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

As an unmarried mother, F. F. [97] In view of the fact that some of the villages and hamlets are very small, I have changed the initials of the victims. The following cases come from the Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg / Staatsarchiv Freiburg, Bestand D 5/1 Einzelfälle. from Altenheim in the district of Kehl, who was even able to name the perpetrator, one Ali B. from Tunisia, was regularly visited by welfare workers. Their impression helped with the decision as to whether she was eligible for compensation on account of war-related rape and pregnancy:

There are no complaints about the raising of the child, who is being brought up as well as possible in the home of F. The mother is currently unemployed and thus at home, which does not prevent her from continuing to see coloured members of the occupation force and openly admitting that she obtains things from them that she needs to subsist. The house is nevertheless clean and tidy…. The child is well developed for her age. Because it is a coloured occupation child, it is often the cause of conflict in the family. The stepfather is also not a good father in this regard… refusing to contribute to the child’s upbringing.

The welfare worker added that the child was developing well, was big, strong and hard-working, but only an average pupil, ready to get up to all kinds of tricks, helping with the housework and in the neighbourhood. In spite of the poor circumstances, she could remain without problem in her present environment.

There was nevertheless the impression

that a rape had not taken place. Frau F. also had her first child without being married, so that it can be assumed that the child G. was conceived with the claimant’s consent, all the more so given the report by the state health department in Kehl: “Although morality and decency are not important focuses in the home of F., there is nothing to be said about the child’s upbringing.” [98] Staatsarchiv Freiburg, compensation court, individual cases; letters from welfare worker of 12 December 1948, 17 April 1951, D 5/1 5295.

It was not a question of the child’s welfare, however, but of the morality of the child’s mother. The fact of having another illegitimate child was sufficient for the authorities to question the claimed rape.

Rape was not sufficiently demonstrated either in the case of H.-M. T. from Villingen. There were no records available from the hospital to prove that an examination had taken place after the act. The victim had not released her doctor from the obligation to confidentiality, and another witness was too old to remember. The alleged perpetrator, Aziz T., adjutant in the French Army, also refused to acknowledge paternity. The victim herself had put her story on record with the South Baden Regional Authority, stating that it was impossible for her to provide any proof. She didn’t initially tell anyone about the rape. When she discovered she was pregnant, she even claimed that it had occurred of her own volition: ‘I continue to do so today because I wish at all costs to prevent my daughter from learning the way she was conceived. The girl already has it hard enough coming to terms with her “differentness”, and it requires a lot of strength but also a lot of love to understand and come to terms with it.’ [99] Ibid., D 5/1 5387. The rape victim had thus kept silent out of consideration for her daughter and was now suffering the consequences. In judging the case, the child’s welfare was the least important argument.

The grounds for the decisions clearly illustrate the importance for the authorities of the personal appearance, the ‘good impression’, of the claimants. A. A. from Nenzingen/Stockach is a case in point. She was awarded 60 marks a month until her daughter turned sixteen. The claimant was able to produce not only a witness to the rape by a ‘coloured’ Frenchman in a pigsty in May 1945 but also confirmation from two doctors that she had applied for an abortion, which would have been approved except for health considerations. When the girl was five, the mother married and the daughter was legitimized. The authorities were satisfied in this case that rape had occurred. Apart from the facts themselves, the ‘resocialization’ through marriage and the protection of the new family could well have been decisive.

I. Z. was also believed. According to a record, her claim was credible because she had spoken hesitantly and only after a number of questions. The details were visibly embarrassing for her, and the social worker did not have the impression ‘that she was reciting a prepared speech. Moreover, her general demeanour was that of a modest, simple but self-assured woman without sufficient imagination or acting capabilities to have thought up the salient points of the story herself. It can be assumed that she really was the victim of rape.’ [100] Ibid., D 5/1 5606.

A particular feature of the French occupation was that the soldiers were billeted in private houses. (The Americans preferred to requisition quarters for themselves alone.) The proximity of the civilian population and the stationed soldiers not only increased the danger for the locals but also made it more difficult for the victims to have their stories of violence believed. This was the case with I. Z., a dietary assistant from Baden-Baden, whose appeal against the rejection of her application was turned down in February 1962 by the South Baden Regional Authority. Her husband, a doctor, had been killed in the war. In autumn 1945 she lived as a 27-year-old with her parents, where Dédé was also billeted. The soldier lived in quarters separated from the family by a glass door. After a few months, he forced his way one night into Z.’s bedroom and raped her at gunpoint. He left shortly afterwards. He said simply: ‘C’est la guerre!’

I. Z. didn’t call for help or inform the authorities afterwards. She gave birth to the resultant child far from her home so as to avoid the shame of being seen pregnant and unmarried by friends and neighbours. She regarded the rape as a ‘disgrace’ that would remain with her forever and that could never be made good, as a stain on the reputation of her highly esteemed and respected family: ‘Any criminal can return to a normal life and regain respect after serving his sentence. I will never be able to restore our family’s good reputation.’

Her father managed to discover where Dédé was living. I. Z. travelled to France to remind the father of her daughter about his maintenance obligation. She learned from Dédé’s mother that he was married and had two children but would be willing to take in his youngest daughter: ‘My poor daughter was devastated at the thought of having to go to France and live in primitive French circumstances, much, much different from ours.’ A planned marriage with a German fell through, as the fiancé was unable to get over the rape: ‘I keep on asking what I did to deserve this. I was not able to go back to work… Perhaps I could have remarried… And what if something happens to me? An orphanage would be the only solution.’ Her daughter was a ‘delightful child’, well brought-up and with a loving and honest character. She was attending secondary school.

But none of this had any effect. The jurists refused to accept her argument that she had wanted to protect her reputation and that of her family and had not therefore informed the authorities about the rape. They believed the opposite, considering it ‘proper and natural’ to inform the authorities after a rape, since ‘being a victim of involuntary intercourse was much less damaging to a reputation than consensual intercourse outside of marriage’. [101] Ibid., D 5/1 5228.