Three female authors came together at Wimbledon BookFest on Saturday to discuss what the chairwoman described as 'women who ignored the rules and slipped through the cracks' in repressive regimes.
Two of the books under discussion were spy novels but unusually, their protagonists are female.
Elizabeth Buchan's novel I Can't Begin to Tell You, describes how British-born Kate, married to a Danish landowner during the Second World War, takes the painful decision to join the resistance movement and secretly oppose her husband.
Event chairwoman Jane Thynne shocked the audience with stories of the real-life finishing school where her novel The Winter Garden is set.
She said women who wanted to marry German SS officers had to attend a six-week residential course to be drilled in child-rearing and social skills.
Jane Thynne, left, and Elizabeth Fremantle, right, at the event.
Night-time prayers should begin 'Our Fuhrer', she told the audience, and even fairy tales were altered, with Cinderella's prince rejecting the ugly sisters, said Ms Thynne, 'because they were Slavs.'
As part of the discussion on Saturday, October 4, Ms Thynne described Nazi Germany's scheme to reward women with bronze, silver, gold or diamond crosses depending on how many children they produced.
Parallels were drawn between what Ms Thynne called the 'state of fear' that she said was Nazi Germany, and the Tudor court of Elizabeth Fremantle's latest novel, Sisters of Treason.
Ms Fremantle confessed to being interested in 'women who break the rules.'
She said: 'In those days women had no freedom, and the act of trying to have some control over their destiny was a transgressive act in itself.'
Childbirth was another common theme of the discussion, with Ms Fremantle describing Elizabeth I's decision not to have children as a way of subverting gender stereotypes to gain power.
She said: 'They didn't know what to do with a woman who wouldn't marry.'
Disobedient Women, chaired by Jane Thynne was held as part of Wimbledon BookFest on Saturday.
The festival continues until Sunday.
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