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

A similarly cynical argument can be found in Stuttgart. The American justice department there stated that an abortion was acceptable only if the mother’s life was in danger. The term ‘violence’ was relative. Was it rape if a woman accepted a ride in a jeep from an unknown soldier on a deserted street or if she claimed to have been hit and bitten during intercourse? [59] Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart OMGUS 12/27–1–9/5, internal memo of 6 April 1946, quoted in Satjukow, ‘Besatzungskinder’, p. 6.

As the mother’s health had to be endangered for an abortion to be approved, the applications often speak of severe depression. On 18 September 1946, for example, the husband of a forty-year-old woman from Munich who had been raped requests permission for the pregnancy to be terminated because his wife was becoming more and more depressed by the day, thus severely jeopardizing family life. [60] K. S. to Military Government in Munich on 18 September 1946, BayHStA 5086a.

But the women victims were not to have it so easy. The Medical Council of Bavaria claimed to the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior at this time that the psychiatric diagnosis in the applications designed to demonstrate serious psychological grounds for an abortion had not been made with sufficient care: ‘A purely psychological indication for termination of a pregnancy cannot be accepted merely on the basis of a psychiatrist’s opinion but only as a result of an existing psychopathology that justifies abortion.’ In other words, the Medical Council of Bavaria recognized only the perverted eugenic abortion practised under the Nazis, while psychological stress as a result of an external event like rape with subsequent unwanted pregnancy was not regarded as a medical indication. The letter went on to state that, in general, applications for termination of pregnancy as a result of rape would not be accepted in future. [61] Medical Council of Bavaria to Bavarian Ministry of the Interior on 18 October 1945, BayHStA 5086a, Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior regarding pregnancy termination, abortion, premature births and miscarriages.

The attitude was thus very narrow-minded, and applications could take months to process, while for the pregnant woman, naturally, time was running out. I. O. from Penzing bei Landsberg wrote a desperate letter to the Military Government on 1 October 1945:

On 10 May 1945 I was stopped by a soldier in American uniform and in spite of strong resistance was forced at gunpoint to submit to him. The soldier was drunk, and there was unfortunately no one nearby to help me. My family and I were always staunch opponents of the Nazi regime and suffered under Nazi rule for twelve whole years…. For twelve years we hoped for an Allied victory that would restore equal rights and liberate us from a terrible way of life that had become almost intolerable for peace-loving people. Trusting the discernment of the American military government, I request this approval, because the assault committed against me and its consequences once again threaten to destroy my life instead of allowing me finally to work quietly and peacefully thanks to the Allied victory for a better life than was possible under the Nazis. [62] Ibid., I. O. to American Military Government on 1 October 1945.

Women seeking an abortion in Bavaria met with a particularly uncompromising attitude. Religious doctors tended in general to refuse. For example, A. K., who had been raped by Czech soldiers in Sudetenland, was informed by the medical officer in Nördlingen that she should have the child and apply to a religious organization for the child to be taken into care. [63] Ibid., letter of 17 December 1946.

At the end of 1946, the heads of the state justice departments reviewed the problem at an interzonal conference. They decided that abortions would be allowed in future if the pregnancy could be proved to have resulted from rape and if the pregnant woman had reported the rape within a very short period (around one week). [64] Ibid., Bavarian Ministry of Justice on 19 December 1946 to the Public Prosecutors in Munich, Nuremberg and Bamberg. As we have seen, it was almost impossible to make a report at this time, however, because the German police were not responsible for the investigation of such cases. Official sources also show that for women who could not meet all the requirements, the only possibility was to seek an abortion without official permission. At least one backstreet abortionist is mentioned in the records, a midwife in Feldkirchen near Munich, who is said to have carried out a large number of abortions. [65] Letter from a doctor to the head of the State Health Department of 22 January 1948.

Women in Berlin-Neukölln seeking an abortion were required to produce an affidavit confirming the violent origins of the pregnancy and a medical certificate on the length of pregnancy. [66] All of the following cases: Landesarchiv Berlin, Neukölln Department of Health, affidavits, Rep. 214 no. 94. The archive contains over 300 affidavits. Not all of the women give a reason for not wanting the child. As mentioned earlier, however, there is only one case in which a woman, already in the seventh month of pregnancy, explicitly requested an abortion because she didn’t want ‘under any circumstances to bring a Russian child into the world’.

Most of the other women stated that they were engaged, married, widowed or already had children. They mentioned saving their marriage or hardship because, for example, their husband was a war invalid, or the need to work. They pointed out that they had been forced to have sex against their will and at gunpoint – the threat with a weapon was considered necessary at the time for the act to be recognized. One woman wrote:

I have had two children. The older one is three and a half, the second died in hospital of measles and pneumonia at the age of eighteen months. In my current situation I cannot afford to have a third child. In addition, I am obliged every month to accept welfare payments. My husband was in the military for six years and has been missing for one year. I am therefore left totally to my own resources – and so one child is enough! I hope for your understanding. I. H., 27 September 1945.

Women often gave the name of a person who could confirm the assault. This was possible because the rapes often took place before witnesses. In the case of E. H., her landlords and her own four children were present. Many of the applicants had been raped several times, which naturally increased the chance of becoming pregnant – A. S. nine times, B. B. in Upper Silesia eighteen times. She had two children, lived with her mother and claimed that she had no more baby clothes. B. E. was raped in St Blasien in the Black Forest by a Moroccan. She was a Red Cross nurse and feared that if she had a child she would lose her job. Hildegard S. had been raped ‘many times’ as she fled from Silesia. Her husband had been killed in the war. She didn’t even have a change of clothing for her eight-month-old child: ‘Please understand my situation and allow me to terminate the pregnancy. I am speaking the full truth.’

C. V. stated that she had been married without children for twenty-two years. Her husband had just returned from captivity. E. H. had been for two months in the refugee camp in Fürstenwalde, where she had been raped and made pregnant. She was expecting her wounded fiancé to return any day: ‘Given the misery I have had to suffer, I do not want under any circumstances to bring a child into the world.’ G. W. also expressed her fears: ‘I have been married since 23 August 1941 and have two children aged four and eighteen months. My marriage is at risk and I therefore request that the pregnancy be terminated.’ G. D. also saw a threat to her marriage if she failed to obtain an abortion.