Marta Hillers

[2] Having married and moved to Switzerland, Hillers left journalism and did not publish another major work.

Coincidentally, also in 2008, the English translation of the book by Philip Boehm (Virago, 2005) was dramatised as a one-woman monologue, by the playwright Iain McClure,[3] and staged at the New Works, New Worlds Festival at the Arches Theatre, Glasgow, in 2009.

During this period, she kept a diary, describing how the women, children, and elderly men survived in the city in those days.

[4] In later entries she describes that she and other women of any age were repeatedly raped by Red Army soldiers.

To protect themselves, she and other women took Soviet soldiers as protectors; she chose the highest-ranking man she could find, and described this as "sleeping for food.

[5] She stopped writing the diary at the end of June following the return of her fiancé Gerd from the war.

Based on the negative reviews it received in Germany and accusations about her having offended the honor of German women, she refused to have any new editions published in her lifetime.

[2] With the aid of German author Kurt Marek, Hillers published her book in the United States in 1954.

Hillers (whose name was not revealed at this time) was accused of "besmirching the honour of German women",[9] of "shameless immorality" and of anti-communist propaganda.

The author's attitude was an aggravating factor: devoid of self-pity, with a clear-eyed view of her compatriots' behaviour before and after the Nazi regime's collapse, everything she wrote flew in the face of the reigning post-war complacency and amnesia.

[13] Hans Magnus Enzensberger, a poet and essayist, had learned that Hannelore Marek held the copyright and had agreed to Hillers' prohibition against publication in her lifetime.

Enzensberger, a poet and essayist, arranged publication of a new edition of Eine Frau in Berlin as part of his Die Andere Bibliothek series.

[14] In 2005, the memoir was republished in a new English translation, by Virago Press, a feminist publishing house in London[15] and in the United States by Macmillan.

Jens Bisky, the literary editor of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, wrote in September 2003 that Hillers may have been the anonymous author.

Max Färberböck directed Anonyma - Eine Frau in Berlin (2008), starring Nina Hoss as the Woman; it was first released in Germany and Poland.

Unconnected to the film, a dramatisation of the English translation of the book by Philip Boehm, published by Virago in 2005, was written as a one-woman monologue, by Iain McClure, in 2008 and staged at the New Works, New Worlds Festival at the Arches Theatre, Glasgow, in 2009.

To obtain one-off permission for his production, McClure was required to submit successive re-drafts of his play script to the German publisher, Eichborn, right up to the day of first performance, to ensure that no content was included, even imaginary, which might compromise the author's anonymity.