While the atrocities committed by high-ranking  Nazi officials during World War II are widely   known and documented, the lives of  their wives after the war have often   been overlooked. These women were married to  some of the most notorious figures in history,   but what happened to them once the war was over?  Were they held accountable for the actions of   their husbands or were they able to live a  peaceful life? Let’s take a closer look at   the post-war experiences of Nazi wives  and the impact it had on their lives.

Ilse Hess Ilse Hess led a life marked by her unwavering  allegiance to the Nazi party and her marriage   to Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler’s Deputy. She  became Rudolf Hess’s steadfast companion,   standing by his side through the  turbulent years of the Third Reich. Ilse and Rudolf Hess met in the early 1920s,  and their relationship blossomed amidst the   rising tide of National Socialism.

 In 1921,  she initially joined the Nazi Party, and then   rejoined in 1925 after the party had been banned.  She was initially attracted to Rudolf Hess,   but he hesitated to pursue a relationship. Ilse  introduced Hess to Adolf Hitler, who actively   engaged in social events hosted by affluent women.  Hitler played a significant role in facilitating   and influencing the marriage between Ilse and  Hess, which occurred on December 20, 1927,   in Munich. Moreover, Hitler stood as the godfather  to their only child, Wolf Hess, born in 1937.

Throughout the war, Ilse remained a steadfast  supporter of the Nazi regime. Her loyalty was   most evident when her husband embarked on a  solo flight to Scotland, a futile attempt to   negotiate peace with the United Kingdom. Despite  the repercussions of his ill-fated mission,   Ilse staunchly defended his intentions  and continued to stand by the party.

Ilse Hess’s life after the war was marked by  the challenges of rebuilding and adapting to   a world that had irrevocably changed. With  her husband sentenced to life imprisonment   during the Nuremberg trials, she  was left to raise their son alone. After World War II, Ilse Hess and some other wives  of high-ranking Nazis who were either convicted or   executed in the Nuremberg trials got arrested.

  They shipped her off to an internment camp in   Augsburg. When they let her go, she moved to  Allgäu and opened a boarding house by 1955. Ilse Hess was a steadfast believer in  National Socialism and remained devoted to   Adolf Hitler and his ideologies until her demise.  Post-war, she provided support to Stille Hilfe,   a relief organization for arrested,  condemned and fugitive SS members.

Her controversial book, England – Nürnberg  – Spandau. Ein Schicksal in Briefen,   published in 1952 gained some attention. Among  her correspondents were known admirers of Hitler. Her later years were spent advocating for  her husband’s release from Spandau Prison,   where he was held until his death in 1987.

  Ilse Hess passed away on September 7, 1995,   leaving behind a complex legacy intertwined  with the troubled history of Nazi Germany. Margarete Himmler Margarete Himmler was the wife of Reichsführer-SS  Heinrich Himmler. In a twist of irony,   Margarete Himmler was initially trained  as a nurse with the noble intention of   saving lives in World War I.

 After the war she  transitioned to the German Red Cross hospital,   and with her father’s financial support,  she even managed a private nursing clinic. Margarete first crossed paths with Heinrich  during ones of his lecture tours in 1927.   His attraction to her was immediate, captivated  by her blue eyes and blonde hair. They married   in July the following year, despite Heinrich’s  initial apprehension about introducing Margarete   to his Catholic family due to their age  difference and her previous marriage,   as well as her Protestant faith. Eventually, his  family grudgingly accepted Margarete. The couple  

welcomed their daughter, Gudrun,  into the world on August 8, 1929. Margarete was far from a passive spectator  in her husband’s activities. She became a   member of the Nazi Party in 1928 and  regularly arranged gatherings for the   spouses of high-ranking SS leaders. Despite  her involvement, she was notably unpopular.  

During the Nuremberg Rally in 1938, she  had disagreements with the other women,   who collectively refused to follow her  lead. By the end of 1939, Margarete was   overseeing the operation of Red Cross hospitals  throughout Berlin-Brandenburg. Her role sent her   on missions to countries and regions under  German Wehrmacht’s occupation.

 In her diary,   there is a noted trip to Poland, which was under  German occupation at the time, in March 1940,   confirming her eye-witness account of the  events unfolding there. Margarete wrote,   “Then I was in Posen, Łódź and Warsaw. This Jewish  rabble, Polacks, most of them don’t look like   human beings and the dirt is indescribable. It’s  an incredible job trying to create order there.

” Due to her efforts, Himmler achieved the  rank of colonel within the German Red   Cross. In February 1945, Margarete wrote to  Gebhard Himmler, Heinrich Himmler’s brother,   expressing her thoughts on Heinrich.  “How wonderful that he has been called   to great tasks and is equal to them.  The whole of Germany is looking to him.

” In April 1945, Margarete and Heinrich Himmler  shared a final moment before his death. Their   marriage had effectively ended years before,  with Margarete discovering in 1941 that Heinrich   was secretly entangled with his secretary, with  whom he had two children. When the war concluded,   Margarete was subjected to numerous investigations  probing the extent of her knowledge regarding her   husband’s affairs.

 She denied any awareness  and pleaded to be cleared of Nazi association,   absolving her of her husband’s crimes.  After a prolonged deliberation, in 1953,   she was deemed a profiteer of the Nazi regime and  sentenced to 30 days of penal labor. Consequently,   she was stripped of her voting  rights and pension eligibility. After her release, she lived under  the pseudonym ‘Margarete Boden’   until her death in 1967 and tried  to distance herself from her past.

Lina Heydrich Lina’s brother, Hans, was an ardent member of  the Nazi Party and the SA. His high praise of   the party led Lina to a rally in 1929, where  Adolf Hitler delivered a speech that greatly   impacted her, prompting Lina to join the  Nazi party. It was during a rowing club   ball in Kiel, at the age of 19, that  she met Naval Lieutenant Heydrich,   eventually leading to their engagement  announcement on December 18, 1930.

However, the subsequent year saw Heydrich  facing charges of “conduct unbecoming to   an officer and gentleman” for violating  an engagement promise to a woman he had   been involved with for six months  prior to his engagement to Lina.   This led to his dismissal from the navy  in April, leaving him without a career.

It was Lina who suggested the possibility  of a career in the newly established SS.   Heydrich’s ideas for an SS intelligence  service prompted Heinrich Himmler to   immediately appoint him as the chief of  the newly formed Intelligence Service,   known later as the SD.

 As an acknowledgment  of her husband’s dedication to the Nazi cause,   Hitler gifted Lina with a large estate in rural  Bohemia. At the estate she kept several prisoners   for forced labour, where it is alleged, she abused  them physically. The family resided there until   April 1945 when they, along with many other  Germans, escaped the closing Soviet Red Army. After World War II, Lina was acquitted in  the de-Nazification proceedings.

 Through a   couple of court battles against the West German  government in 1956 and 1959, she successfully   secured a pension, a contentious decision given  her husband’s significant role in the Holocaust. Despite her conviction and sentencing to life  imprisonment in absentia by Czechoslovakia,   she managed to avoid serving the sentence.

  In 1965, during a vacation to Finland,   she met and later married Finnish theater  director Mauno Manninen, a move primarily   aimed at changing her surname. She managed her  first husband, Reinhard Heydrich’s former summer   house on Fehmarn, turning it into a restaurant  and inn until an accident caused a fire. In 1976,   she wrote a memoir, Life with a War  Criminal.

 She tirelessly defended   her first husband’s reputation up until her  passing at the age of 74 on August 14, 1985. Emmy Goering Emmy Göring married the prominent Luftwaffe  chief and Nazi, Hermann Göring, on April 10th,   1935. Interestingly, even though  Emmy didn’t actively seek membership,   she was gifted Nazi Party induction  as a Christmas present in 1938.

Emmy Göring held the responsibility of  being Hitler’s hostess at numerous state   functions before the start of World  War II. Her self-proclaimed status as   the “First Lady of the Third Reich” led to a  significant rift with Hitler’s would-be wife,   Eva Braun, whom Emmy openly disregarded  and treated with disdain.

 This behavior   resulted in Hitler demanding Hermann Göring to  instruct Emmy to treat Eva with due respect. One consequence of Emmy’s disdainful attitude  was her exclusion from Hitler’s Bavarian retreat,   the Berghof. Eva Braun reportedly held a  grudge against Emmy for her assumption of   being the “First Lady of the Reich”.

 Emmy  was in a position of significant power and   wealth in Europe and therefore enjoying a  lavish lifestyle during World War II. Her   husband’s ownership of mansions,  estates, and castles in Austria,   Germany, and Poland, garnered from the  confiscation of art and wealth from Jews   and others classified as enemies by the Nazi  regime, were testaments to their opulence.

Upon their daughter’s Edda’s birth, her  husband commanded a tribute of 500 planes   to fly over Berlin, stating that he would  have doubled the number had it been a boy.   After the war a German denazification  court found Emmy guilty of being a Nazi,   leading to a year-long incarceration.

 After her  release, a portion of her wealth, amounting to   30 percent, was seized, and she was prohibited  from performing on stage for five years. After her time in jail, Emmy Göring  managed to get a tiny apartment for   herself in Munich. She also wrote an  autobiography called “My Life with   Goering” – Emmy passed away in Munich  on June 8, 1973. She was 80 years old.