. it is brought into the ceremony with the pomp and circumstance because of its historical significance. all governors since about 1847

have taken there of the office, except one governor in 1901. he was a quicker. as a similar books we have your letter and a rare book collection. these books and common, the beginning and the ongoing process. when we get it done nation, would say it was significant, a book of this nature. it goes through various processing. we make sure it's clean, use materials straight many pages that might be called the, take out any materials. you still leave paper clips is

something. will does the jackets and covers often make primary types of boxes, acid free boxes to put those in. we talked about the volumes of we have had. we have mentioned a little bit about documents that we conserve and preserve in the delaware public archives. there's a means to that, certain tools that are specific to the archival profession that our curators and processing archivist's use in their daily tasks as they relate to conservation and preservation of these materials. that led to introduce you to one of our processing archivists who will describe some of the tools that we use. >> you we are in the processing area. this is where the documents that are either new to the institution or things that we have had for a while that have not been formally process, organized and made accessible to

the people who come here to do research. so this area is used to trieste, clean, organize the documents and photographs and other things that we get here at the archives. often the work with cotton gloves to protect the documents and photographs that we touch from our fingerprints and oils and the other fun things. the processing, we use tools like this bachelor which helps us work with small folds and creases and other little things that we need to fix before their formerly housed in acid free materials. things can get a little dirty back here. as you might imagine, just dust and mold. so some soft pretzels complete -- great for cleaning big documents are just planning a terrible winter done. we do make custom enclosures

here. that means boxes that fit special sized adams, sometimes things oversized, undersized. you cannot buy boxes that come in as dimensions. we do make things and house. we use this to make creases in the cardboard. a way that we manually clean documents and other items. creates a safe amount of friction that we can take care and other materials offered of paper and other delicate items. >> our philosophy here is how do we best make our materials accessible to the individual based upon what the lending requirements are and their needs? >> for more information on the recent visit to dover delaware and the many other cities visited by our local content vehicles, abcatoo booktv.org / local content. >> what is on your summer

reading list? >> i have the book the interesting on my night table. i started reading it. i also always read a lot of books on meditation and the san. i am also reading a book called the buddhist way of meditation. so i do meditate. i have done yoga for 30 years. i am always catching up on that part of my reading. but this book is very much the next thing i will read. it is called the interesting by make wallets are, and it starts with a group of teenagers in and our camp. it takes them forward to their '40's and 50's. >> let us know what you are reading this summer. sweetness. posted on our facebook page. send us an e-mail.

up next on book tv, afterwards. this week astrophysicist and his new book brilliant blunders. ..