The extent to which the Third Reich pur­sued its eugenic aims has not been explored in lit­er­a­ture as much as it should be, which makes Jen­nifer Coburn’s new his­tor­i­cal nov­el an impor­tant read for any­one look­ing to learn more. Through three dis­tinct but inter­sect­ing view­points, The Cra­dles of the Reich focus­es on Lebens­born, a Nazi-spon­sored project ded­i­cat­ed to increas­ing the num­ber of Aryan chil­dren in Ger­many. By evok­ing the emo­tion­al dev­as­ta­tion and moral quan­daries of these fic­tion­al char­ac­ters, Coburn brings this project of ​“racial hygiene” from the realm of the unbe­liev­able into the harsh light of real­i­ty. It’s hard to deny the truth after being immersed in it.

The Cra­dles of the Reich fol­lows Gun­di, a mem­ber of the resis­tance who is preg­nant with her Jew­ish lover’s child; Hilde, a girl eager to climb the ranks of the Reich, even if that means sleep­ing with an old­er, mar­ried SS mem­ber; and Irma, a nurse at Heim Hochland, the Lebens­born mater­ni­ty home where most of the nov­el takes place. Each of these char­ac­ters must con­tend with their own ethics under the influ­ence of Nazi pro­pa­gan­da and the con­se­quences that come with resist­ing what they’ve been told to think.

Lead­ing Nazi par­ty mem­bers once called Nazism ​“applied biol­o­gy,” and the Lebens­born birthing project exem­pli­fies this ide­ol­o­gy. One of the most shud­der-induc­ing moments of the book takes place at the begin­ning, when the sin­is­ter Dr. Ebn­er vio­lates Gun­di as a part of an ​“exam­i­na­tion” to deter­mine the health of her baby. After­wards, he tells her, ​“Gun­di, do you know why we mea­sured you? … It turns out that you are a per­fect spec­i­men of Ger­man wom­an­hood.” The word ​“spec­i­men” demon­strates the way Nazism turned human beings into sci­en­tif­ic studies.

Heim Hochland itself is a fas­ci­nat­ing, and hor­ri­fy­ing, set­ting. Even in such a bru­tal atmos­phere, the girls chat­ter and gos­sip like any­one their age, of any time, would. Irma’s fond­ness for the girls, and for chil­dren in gen­er­al, reveals the com­plex inner lives of those who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the anti­semitism of the Third Reich. Each of the main char­ac­ters has a secret of her own, which makes the nov­el grip­ping and sus­pense­ful. And the his­tor­i­cal detail nev­er bogs down the plot or char­ac­ter development.

The Cra­dles of the Reich is both edu­ca­tion­al and deeply mov­ing, show­cas­ing aspects of Nazi Ger­many that often go undis­cussed. Coburn human­izes, with­out con­don­ing, the women that will­ing­ly played a role in the Nazi project of eugen­ics — as well as those who had no choice yet still man­aged to resist.