The Women in the Castle

Set during the Second World War, American author Jessica Shattuck’s historical novel The Women in the Castle (2017) follows three women—the widows of men killed in a failed attempt to assassinate Hitler—as they cope with the devastation of their country and the collective guilt of the German people. A New York Times bestseller, critics hailed The Women in the Castle as a novel that “makes sincere, evocative use of family history to explore complicity and the long arc of individual responses to a mass crime” (Kirkus Reviews).

The novel opens with a prologue set in 1938. At her husband’s ancestral castle of Burg Lingenfels, Marianne von Lingenfels is throwing a party. She welcomes her close friend Connie Fledermann and is introduced to his beautiful new wife, Benita. Later in the evening, she finds Connie, her husband, Albrecht, and several other men discussing the events of Kristallnacht. They agree that it is their duty to resist Hitler.

Seven years later, Marianne returns to Burg Lingenfels with Benita and Benita’s son, Martin. We learn that Marianne has rescued them both: Martin from a home where he was sent to be re-educated after his father, Connie, was killed by the Nazis, and Benita from virtual sex-slavery in Russian-occupied Berlin.



The narrative returns to 1938, this time focusing on Benita’s youth in the small town of Fruhlinghausen. Enthused by the Nazi movement, Benita had just joined the Bund Deutscher Madel organization for Nazi women when she met Connie on the street. Enraptured by her beauty, Connie swept her off her feet; she felt she had met her “prince.”

In 1945, Marianne is caring for Martin, who has a serious cut, and for Benita, who has contracted diphtheria. An American officer, seeing that she is struggling by herself, offers to assign her a German prisoner of war named Franz Muller as a helpmeet. Marianne reluctantly accepts.

Marianne gives Benita a letter from Connie in a sealed envelope, but Benita doesn’t open it. Marianne thinks about Connie’s death during his failed attempt to assassinate Hitler in 1944.



Marianne asks Muller to nurse Benita, and the nurse and patient grow close. Muller gives Martin some toy soldiers to play with. Marianne is upset to find the boy playing with a gift from Muller. She asks the Americans about Muller’s past, learns about his involvement in Nazi crimes, and asks them to take Muller away.

Another widow of the assassination attempt, Ania Grabarek, arrives at the castle with her two sons.

Soon Russian soldiers appear on the horizon. While Benita hides with the children in the castle cellars, Marianne and Ania offer them shelter in the barns. They demand to eat the horse stabled there. It belongs to local nobleman Carsten Kellerman, and he gives them the horse.



In the cellar, Benita decides to warn Muller that the Russians have arrived. She finds him, only to realize that he is in no danger—but she is. The soldiers watch her hungrily. She grasps the paring knife in her pocket.

We learn what Benita endured in the year after her husband’s death: taken hostage by the advancing Russians, she was raped and beaten by several soldiers. The Russians also told her that Martin was dead.

Muller has been taken to a prisoner-of-war camp, and on Christmas Eve, Martin and Ania’s sons visit him there. The adults attend a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which moves the whole audience to tears.



Part 2 of the novel jumps forward five years to 1950. Benita and Marianne have moved with their families to a flat in Tollingen. Together they drive to Carsten Kellerman’s farm, where he is marrying Ania. At the reception, a newspaper photographer takes a picture of the bride and groom, which makes Ania extremely anxious. The three women discuss love.

Benita visits Muller, with whom she is in a relationship. Muller tries to tell her about what he did in the war, but she stops him, insisting, “everyone is guilty.”

Ania receives a letter from “R. Brandt.” She replies saying she doesn’t know who he is.



Benita announces to Marianne that she and Muller are engaged. Marianne responds that she cannot give them her blessing: given Muller’s past, it is an insult to Connie’s memory. They argue.

A man named Rainer Brandt arrives at the Kellerman farm, asking to speak to “Ania Kellerman or Ania Brandt.” Ania hides him in Burg Lingenfels, now boarded shut.

Marianne tells Muller why she objects to his marrying Benita. Muller agrees and breaks off his engagement. Recognizing Marianne’s role in this, Benita takes Martin to boarding school and leaves, without saying goodbye to Marianne.



Lonely without Benita, Marianne visits Burg Lingenfels, where she discovers Ania nursing Rainer Brandt. Ania explains that Rainer is her real husband; she stole Ania Grabarek’s identity when the latter, her traveling companion, was killed on the road. Marianne is disgusted but decides not to reveal the truth to her friend Kellerman.

The next few chapters reveal Ania’s story. She and Rainer were enthusiastic Nazis, working in Hitler Youth training camps across Germany. They were happy and optimistic about Germany’s glorious future. However, Rainer was sent to the Russian front, and when he returned, he was traumatized, depressed, and violently abusive. Ania began to hear rumors of the camps: “She knew of the horrors and she didn’t. She half-knew but there is no word for that.” She decided to visit a labor camp for herself, where she confirmed that the rumors were true. She left in the night with her children.

In 1950, Benita has returned to her hometown of Fruhlinghausen. There, she finally opens the sealed letter from Connie given to her by Marianne. Reading it, she realizes she misjudged her husband. Stricken with grief and guilt, she commits suicide.



After Benita’s funeral, Marianne meets a Jewish man who tells her he plans to emigrate to America, and she decides to do the same.

The last part of the novel takes place in 1991. Martin visits Marianne at her home in Maine, and she invites him to Burg Lingenfels, where a party is to be held in her honor later in the year.

Meanwhile, Ania visits her daughter Mary in Massachusetts. Mary, too, has just received an invite to Marianne’s party.



At the party, Marianne and Ania see each other for the first time in 40 years, and they make peace. Marianne learns that Rainer died the day after she discovered him.

Marianne is being feted as a hero of the Resistance, but as she gives the keynote speech of the event, she thinks of her own complicity in Rainer’s death and Benita’s suicide. She faints, and Martin catches her.

The novel’s final chapter follows Muller’s daughter Clotilde, as she cares for her dying father and thinks about his actions in the War.