I recall a very controversial exhibit in Berlin (IIRC) that featured atrocity photos of regular Heer soldiers conducting mass killings and the like. It took place somewhere around the mid-1990s and sparked much outrage in Germany…
Anybody recall this?
Wiki does have an entry on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmachtsausstellung
A film is also available on the Exhibit on Youtube.
I remember and even posted the links on video few years back in forum.
That thread reminded me that once as a teenager I heard a story of my close relative raped by two Germans. She was 15 then.
Obviously, no details. Another taboo in family’s history.
From what I remember there were some fairly glaring errors with the research. Couple this with the fact that a lot of this was things people didn’t want to hear…IMHO the biggest war crime was one that gets very little attention. In the planning for Barbarossa, it became apparent that the logistics would be insufficient to provide a force of the size they were sending with food and munitions. Therefore, they cold-bloodedly decided that rather than weaken the attacking force they would take food from Soviet civilian stocks to make up the difference. As a result, a very large number of civilians in the occupied areas (I’ve got a vague feeling might have been over a million, but can’t remember) starved to death.
Strange to hear this , coz as i know the polish Institute of National Remembrance very carefully counts up all the crimes against poles( even the cases of deportations) . We still hasn’t seen any documented researches . May it depend on political reasons?
I think it’s quite difficult to present exact number of all the rapes that took place during 6 years of war.
Maybe Russia’s archives contain such detailed information but it remains top secret for some reason. State’s security?
Hardly. I think the criminal rapes-case statistic on occuped by Wermach territories was mainly lost ( if it ever recordered by colloborated “Police”) Plus as it was pointed out - if the german occupational authorities didn’t consider the rapes of slavs like a crime, hardly such cases had been even counted.We may just to collect the humble memours and rare testimonies of survived.
…Just a quick question, I recently was reading a personal account that described these German run facilities where woman were forced to have sex with solders. Sort of like the brothels but in Germany alone and for the specific purpose of increasing the population. Any one else familiar with this, I can’t remember the details but it sounded like another form of rape to me.
What about rapes committed by the allies?
Of course there was fraternization, and isolated incidences of assault, but was that pretty much all? Any numbers on this?
Not trying to start some argument about who was better or worse regarding atrocities, but asking because I need the info for a writing project.
Hello,
It has been voiced that Soviets raped 110.000 women in Berlin alone in 1945.
If you apply the same calculation principle you get 50.000 raped by Western Allies in Berlin in 1945.
Sexual servitude is a form of rape…
What about rapes committed by the allies?
Of course there was fraternization, and isolated incidences of assault, but was that pretty much all? Any numbers on this?
Not trying to start some argument about who was better or worse regarding atrocities, but asking because I need the info for a writing project.
I’m assuming you mean Western Allies and instances of mass rapes where military discipline collapsed as opposed to individual criminal activities, and of course rapes were committed, although there were few moments tantamount to the meltdowns that seemed to take place in the East. In his books Day of Battle and An Army at Dawn, Rick Atkinson writes of an instance in French Colonial North Africa where U.S. Army troops go on a rampage and essentially commit mass rapes as discipline is lost. It began with the raping of the indigenous North African women, then spread wholesale to French colonists and Jews. The French Gendarme complained and some military discipline was reestablished but few, if any, of the rapists were ever brought to justice.
There were also significant instances of rape committed in Italy by French colonial troops from Morocco and Algeria commanded by apathetic French officers during the advances of 1944 leading to near clashes with adjoining U.S. and Commonwealth troops…
Ok, helpful info, I wasn’t aware of the examples you mentioned. Thanks.
Going on Wiki here so…
Indian troops also raped women in Italy but it was to a lesser extent then the French colonial troops.
Interesting little bit about US troops.
Secret wartime files made public only in 2006 reveal that American GIs committed 400 sexual offences in Europe, including 126 rapes in England, between 1942 and 1945.[91] A study by Robert J. Lilly estimates that a total of 14,000 civilian women in England, France and Germany were raped by American GIs during World War II.[92][93] It is estimated that there were around 3,500 rapes by American servicemen in France between June 1944 and the end of the war and one historian has claimed that sexual violence against women in liberated France was common.
Another one time i wonder how strongly the theme of sexual violence in ww2 is associated with allies?!
Less associated overall because rape was not codified, and to my knowledge our brothel workers were all volunteers…
yes, but though. The publics more care about rapes of allied/red army soldiers while almost totally ignore the rapes of wermacht.
I cannot imagine this is a new thing, nor something limited to extended wars. No doubt the news reports from libya and currently syria will be brought out in the future and atributed to a decadent regime or a lack of morals. During high stress human beings are ALL capable of heinous crimes against the person. As a trekkie I do hope we can all overcome this and other flaws, as a single sentient species.
I think pdf27 was onto something earlier in this thread when he mentioned the mass killings conducted by various mechanisms of the Nazi Regime and their allies eclipsing the use of forced brothel workers, sexual extortion, and rapes along the front…
Wow that IS interesting. Going to Google it an find out more… thx
Oh dear, Germans can’t take a break, can they now? What about the Russians? After WWII, no one hears that the Russians help invade Poland do you now? or that fact was Russia was allied with Hitler. Russians raped and murdered too! I am pretty sure the polish were more scared of the Russians then the Germans. If I recall rightly, the polish would rather be caught by Germans rather than the Russians.
What about confederation American soldiers raping black women and enslaving them? And the Japanese in WWII? What about the British taking more than half of the world? bombing of two german cities vertually after WWII ended?
oh that is right, the bad old evil Germans that commit the only war crimes in WWII and the so good Allies and Russia that does no war crimes whats so ever in any time period.
I see right through the Allies and what they represented and I don’t buy their Bull Sh/t whats so ever!
Vonss, if you do some quick searches using the site search or Google, you’ll find all the above has been discussed here and that this issue is to give balance and perspective to the mass rapes committed by Soviet follow on rear echelon forces in Germany and Eastern Europe…