The first time I read a firsthand account from a Night Witch pilot, I had to put it down and walk away.
Not because it was too much. Because it was too real. Because Irina Rakobolskaya — chief of staff of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, a woman who flew combat missions and kept her unit alive and functioning through some of the worst conditions of the Eastern Front — described the cold the way you’d describe a living thing. Something that got inside you and stayed. She talked about the smell of aircraft fuel and pine forests. About the silence right before a bombing run, when you’d cut the engine and glide in the dark and the only sound was the wind through the canvas wings.
About how the Germans heard that sound and knew what it meant.
I read that and I thought: this woman’s story deserves to outlast all of us.
And then I thought: most people will never know she existed.
That’s why I built The Nachthexen.
Every Thursday night—candle lit, research files open, coffee that’s going cold while I’m too absorbed to notice—I write you a letter. About the real history powering Operation Nachthexen. About the women of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment: who they were, what they did, what it cost them, and why it matters right now, today, in a world that is still debating whether women belong in the rooms where decisions get made.
We go deep here. Not surface-level “women in WWII” content — the actual tactical specifics of glide-bombing runs, the political battles that almost kept the regiment out of combat, the relationships between women who lived and slept and flew and grieved together for years. The history that didn’t make the textbooks because someone decided it wasn’t important enough.
It was important enough. It is important enough.
And then there’s the fiction side.
Subscribers to The Nachthexen get access to Nadezhda’s world in ways the novel alone can’t give you.
Character side stories told in her voice — the moments before the crash, the things she carried, the memories that visit her in the dark. The history and the fiction running alongside each other, each one making the other more true.
This is not a newsletter blast. It is not a content calendar served as a form of correspondence. It is a weekly obsession, shared between people who believe that recovering women’s history isn’t a niche interest — it’s an act of resistance.
Smart. Personal. Occasionally furious about what got left out. Always, always worth your Thursday night.
Because here’s what I know: the women of the 588th didn’t get the recognition they deserved in their lifetimes. But we can change what happens next. We can make sure their names are spoken, their missions are understood, their courage is not a footnote. That work starts with knowing the story. And this is where you learn it.
Come find me. I’ve been saving a seat. 🖤
Three ways to be part of this:
→ Join the email list at astridcartesian.com—updates, early access, and every new post delivered straight to you.
→ Subscribe to The Nachthexen on Substack—weekly history, craft essays, and exclusive character side stories from Nadezhda’s world.
→ Pre-order Operation Nachthexen—the novel that started all of this. Be there from the beginning.
