Victoria Harris. Selling Sex in the Reich: Prostitutes in German Society, 1914–1945.

Abstract

Victoria Harris's engaging book focuses on the experiences of women working as prostitutes in Germany between 1914 and 1945. The book aims to analyze individual experiences, locating these experiences within concentric circles, from individual through community to society and state, to provide a window into changing attitudes toward prostitution across three political regimes. Harris draws on criminal records and registration documents for 260 women working as prostitutes in the city of Leipzig and the medical records of 148 prostitutes in Hamburg. She complements these documents, which include interviews with the women concerned, with articles from the communist publication Der Pranger (The Pillory) written by women about their experiences as prostitutes. These sources provide “the prostitute's voice,” and as such, present a valuable contribution to the existing literature. That voice is, however, almost drowned out by the far larger body of newspaper reports, administrative files, and papers of interest groups that present bureaucratic attitudes and social perceptions of women working as prostitutes. Indeed, where women's voices are heard, it is mainly through the filter of official channels and publications. Nonetheless, Harris details the background and circumstances of women entering prostitution and shows that, to a limited extent, they were able to negotiate their working conditions, resist dominant and repressive legal strictures, and exercise (limited) control over their time. As such, the author seeks to position women working as prostitutes as active agents demonstrating their “self-will,” and not merely as victims exploited by a misogynist society (p. 25).