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Rape during the occupation of Germany

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You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (January 2010) Click for important translation instructions.
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The wave of rapes and sexual violence occurred in Central Europe in 1944/45, as Allied and Soviet troops battered their way into the Third Reich. The most massive the rapes were 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 woman are believed to be raped in Berlin, based on surging abortion rates in the following months and contemporary hospital reports, and from 10,000 to 240,000 women died in the aftermath. Antony Beevor describes it as the "greatest phenomenon of mass rape in history". 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. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/berlin_01.shtml
  4. Hanna Schissler The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949-1968
  5. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106687768
  6. 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
  7. Helke Sander/Barbara Johr: BeFreier und Befreite, Fischer, Frankfurt 2005
  8. Seidler/Zayas: Kriegsverbrechen in Europa und im Nahen Osten im 20. Jahrhundert, Mittler, Hamburg Berlin Bonn 2002
  9. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/16/1052885399546.html
  10. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/may/01/news.features11
  11. 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
  12. Naimark. The Russians in Germany, p. 79
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