Female Killers

German women made a vital contribution to genocidewithin the context of the Nazi racial hygieneprogram. Female Killers examines the role played byfemale nurses in the crimes of the Nazi regime.Through a detailed study of nurses who participatedin the Nazi euthanasia program at the Hadamarkilling centre, Female Killers examineswomen's agency and their contribution tothe crimes of the Nazi regime. This study appliessociologist Zygmunt Bauman's writings aboutmodernity and Holocaust and evaluates the ways inwhich the organization of the killing enterpriseimpacted upon the conduct of female nurses and howthey reconciled their involvement in the killingswith their consciences. It argues that nurses'compliance with murder evolved incrementally as theybecame embedded within the bureaucratic-medicalnetwork of murder. By the time nurses grasped thedepth of their complicity in murder, they had becometoo enmeshed in the machinery of murder to extricatethemselves from its operations.This study contributes to broader historicalunderstandings of perpetrator behaviour and theHolocaust. The appendices present previouslyunpublished documents.