Nuremberg Women by Natalie Livingstone

Natalie Livingstone’s deeply researched, unfailingly fascinating book gives the many extraordinary women at or near the centre of the Nuremberg trials their proper, important, and often ignored place in history’ Salman Rushie, author of Sea of Poppies

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 figures: 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 it: 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.

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Mistresses of Cliveden and The Women of Rothschild, the overlooked history of the crucial role played by women during Nuremberg, the most famous trial of the twentieth century.

About the Author: Natalie 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 three children.

23 Apr 2026
 

The Nuremberg Women: At the Trial that Brought the Nazis to Justice by Natalie Livingstone ISBN 9781399813440