During the great upheaval on the eastern front, unarmed civilians experienced a range of forms of sexual violence and coercion. Based on research in archives of the German military, it is clear that the German army maintained an extensive system of brothels all over occupied eastern Europe. The deliberate deprivation of life-sustaining resources and the starvation of civilians led to a less obvious, but altogether important tragedy: the willingness of many to exchange live-saving materials only with those desperate enough to sell their bodies. Prostitution and prostitutional relationships, in which a woman or girl (or occasionally a man or boy) became someone’s lover with the expectation that she could save herself and her family, flourished and caused widespread disease. In my venereal disease chapter, largely based on German occupation documents, I emphasize the incredible effort the Germans put into controlling men’s sexual activities by offering classes, lectures, and pamphlets on the duties of a good soldier and on the dangers of disease. Despite the shortage of rubber, free condoms were always available. Men were required to have themselves sanitized before and after sexual intercourse, and the “morality police” hunted down and arrested “sources of infection” (females suspected of having infected a soldier), who were forced into a gynecological examination and, if necessary, treatment.
Because of the lack of efficient treatment options, venereal disease was considered a threat to Germany’s military capabilities. Primarily in response to disease, but also out of the belief that men “need” sex, the Germans established, maintained, and documented hundreds of military brothels throughout the Reich and forced thousands to serve, either by starvation or by gunpoint. German wartime documents reveal discussions about the lack of compliance with regulations surrounding sanitation and the use of condoms, about the levels of disease, the organization of and need for brothels, the long lines at the brothels, and the workloads of the women and girls.
Organizing such a system varied from region to region. In some cases German authorities set up new brothels, and in others they took over brothels that already existed. The army medical staff attempted to ensure the absence of disease by regular examinations of the females, by the requiring the use of condoms and the sanitation of men before and after intercourse. Usually the field commander was in charge of the brothels in his area, and he worked with company and sanitation officers. Sometimes a control system was built from scratch, but despite having to register prostitutes, find houses, beds, bedding, complete paperwork and other details, the men clearly seem to have managed to get what they wanted. For example, in the spring of 1940 military authorities agreed with the civil administration in Poland that “where there was need” brothels would be opened. By October, the chief sanitation officer wrote that the establishment of Wehrmacht brothels – on a very large scale – was absolutely essential, and that already in most large cities brothels were established or were planned.
Various methods were used to staff the brothels, including the recruitment of those who already were sex workers. Others were forced to work as prostitutes, and still others were brought from camps, such as Ravensbrück. The women and girls were of different backgrounds, including Jews, Balts, and Slavs. The evidence points to a horrifying workload. I found documents attesting to brothels in which the women and girls serviced between twenty-four and forty-five men a day. According to a 1942 German military report from Poland, between 120 and 150 men came each day to the Wehrmacht brothel in Lublin, where only four or five “girls” worked. In July 1943 the monthly visitor numbers for the brothels in Lublin and Cholm were 2820 and 4081, respectively. These and other examples are found in German documents and portray an inconceivable physical and psychological demand that was placed on the women and girls.
The German state also established brothels in camps, primarily used by prisoners, and in towns all over the occupied areas. In this chapter I integrate recent research with additional records, primarily on the brothel in Buchenwald. In addition to brothels documented by others, I found references in German wartime documents to military brothels in eighteen different Polish cities, references to two brothels in Ukraine, and to brothels in Russia and the Baltic. This list does not include camp brothels, brothels in the west, an investigation of sources that state that brothels were in “most major cities,” or references from novels. Historian Christa Paul conservatively estimated that a minimum of 34,140 women worked in German state-run brothels. But this number is extremely low, considering that it does not include the brothels for foreign and slave laborers from 1943 to 1945, for the Wehrmacht from 1943 to 1945, for the SS for the entire war, nor the brothels I have documented. Thus, it seems apparent that many more women than Paul estimated worked in the system of military prostitution, and the extensive documentation calls to question the dearth of scholarship on the topic.
Sexual violence was not limited to military brothels. Civilians were raped and mutilated, and often died as a result of their mistreatment. Less documented than the rapes of Germans by Soviet men are the rapes by members of the German army. A few instances are documented in court cases, and many references exist in memoirs, testimonies, and novels. Oral histories I collected in Ukraine revealed many more cases. Punishment was rare. Especially in Slavic areas, the Germans also did not consider rape a crime. The Red Army viewed the rape of a civilian, Soviet, Polish, Slav, or German, as a well-deserved indulgence. Although rape was not a formal military tactic by either army, there was a tacit understanding that men had a right to rape. Partisans also were known to rape. These examples support the notion that many women were victims of rape, and that females in general feared sexual violence, less so from members of a particular military or cultural group, but from armed men in general, emphasizing the importance of gender.
Despite the great diversity of experiences, the irony in trying to make sense of all the combinations of perpetrators and victims is that the perpetrators were frequently intoxicated. Based on an array of archival sources, including memoirs, testimonies, German police reports, and several rape cases, it is clear that the consumption of alcohol was widespread and contributed to the ubiquity of sexual violence. With alcohol people were more willing to break regulations, such as the Rassenschande laws, and they could have experienced heightened sexual desire. With alcohol, one’s beliefs could have become more or less accentuated. Since the differentiations between, for example, Jew, Orthodox Russian, or Latvian, did not always involve obvious external distinctions, alcohol would have rendered it even more difficult for perpetrators to calculate who the person was.
Concerning race, there are no easy answers to why one rapist raped a certain female, or why members of the German army recruited any particular female into a brothel. Despite the common argument that Jews did not experience widespread sexual violence because of the racial laws, it is clear that for Jews sexual coercion and violence was a reality – either in the form of fearing it, watching it, running from it, or falling victim to it. German documents from military leaders, SS officers, and even Himmler reveal Jews and Slavs in military brothels and widespread sexual relationships with locals. The constant in the many examples is that there were armed males and unarmed females, affirming that rape and other kinds of sexual violence need to be understood as crimes of gender. Violations of racial laws by Germans were widespread, and the Soviets seem to have raped indiscriminately, Slavs and Balts alike. Both sides raped females, whether Jewish or Christian.
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