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

Kuby, whose time-bound statements have been discussed here in such detail because they impinge even today on research into this subject and influence the popular view of these events, describes the women of the time using the Christian-tinged idea of women as silent sufferers, and the ideal of self-sacrifice that was a fixed component of the image of femininity in the 1950s and 1960s. It was this image that gave rise to the myth of the Trümmerfrauen (rubble women’), those remarkably long-suffering and robust women who got down to work right after the war and began to clear up the mess – literally and metaphorically.

Kuby’s women in the post-war period helped with the reconstruction and were important as consumers for the Wirtschaftswunder (‘economic miracle’), but their principal role was that of mothers and in the family that had been buffeted so much by war. If she was to emerge at all from the children’s nursery, kitchen or church, then it was as the ‘spiritual mother’ making use of her female caring skills. [34] Maria Höhn, ‘Frau im Haus and Girl im Spiegel: Discourse on Women in the Interregnum Period of 1945–1949 and the Question of German Identity’, in: Central European History 26, 1 (1993), pp. 57–90, here p. 89; see also Annette Kuhn, ‘Power and Powerlessness: Women after 1945, or Continuity of the Ideology of Femininity’, in: German History 7, 1 (1989), pp. 35–46. The ideal woman in Kuby’s time was thus one who managed the household, raised the children and contributed to the family’s social advancement, standing patiently and quietly at the side of her working husband without attracting attention to herself.

These social norms were not mere fantasy but norms that offered possibilities for women to identify with. It is not therefore surprising that women also styled themselves like this at times. The myth of the comrade and Trümmerfrau who kept bravely quiet about her suffering thus slotted smoothly into place. It influenced the collective attitude to the rape trauma and at the same time prevented individual women from coping with it. [35] See also Leonie Treber, Mythos Trümmerfrauen: Von der Trümmerbeseitigung in der Kriegs- und Nachkriegszeit und der Entstehung eines deutschen Erinnerungsortes (Essen 2014).

According to the historian Regina Mühlhäuser, the rapes did not necessarily produce feelings of shame. They could also be seen as a confirmation of the cultural superiority of the Germans compared with the ‘Central Asian brute’ and perhaps even as a justification for the crimes committed by the Germans against their enemies. [36] Mühlhäuser, ‘Massenvergewaltigungen in Berlin’, p. 239. They would also have relativized other and much worse things experienced by the women at the time. For example, a rape was considered less significant than the loss of a child.

This attitude is conceivable, and we can indeed find confirmation in the sources – as we can for almost anything we want to assert. I am, however, sceptical about this thesis. First, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary in the sources, above all in regions other than Berlin. The idea of a collective experience might have been helpful for women who were able in this way to find a narrative mode in the nationwide discussion of the expulsion from the Eastern territories and its perception as a crime, but for many others this explanation was not applicable. Given the differing circumstances and places where the mass rape took place in Germany, it seems more likely to me that the fact of being raped in a Berlin basement, a remote farm while fleeing or in a mountain hut in Upper Bavaria will have impacted on the victims differently – not to mention other factors such as the victims’ personal character, attitude to sexuality, political self-awareness and values, and the reactions of those around her.

The example of Gabi Köpp described earlier, for example, in no way confirms the supposed collective resilience of the rape victims. The idea of a community of victims did not apply at all in her case; on the contrary, she had to deal with isolation within a group of people who were doing everything to save their own skins and nothing to help one another. Many women, apart from Gabi Köpp, experienced their rape as a claustrophobic and captive situation, betrayed by other women, in fear of their lives and misunderstood by those around them. This is not a good basis for ‘coping with’ what happened. As modern trauma research shows, the thesis that the experiences of horror balance each out is also very shaky. On the contrary, today it is believed that cumulative trauma is more likely.

It is obviously not sufficient to seek out isolated examples to support or refute the thesis of the collective invulnerability of the raped women. The problem is in the source material itself. There is autobiographical literature that does indeed refer laconically to the experience: ‘I was on my way to get sugar at G. when two men came along and dragged me into a doorway. Lie down, up with your skirt! It wasn’t pleasant but it was to be expected.’ [37] Quoted in ibid., p. 389. But these texts have to be read between the lines as descriptions that also say the opposite.

The victims’ future life and question of balance might also have been influenced by the severity of the consequences of the rape. One particularly impressive example of a terrible experience giving meaning is the case of Eva Ebner, quoted at the beginning of this chapter. The actress and assistant director was born in Danzig in 1922. After the group rape, she had the opportunity of ensuring that her assailants were severely punished. A military superior organized a line-up and she realized that she had the power to sentence the perpetrators to death: ‘I looked from one to the other, recognized them all, including the small fat one who had been particularly mean. I looked them all in the eyes, and in their eyes I saw only one thing: fear. I said to myself: ‘It’s not worth it for even a single life to be lost on your account and on account of the disgrace they’ve brought upon you. Eva, you’ll get over it. Pull yourself together. Forget revenge.’ I looked at them again and said to the officer: ‘It wasn’t any of them…’. [38] Quoted in Hildebrandt and Kubella (eds.), Mein Kriegsende , p. 32.

We don’t know whether Eva Ebner was particularly resilient, but at all events her subsequent interpretation of her action as a good deed that prevented further injustice no doubt helped her. There were indeed women who decided not to take the matter so seriously. Apart from personal rationalizations, good reasons for keeping silent, the possibility of identifying with the received image of femininity and the inability to speak about their inner feelings, there were probably also victims who remained untouched by the events. But these women were the exception.

It didn’t help that the raped women were quite low down in the hierarchy of victims. First of all, the heroic male victim was seen as more important than the suffering female victim, as Frank Biess noted. [39] Frank Biess, ‘Pioneers of a New Germany: Returning POWs from the Soviet Union and the Making of East German Citizens 1945–1950’, in: Central European History 32 (2000), p. 166. Furthermore, a gender order that made a marriage of comrades the ideal, a society that valued indifference to pain and the suppression of feelings of attachment, and a moral culture that attached greater importance to the feared immorality of women than to the destruction of civilization by the Nazis reduced the possibilities for rape victims to speak about what had happened to them.