A Woman's War
Left: Lee Miller in Hitler’s bath, Hitler’s apartment, Munich, Germany, 1945 This carefully arranged and highly symbolic photograph was taken in Hitler’s Munich home on the day of his death (30 April 1945) within hours of Miller’s return from Dachau. Right:Irmgard Seefried, opera singer, singing an aria from Madame Butterfly, Vienna Opera House, Vienna, Austria, 1945 Irmgard Seefried, a German soprano, performs an aria from Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly in the ruins of Vienna Opera House. Jaded by war, Miller was unreceptive to the Viennese love of music, writing irritably: ‘There is never silence in Vienna. There is a madness of music.’
Lady Mary Dunn and young evacuee, Buckinghamshire, England, 1941 Miller’s portrait of Lady Mary Dunn at Castle Farm was one of many photographs commissioned by British Vogue to illustrate the multitude of roles undertaken by women on the home front. Lady Mary ran the family farm, cared for a young evacuee and hosted country breaks for traumatised and exhausted Civil Defence workers. Her husband, Sir Philip Dunn, was serving with the army, while her daughters (the future Serena Rothschild and writer-to-be Nell Dunn) had been evacuated to the United States. The war took its toll on the Dunns’ marriage, which was dissolved in 1944. However, the couple remarried 25 years later.