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Rape during the occupation of Germany

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A wave of rapes and sexual violence occurred in Central Europe in 1944 and 1945, as Allied and Soviet troops battered their way into the Third Reich. The majority of the assaults were committed in the Soviet occupation zone; estimates of the numbers of rapes committed by Soviet soldiers range widely, from the tens of thousands to 2 million. Around 100,000 women are believed to have been raped in Berlin, based on surging abortion rates in the following months and contemporary hospital reports, with an estimated 10,000 women dying in the aftermath. Female deaths in connection with the rapes in Germany, overall, are estimated at 240,000. Antony Beevor describes it as the "greatest phenomenon of mass rape in history", and has concluded that at least 1.4 million women were raped in East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia alone. According to Natalya Gesse, "the Russian soldiers were raping every German female from eight to eighty."

After the summer of 1945, Soviet soldiers caught raping civilians were usually punished to some degree, ranging from arrest to execution.

The rapes continued, however, until the winter of 1947–48, when Soviet occupation authorities finally confined Soviet troops to strictly guarded posts and camps,“ completely separating them from the residential population in the Soviet zone of Germany.

See also

References

  1. Perry Biddiscombe. Dangerous Liaisons: The Anti-Fraternization Movement in the U.S. Occupation Zones of Germany and Austria, 1945-1948. Journal of Social History, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Spring, 2001), pp. 611-647. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3789820
  2. Elizabeth Heineman. The Hour of the Woman: Memories of Germany's "Crisis Years" and West German National Identity. The American Historical Review, Vol. 101, No. 2 (Apr., 1996), pp. 354-395. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2170395
  3. Kuwert, P., & Freyberger, H. (2007). The unspoken secret: Sexual violence in World War II. International Psychogeriatrics, 19(4), 782-784. doi:10.1017/S1041610207005376.
  4. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/berlin_01.shtml
  5. Hanna Schissler The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949-1968
  6. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106687768
  7. Atina Grossmann. A Question of Silence: The Rape of German Women by Occupation Soldiers October, Vol. 72, Berlin 1945: War and Rape "Liberators Take Liberties" (Spring, 1995), pp. 42-63 MIT Press. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/778926
  8. Helke Sander/Barbara Johr: BeFreier und Befreite, Fischer, Frankfurt 2005
  9. Seidler/Zayas: Kriegsverbrechen in Europa und im Nahen Osten im 20. Jahrhundert, Mittler, Hamburg Berlin Bonn 2002
  10. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/16/1052885399546.html
  11. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/may/01/news.features11
  12. Norman M. Naimark. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949. Cambridge: Belknap, 1995 p. 92 ISBN 0-674-78405-7
  13. Naimark. The Russians in Germany, p. 79
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