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

The belief that rape was less damaging to a reputation than consensual sex with a member of the occupying forces is revealing. Even in the late 1950s, there appear to have been conflicting views of morality. On the one hand, society was keen to defend the family and sexual morals, making it more acceptable to be raped by a soldier than to sleep with him voluntarily. On the other hand, rape victims considered the moral pressure that would burden them and their children if the circumstances of the conception were known to be unbearably shameful, because they knew that their credibility would be questioned. An insoluble dilemma.

I. Z. described the unreasonableness of the authorities as ‘unworldly’. Not only was no action taken against the assaults by the occupying powers in autumn 1945; not only had she been unable at the time to ‘cope emotionally’ with the stress of making a report – in her eyes, it would have been an ‘affront to good taste’ to peddle such an embarrassing incident. In addition, the adoption agreement and guardianship files would be accessible to the child when she came of age ‘and for that reason alone the rape should not be on file, because it could provoke feelings of inferiority in the child and cause an emotional shock’. But the authorities were unmoved: ‘application admissible but not granted’. [102] Ibid.

The application of A. M., by contrast, was approved. She had been repeatedly raped over a long period by a Russian soldier in West Prussia. It was possible that the East German victim of a Red Army soldier could expect more sympathy in Freiburg than an ordinary unmarried local woman raped by a Frenchman. [103] Ibid., D 5/1 5421. This hypothesis is supported by the following case history. J. R. stated that she had been raped for the first time at 9.30 p.m. on 9 June 1945 by the French adjutant Louis M. She was working at the time in the French officers’ mess. The assault was repeated three times in June 1945. For the authorities, this meant that ‘at least the subsequent incidents cannot be regarded as rape. Because of the short period in which the incidents took place (one month) it cannot be determined on which occasion the child was conceived.’ But the claimant insisted that all of the intercourse with the Frenchman had been involuntary: ‘I didn’t know how to get away from him. I was told that they would force me to come back and work in the mess if I left…. I never said anything about this intercourse, because it was never recognized at the time.’

She was still refused recognition. On the contrary, she was now accused of adultery. There were ‘substantial grounds for suspicion’: the repetition three times of the intercourse with the Frenchman and the refusal to make serious efforts to escape from the situation by leaving the job were indicative of the ‘silence of a guilty conscience’ on the part of the accused. J. R. was not ultimately convicted of adultery, because the judges could not rule out intimidation on account of the ‘unnerving impressions of war and collapse’. [104] Ibid., D 5/1 5408. In retrospect, of course, we cannot say who was right: the claimant, who had the accusation of ‘fraternization’ hanging over her like the Sword of Damocles, or the authorities with their scepticism. But formulations like ‘the silence of a guilty conscience’ and the preconceptions as to how a woman should react after being raped reveal the inquisitorial morality of the authorities.

Sexually inexperienced girls suffered particularly in this regard. P. R. from Offenburg was a kindergarten teacher in Ettenheim and slept in a room with four of the children she was looking after, aged between one and eight years. The door had to remain unlocked because of the children, which offered an opportunity for the three Frenchmen billeted in the house. She was so shocked that she didn’t tell anyone about the rape, even her employers. It was only eight days afterwards that she went to the doctor, who told her she should return in a month’s time. When she did so, the doctor informed her that abortions were forbidden. She consulted the priest in Ettenheim ‘but he couldn’t help me either’. She gave birth to a son at the end of October 1946. In her application for maintenance in January 1958, she wrote: ‘I affirm by affidavit that I had never had sexual intercourse before. For that reason it was terrible for me and [I] couldn’t tell anyone. Today I know that this was false modesty.’ This claim was also turned down. [105] Ibid., D 5/1 5517.

Apart from the depressing stories of the women, the records of the South Baden Regional Authority and the Freiburg Tax Office show that German society in the 1950s was not yet ready to abandon its prejudices and strict moral criteria. There was no willingness to try to understand the situation of the women and children concerned; nor was there much tolerance for other ethnic groups.

Because T. S. already had an illegitimate child, it was not initially believed that she had been raped. In November 1962 the Tax Office revised this opinion – the child was black. The argument that she already had an illegitimate child was valid only ‘if it had been a white member of the occupation forces of the time… For a woman who already had a child, voluntary intimate association with a man would probably not have bothered her. It is this thought in particular that persuaded us that the claimant’s statement was true.’ [106] Ibid., D 5/1 4925.

Several other cases confirm that decisions as to whether a raped woman should receive compensation for her child or not were openly based on racist criteria. Prejudice against black soldiers was not just a south-west German speciality. Representatives of the Nuremberg Tax Office wrote to the Federal Minister of Finance in August 1959 about a local incident in which R. M. from Allersberg had been raped in November 1945 by a black US soldier. She came from a respectable family, her father and brother working for the post office, and she had not gone immediately to a doctor or the police out of shame and consideration for the ‘rural circumstances’. The authorities were nevertheless willing to believe the victim because ‘it is unlikely that the claimant would have given herself voluntarily to the negro. This assumption is suggested above all by her reputation and that of her family.’ [107] BA Koblenz B/126/28038.

The effect of the rape on the relationship between the women and children can also be touched on here. There are frequent references in the applications for support to the fact that the mother loved the rape children just as much as the legitimate ones. These are, of course, also targeted statements, as the women hoping for compensation had also to demonstrate their maternal instincts. For example, H. R. wrote in January 1959 to the Federal Minister for Family Affairs that she had fled Pomerania in 1945 with four children aged three to ten years. The fifth child was the result of a rape, and as a war widow she requested the same treatment for it as the legitimate children: ‘I ask you, Minister, are these children outcasts to be treated like cattle? I love this child as much as the others, because I also carried this child beneath my heart.’ [108] H. R. to the Federal Minister of Finance on 14 January 1959, BA Koblenz. I. D. from Coburg also wrote that she cared for her child, who resulted from rape, with all her heart: ‘I love my child, even if it was conceived in an act of brutal and crude violence and I didn’t even see the father with my own eyes, because I was forced to the floor as I resisted and blacked him out so as to be able to submit more easily to his unlawful demands.’ [109] I. D. on 19 July 1957 to the Federal Minister of Finance, BA Koblenz B/126/5548.