Elissa Mailänder - Female SS Guards and Workaday Violence

NO SCHOLARLY WORK IS EVER THE PRODUCT OF ONE SINGLE MIND. MANY INSTITUTIONS and people contributed to the publication of this study through their financial support, careful reading, critical suggestions, and friendship.

I gratefully acknowledge the financial support for my archival research that also gave me the opportunity to concentrate on writing: the Centre interdisciplinaire dtudes et de recherches sur lAllemagne (CIERA) in Paris, the Hamburger Stiftung zur Frderung von Wissenschaft und Kultur, and the sterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Moreover, the Charles H. Revson Foundation Fellowship made it possible for me to spend three months in 2006 at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies in Washington, DC.

I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Alf Ldtke and Michael Werner for their scholarly and personal support and supervision; and to Birthe Kundrus, Christian Ingrao, and Michael Wildt for the stimulating conversations, constructive criticism, and helpful advice that they provided at various stages of the work. I would also like to express my deep appreciation for the valuable input I received from numerous colleagues at various times while researching and writing this book: Henriette Asso, Susanne Beer, Falk Bretschneider, Patrick Bruneteaux, Michaela Christ, Paula Diehl, Marten Dring, Patrick Farges, Paola Ferruta, Winfried R. Garscha, Christian Gudehus, Karin Harrasser, Max Kramer, Tomasz Kranz, FranoiseKreissler, Dan Magilow, Roland Mller, Alexandra Oeser, Vronique Padieu, Dieter Pohl, Else Rieger, Frdric Saly-Giocanti, Veronika Springmann, Matthias Tronqual, Sigrid Weber, and Harald Welzer. To Anton Koslov goes my sincere gratitude for his emotional and intellectual support while I was researching and writing my German dissertation. I would also like to thank my colleagues at the doctoral seminars of CIERA, the research colloquium supervised by Alf Ldtke, and the working group on war and gender created by Regina Mhlhuser and Gaby Zipfel at the Institute for Sozialforschung in Hamburg, which since 2010 has become the international and interdisciplinary research network Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict (SVAC). These settings of constructive collaboration and criticism have provided, and continue to provide, support and sustenance to my work.

For this English edition, my special thanks go to Andrew Stuart Bergerson and Paul Steege, and to Elizabeth Harvey, Dagmar Herzog, Jennifer Rodgers, and Anne Ruderman. I am extremely lucky to have these inspiring people around me. Their sharp criticism considerably improved my thoughts as well as my English prose. I am also especially grateful to Sandra Mather and Ralph Gabriel who designed the maps for the English edition. Patricia Szobars translation, as well as Paula Bradishs and Gabriel Dottos editorial assistance were of great help in turning the German manuscript into an English book, and I greatly enjoyed our collaboration. My current workplace, the Centre dHistoire de Sciences Po in Paris, provided outstanding personal and intellectual support during the revision of the translation. Among the many colleagues who have provided inspiration and support, I wish to particularly thank Claire Andrieu.

Throughout the long and often arduous process of producing this book, my family has shown immense interest and support, for which I am particularly grateful. I would also like to express my appreciation to Tom Streuber for his affection, support, and inspiration these past four years.

Last but not least, I would like to thank Dieter Ambach (19372011), who was one of the public prosecutors at the Dsseldorf Majdanek trial (19751981). When I contacted him in 2002, at the very beginning of my research, he and his wife, Dorothee, generously received me at their home. It was the beginning of a long and inspiring discussion as well as a friendship. As a young criminal prosecutor in his late thirties, Ambach took over the case in 1976, joining Wolfgang Weber from the Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen zur Aufklrung von nationalsozialistischen Verbrechen. For more than five years, both prosecutors fought for a fair trial and to bring into light the crimes. Of course, Ambach was disappointed with the judgment and the light penalties. And yet, I have rarely met such a convinced democrat and fighter for justice. Moreover, it was the Majdanek trial that finally gave historians access to a variety of testimonies, which made this research project possible. Unfortunately, Ambach passed away in 2011. I would like to dedicate this book to him and his work.