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]