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Rape during the liberation of France is documented both during and after the advance of United States forces across France against Nazi Germany in later stages of World War II.

Background

During World War II, Life magazine depicted France as “a tremendous brothel inhabited by 40 million hedonists”.

French complaints

By the late summer of 1944, soon after the Invasion of Normandy, women in Normandy began to complain about rapes by American soldiers. Hundreds of cases were reported. Residents said they could not go out on the streets without seeing sex acts.

In 1945, after the end of the war in Europe, Le Havre was filled with American servicemen awaiting return to the States. A Le Havre citizen wrote to the mayor that the people of Le Havre were "attacked, robbed, run over both on the street and in our houses" and "This is a regime of terror, imposed by bandits in uniform." A coffeehouse owner from Le Havre testified "We expected friends who would not make us ashamed of our defeat. Instead, there came only incomprehension, arrogance, incredibly bad manners and the swagger of conquerors." Such behavior also was common in Cherbourg. One resident stated that "With the Germans, the men had to camouflage themselves -- but with the Americans, we had to hide the women."

U.S. troops committed 208 rapes and about thirty murders in the department of Manche. French men also raped women perceived as collaborators with the Germans.

U.S. military response

The Free French Forces high command sent a letter of complaint to the Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force General Dwight D. Eisenhower. He gave his commanders orders to take action against all allegations of murder, rape, assault, robbery and other crimes. In August 1945, Pierre Voisin, mayor of Le Havre urged Colonel Thomas Weed, U.S. commander in the region, to set up brothels outside Le Havre. However, U.S. commanders refused.

One-hundred and thirty of the 153 troops disciplined for rape by the army were African Americans. With the help of the French authorities U.S. officers allegedly scapegoated African American soldiers, proclaiming rape to be black crime. Military courts sentenced African American soldiers to more severe punishment than white American soldiers. U.S.forces executed 29 soldiers as conducting rapes, including 25 African Americans.

See also

• War rape

Allied forces

• Rape during the liberation of Poland
• Rape during the occupation of Germany
• Rape during the occupation of Japan
• Recreation and Amusement Association
• Prostitutes in South Korea for the U.S. military

Axis forces

• Comfort women
• German military brothels in World War II

References

1. ^ Schuessler, Jennifer (2013-05-20). "The Dark Side of Liberation". New York Times. Retrieved 2013-05-30.
2. ^ Faur, Fabienne (2013-05-26). "GI's were liberators yes, but also trouble in Normandy". Agence France-Presse. Retrieved 2013-05-30.
3. ^ Mathieu von Rohr (May 29, 2013). "'Bandits in Uniform': The Dark Side of GIs in Liberated France". Spiegel. Retrieved 2013-05-31.
4. "American WWII GIs were dangerous sex-crazed rapists who the French feared as much as the Germans, explosive book claims". Associated Newspapers. 29 May 2013. Retrieved 2013-05-31.
5. Wieviorka, Olivier (2010). Normandy: From the Landings to the Liberation of Paris. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. 329. ISBN 0674047478.
6. Virgili, Fabrice (2002). Shorn Women: Gender and Punishment in Liberation France. Berg Publishers. p. 193. ISBN 1859735843.
7. ^ "When some liberators were criminals". CBS News. June 2, 2013. Retrieved June 2, 2013.
8. Oneale, Laura (May 30, 2013). "What Soldiers Do an American WWII GI Expose". Guardian Express. Retrieved 2013-05-31.
9. Roberts, Mary (2013). What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France. University of Chicago Press. p. 257. ISBN 0226923096.
10. Hitchcock, William (2009). The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe. Free Press. p. 53. ISBN 1439123306.
11. Schofield, Hugh (5 June 2009). "Revisionists challenge D-Day story". BBC. Retrieved 2013-06-08.
12. Cho, Grace (2008). Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War. University of Minnesota Press. p. 94. ISBN 0816652759.
13. Hughes, Donna; Chon, Katherine; Ellerman, Ellerman (2007). Modern-Day Comfort Women:The U.S. Military, Transnational Crime, and the Trafficking of Women (PDF). University of Rhode Island. p. 4.

Further reading

• Virgili, Fabrice (2002). Shorn Women: Gender and Punishment in Liberation France. Berg Publishers. ISBN 1859735843.
• Lilly, J. Robert (2007). Taken by Force: Rape and American GIs in Europe in World War II. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-230-50647-X.
• Hitchcock, William (2009). The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe. Free Press. ISBN 1439123306.
• Wieviorka, Olivier (2010). Normandy: From the Landings to the Liberation of Paris. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674047478.

External links

• Author Interview:Mary Louise Roberts, National Public Radio, May 31, 2013

• Misplaced Pages neutral point of view disputes from June 2013
• France in World War II
• Aftermath of World War II
• Human rights abuses
• France–United States relations
• Rape in France
• War rape in World War II
• War crimes by the United States during World War II
• African-American segregation in the United States
• Le Havre
• Military scandals
• War crimes in France