Miriam Gebhardt - Crimes Unspoken - The Rape of German Women at the End of the Second World War

It was not unusual for women to be attacked in the open, sometimes even when accompanied by a man. On 4 December 1951, the 26-yearold clerk K. S. was walking home with his wife in Bad Kissingen. Shortly before they reached their home, they were stopped by two drunken US soldiers. One grabbed the woman by the shoulders and tried to drag her off. Her husband intervened and demanded that the soldiers leave his wife alone. She managed to get away but the other soldier punched and injured the man. He was able to escape and call the military police, who arrived while the two were still on the rampage. The MP merely told them half-heartedly to go home and then drove off again.

In Würzburg in April 1952, two women, also with a man, were importuned by American soldiers. The German man stood in front of the women to protect them. One of the soldiers punched him and the other threw a rock at his head, causing a suspected skull fracture. [75] Polizeidirektion Würzburg, 13 April 1952, BayHStA, MInn 80209. Bad Kissingen town council complained in winter 1951, in a letter to the Lower Franconia regional authority, that a striking number of incidents of this nature took place especially around Christmas time. [76] BayHStA, MInn 80209, letter of 28 December 1951. The inhabitants of Bamberg were also concerned at this time by the numerous incidents involving GIs. Apart from rapes, there was also vandalism, shooting, fights, theft and even murder, frequently under the influence of alcohol. When complaints from the communities where the US troops were stationed began to increase, the Bavarian president Hans Erhard finally wrote to the US Landeskommissar Oron J. Hale in January 1952, saying that, although he had no right to criticize the behaviour of the occupying army, he believed that there was an urgent need to teach particularly the lower-level commanders the ‘poor service that this behaviour rendered to the joint interests of the West and the prestige of the greatest democracy in the world’. [77] Bavarian President to Oron J. Hale on 11 January 1952, BayHStA, MInn 80209.

The appeal was well intentioned but had little effect. In the last three months of 1952 alone, the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior received reports of 227 serious incidents involving American soldiers, including 18 attempted or successful rapes. [78] Sicherheitsstörungen durch Angehörige der Besatzungsmacht, Bayerisches Innenministerium on 30 January 1953, BayHStA, MInn 80209. A year later, in the last three months of 1953, there were 260 reported breaches of security by US soldiers, even more than in the previous year. ‘The population is particularly concerned about the many attempted or successful sexual offences committed by US soldiers’, wrote the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior. [79] Innenministerium to Bayer. Staatskanzlei on 17 October 1953, BayHStA, Minn 80209. The area close to military training grounds was considered particularly dangerous. Most of the recorded attacks were group rapes.

These examples from Bavaria were repeated in other regions under American occupation. Years after the end of the war, the sexual suppression of Germany, a reaction to the suffering of war and the incredible hardship that the Germans had inflicted on their enemies, had apparently turned into a gesture of power through sexual acts.

Although it will not have made much difference to the victims which uniform the soldier who raped them was wearing, I believe it would be useful to compare the Soviet and American offences, not least as the aftermath and collective memory are so different. As we have seen, the acts themselves were similar. After months and years of fighting, the soldiers of both major victorious powers had already committed rapes on their allies in the East and in Britain and France, respectively. Following their encounter with the horrendous crimes committed by the German Wehrmacht and the liberation of concentration and extermination camps with their piles of corpses, the sexual violence nevertheless increased exponentially. It was directed at a population that, through fear and also for reasons of ideology and self-righteousness, had put up unexpectedly fierce resistance. The relative prosperity of the enemy provoked rage and envy not only among the Soviets. The GIs in Upper Bavaria also looted, stole watches, bicycles and other valuables. Moreover, both of the armies had been encouraged through propaganda, and through rumours of the allegedly immoral life of German women, to believe that every soldier was entitled to a female trophy.

On the other hand, we see the fear of ‘Asiatic beasts’, but also of African American troops; the belief that they were particularly uninhibited and uncivilized; the vague expectation of retaliation for the misdeeds of earlier years. The threat of weapons and the legal insecurity probably also made the victims appear more passive, a conviction that was reinforced by the general preconception by the Allies of the defeated German people as cowardly and wishing to curry favour, and of a nation that was notoriously willing to accept and obey orders.

After the first phase of conquest, the documented American rapes often appear to be mere demonstrations of power. They took place in broad daylight, in groups, without the slightest fear of the German authorities and only mild apprehensions about their own. The population realized this but had no choice but to resolutely call for a bit more discipline. Some group rapes appeared to have had a systematic character, for example when Soviets and Americans set up temporary premises in which they were able to abuse women for days on end.

It is also interesting to note that the divergent strategies by the two major powers for dealing with the Germans appear to have made no difference to the rape problem. The Americans initially called for a strict ban on fraternization, while the Soviets only gradually screened their troops from the civilian population. As we shall see with the French, who billeted their soldiers in civilian homes so that they lived in close contact with the conquered people in south-west Germany, none of these approaches brought about any improvement in terms of sexual assaults. Apart from the various structural and situative factors fostering a culture of rape among the soldiers, it was above all the image of women – and German women in particular – and the gender roles of the time that brought about the sexual violence that marked the conquest of Germany by all of the occupying forces.