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Rape during the occupation of Germany

As Allied troops entered and occupied German territory during the later stages of World War II, mass rapes of women took place both in connection with combat operations and during the subsequent occupation of Germany by soldiers from all advancing Allied armies, although a majority of scholars agree that the records show that a majority of the rapes were committed by Soviet occupation troops.[1] The wartime rapes were followed by decades of silence.[2][3][4][5]

According to historian Antony Beevor, whose books were banned in 2015 from some Russian schools and colleges, NKVD (Soviet secret police) files have revealed that the leadership knew what was happening, but did little to stop it.[6] It was often rear echelon units who committed the rapes.[7] According to professor Oleg Rzheshevsky, "4,148 Red Army officers and many privates were punished for committing atrocities".[8] The exact number of German women and girls raped by Soviet troops during the war and occupation is uncertain, but historians estimate their numbers are likely in the hundreds of thousands, and possibly as many as two million.[9]

French troops

French troops took part in the invasion of Germany, and France was assigned an occupation zone in Germany. Perry Biddiscombe quotes the original survey estimates that the French for instance committed "385 rapes in the Constance area; 600 in Bruchsal; and 500 in Freudenstadt."[93] French Army soldiers were alleged to have committed widespread rape in the Höfingen District near Leonberg.[94] Katz and Kaiser,[95] though they mention rape, found no specific occurrences in either Höfingen or Leonberg compared to other towns.


According to Norman Naimark, French Moroccan troops matched the behaviour of Soviet troops when it came to rape, in particular in the early occupation of Baden and Württemberg, provided the numbers are correct.[96]


German academic historians at Jena and Magdeburg contend that only France supported the children of her occupying armies resulting from the mass rape of German women. In the four occupied zones, however, many children of German mothers were ignored their entire lives. Children of French troops were regarded as French citizens. At least 1,500 children in France and her colonies were given up for adoption. Others never overcame the apparent flaw, while some "occupation children" gradually made their way in the divided society of Germany.[97]

Discourse

It has been frequently repeated that the wartime rapes were surrounded by decades of silence[2][4][5] or, until relatively recently, ignored by academics, with the prevailing attitude being that the Germans were the perpetrators of war crimes, Soviet writings speaking only of Russian liberators and German guilt and Western historians focusing on specific elements of the Holocaust.[98]


In postwar Germany, especially in West Germany, the wartime rape stories became an essential part of political discourse[11] and that the rape of German women, along with the expulsion of Germans from the East and the Allied occupation, had been universalized in an attempt to situate the German population on the whole as victims.[11] However, it has been argued that it was not a "universal" story of women being raped by men but of German women being abused and violated by an army, which fought Nazi Germany and liberated death camps.[16]

Comfort women

German military brothels in World War II

Marta Hillers

—rape after the Battle of Monte Cassino

Marocchinate

Prostitutes in South Korea for the U.S. military

Rape during the liberation of France

Rape during the liberation of Poland (1944–1947)

Rape during the occupation of Japan

Rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War

Recreation and Amusement Association

Soviet war crimes

Stunde Null

United States war crimes

War crimes of the Wehrmacht#Rape

Wartime sexual violence

A Woman in Berlin

(1988). War's Unwomanly Face. Moscow: Progress publishers. ISBN 978-5-01-000494-1. (Translated from original edition in Russian: Алексиевич, Светлана (2008). У войны не женское лицо (in Russian). Moscow: Vremya publishers. ISBN 978-5-9691-0331-3.) Note: citations in text are given in reference to the Russian edition.

Alexievich, Svetlana

Dack, Mikkel (June 2008). (PDF). Journal of Military and Strategic Studies. 10 (4).

"Crimes Committed by Soviet Soldiers Against German Civilians, 1944–1945: A Historiographical Analysis"

MacDonogh, Giles (2009). After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation. . ISBN 978-0-465-00338-9.

Basic Books

Naimark, Norman M. (1995). The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949. Cambridge: Belknap Press.  0-674-78405-7.

ISBN

Douglas, R.M. (April 2023). "Neither Apathetic nor Empathetic: Investigating and Prosecuting the Rape of German Civilians by U.S. Servicemen in 1945". Journal of Military History (87): 404–437.