I don’t think that abstract discussions about exactly how many or what percentage of women were raped in Germany or anywhere else really matter, any more than it matters whether six or five or three of ten million Jews or any other group were exterminated by the Nazis or anyone else.
I agree.
Tough the calculation comes in when someone has to react on the claim like “70-80%” and “army of rapists” and such.
Once it’s established that there was a policy or an attitude which allowed such things on a large scale, then the people who did it and the nation which allowed it deserve condemnation for allowing it.
The purpetrator’s crimes should be condemened. And rape is surely a terrible crime. I find it even silly to say as it is self explanatory thing…
The condemnation of the nation is a more blurry issue though but it is a reasonable point for discussion.
And nations which still can’t admit the past deserve even more condemnation.
Disputeable. But it is a matter of what is actually to be admited.
Each side of the story is bringing forward the extreems. Denieying one extreem does not automaticaly mean accepting an other extreem view.
I saw it on TV in a series called As It Happened, tonight’s episode being The Rape of Nanking. Looks like it or parts of it might be on You Tube http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=as+it+happened+rape+of+nanking&search_type= but you need to register as over 18 to view and I can’t be bothered. I’ve seen enough inhumanity and evil for one night.
I agree.
Tough the calculation comes in when someone has to react on the claim like “70-80%” and “army of rapists” and such.
For the historical record it’s important to get the right figures, but for general historical discussion it’s the motivation behind events that matters in understanding them. For example, whether X thousand or Y thousand were killed in bombings at Dresden or Tokyo isn’t particularly relevant to debates about whether or not they were justified raids once we know that a lot of people died.
Figures start to matter somewhere, because nobody apart from those closely affected is going to get wound up about, say, an RAF strafing run on a French road which killed an innocent French civilian family in early 1944, although from a moral viewpoint there probably isn’t any distinction to be made on the basis of numbers. An action is either morally acceptable or not.
The purpetrator’s crimes should be condemened. And rape is surely a terrible crime. I find it even silly to say as it is self explanatory thing…
The condemnation of the nation is a more blurry issue though but it is a reasonable point for discussion.
One can condemn a nation for specific policies or actions without condemning the nation, or its people, as a whole, as one can be upset with one’s child for a specific act without regarding the whole child as bad.
Disputeable. But it is a matter of what is actually to be admited.
Each side of the story is bringing forward the extreems. Denieying one extreem does not automaticaly mean accepting an other extreem view.
Forgiveness usually requires the offender to admit the wrongful act; to be remorseful for it; and, ideally, to atone for it.
It’s done millions of times every day on a personal level, but rarely on a national level.
There’s a world of difference between saying ‘What I did in that case was wrong.’ and ‘I am a totally worthless bastard.’
Why is this thread obsessed with a stocking measurement?
Anyway, as it’s clearly important to you to have some 15 or higher denier stockings on an Argentinian war crime to balance Chevan’s frightening fashion crime, here it is.
I agree with most of that (post #142). The bits that I could discuss I leave for other threads.
You see we are not that different. And if not for your gargatuan ability to misunderstand me we could get allong quite well.
I did discuss them. You actually chose to overfocus on them in some effort to discredit the site as relevant or irrelevant propaganda. The fact is, there is much bitterness about the conduct of Soviet soldiers during their march through Eastern Europe…
Toi, toi, mon amie!
Toi et les fantôme de ton imagination débridée.
I don’t speak French, “moi” is one of the derivatives adopted into the English language…
I really do not understand what kind of “frenzied attack” of mine you are talking about.
Maybe “obsession” would have been a better term…
I opened the thread. I mostly talked to Rising Sun, you to Chevan. Then you and I exchanged a couple of post (#64, #65, #68) about child pornography (really relevant topic in this thread!).
I will tell you a secret… schhhh… I am not really following your conversation with Chevan. I simply do not have time to read all of the posts.
You see this is where I have a big problem here. I wasn’t initially discussing anything with you. I commenting on the red-herrings that Chevran was throwing into the conversation. You chose only to comment to me when it is your countrymen making silly, off-topic responses (like wishing rape and death on people because he doesn’t like what they say). Then you act as if I am responding to you while ignoring Chevran totally.
I find this totally disingenuous…
Then in the post #70 you linked to the known victim photografs. I went to see them and looked on the site where they are located to see more about the context (Hello Rising Sun!). SO you know what I read there. And I have seen similar statements before many times.
So since you linked to the photos I thought it would be reasonable to ask about your opinion on their presentation on the mentioned site (post #76). You replied in post #80: “Statements? …”. I explained what statements in post #88 and asked “What do you think about them?”.
In post #98 you said “The statements are poorly worded”. In the same post you asked me: “Egorka, do you believe that the whole sale rape of much of the German female population by the Red Army was a significant problem in WWII? Or do you not?”.
I replied to you in the post #102. First I said it was rediculous to imply poor wording because the intended message was carried perfectly to the reader. The site author do in fact mean 70% raped (or in Litvonian lag. - 70-80%). And the I answered to your second question about my personal beleive on this matter.
And so our conversation continued…
What “frenziet attack”?
Maybe, but most people do not think like you do.
In fact, this “70-80%”, “all women” and “gang of rapists” is becoming main stream. Among others thanks to sites like that.
I know, Il inked to that article in the post #14.
Because you seemed rather obsessed and wrapped up in statistics…
Whether is was 70% or 40%, the overall effect was the same. The German women in the Soviet sector could scarcely venture out in public after a certain point of the day. And any girl (after the initial “revenge” point of rape, after which it became more of the traditional reflection of an ancient army plundering in their conquest to which women became objects.
The comments, how ever inarticulately posted in English are taken from he historical record. Much of which from former Soviet soldiers recollections…
Umm. Ok. What about these options:
[ul]
[li]German Wehrmacht lead by nazists have raped nearly 70% of Soviet woman. Girls who resisted where killed. No one was sentenced or suited for this crimes.[/li]> [li]German Wehrmacht lead by nazists have killed nearly 70% of Soviet men. No one was sentenced or suited for this crimes.[/li]> [li]German Wehrmacht lead by nazists have killed nearly 70% of Soviet babies. No ne was sentenced or suited for this crimes.[/li]> [li]Nazist encouraged Wehrmacht soldiers to rape women. All girls who resisted have been shot.[/li]> [li]Nazist encouraged Wehrmacht soldiers to kill babies.[/li]> [/ul]
We’ll get back to this…
Okay (edit): Firstly, I do not recall reading all of these explicit statements referring to Soviet soldiers, but to other communist movements. Secondly, I can point you too numerous sites in which are harshly critical of the Wehrmacht’s activity in the Ost, which precipitated all of this. Including an exhibit held in Germany in the 1990s which showed photos of regular Wehrmacht soldiers conducting massacres and atrocities.
The pictorial display was considered highly controversial because of the German understanding that the Wehrmacht conducted itself as generally a regualr military formation and that is was mostly the Waffen SS that conducted the most barbarous atrocities. This was clearly not always the case; but the exhibition caused a bit of a row nonetheless because it forced some Germans to the cold hard reality that many of ever their regular soldiers, conscripted, conducted horricfic acts against Soviet civilians…
Yes. Back the facts and photodocuments. Not the statements about “70-80%”.
Well, as you can imagine I do not know the number. I can only speculate. There can be a couple different approaches to this. Lets try… very rougly.
First approach:
85 million - the total german population in Germany by april 1939.
43,35 million - Lets say women of all the ages constitute 51% of population.
17,34 million - women of all the ages in Soviet occupation zone, i.t. 40% of total (as the Germans tend to escape to the western sector).
13,872 million women - German women in Soviet zone aged 15-60 y.o., i.e. 80%(?) of prior number.
So 70% raped women whould be app. 9,7 million. Right?
So we already have a discrepancy woth Beevor’s statement. A rather big discrepancy.
What do you think on this?
Second approach:
How many rapists there were in RKKA? What is the rapists penetration ratio in the troops?
Lets try to look at it. I estimate there were stationed 5 million Soviet troops in Europe (I am not 100% sure about the number though right now).
1% - 50.000 rape cases
5% - 250.000 rape cases
10% - 500.000 rape cases
15% - 750.000 rape cases
You could argue “once a rapist - multiple rapist”.
If we take in average a rapist would comit 3 assults against women:
1% - 150.000 rape cases
5% - 750.000 rape cases
10% - 1.500.000 rape cases
15% - 2.250.000 rape cases
My opinion is that the rapist penetration would be arount 1%-4%. Which leads us in the worst case (4%, avg. 3 times) to 650.000 rape cases.
That could be considered as upper bound of my estimate.
Really hardly “70%-80%”.
Your numbers are drawn out of thin air and are not based on anything but your perceptions of what is plausible…
That’s absolute true lady Gracie.
Actualy nobody even try to steal somthing on that photo.
Probably the soldier even help the woman to repair their bycicle.
But some of out american friends still do have the tend to believe selectively in nazy propogand :rolleyes:
Oh really Nickdfresh:)
There were no any “soviet soldiers recollections” about Violence and rapings toward the germans womans.
Show me at least the one?
P.S. have again forgot my nickname?
Old sclerotic;)
Good estimates ( although rough, but this is better then nothing)
You are forgetting one importaint moment.
In fact many of germans woman absolutly voluntary have agreed to be the “girfriends” of soviet soldiers or officers.
Probably they had its own motivations - for food, for safatey and ets.
BTW we know the certain part of of French woman did the same absolutly volunatry during NAzy occupation of France.They cohabited with Germans http://bpkgate.picturemaxx.com/preview.php
So in fact the many of germans woman made the same.
But later they feel shame for their behaviour in Germany, so today many of them began to tell - they all have been raped with violence?
Actually how could you prove otherwise?
It seems odd to people who’ve stolen, or even seen, a bike before, but the Russki was probably trying to get hold of the bike’s head so he could get a bridle over the iron horse.
Some personal recollections of women under the advancing Soviets. The last one was a prisoner of the Nazis, so she can’t be dismissed as a Nazi propagandist.
The simple fact is that some Soviet troops came from fairly brutal and primitive backgrounds which allowed rape as acceptable conduct in victory.
Russian soldiers would come in the evening and rape them, but of course, we children did not understand why our Mums cried a lot.
…
We eventually returned to our house in a street we hardly recognised. The Russian soldiers damaged and ruined everything. They used the baths as toilets (not ever having had any) and washed food and themselves in the Loos. When the chain was pulled and the potatoes and vegetables flushed away, they shot all the basins in the belief that someone was stealing them. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/26/a4403026.shtml
Before we had left Stettin an advanced troop of Russian soldiers came into the town- we could hear women screaming in appartments downstairs - they were being raped. My mother put spots using her lipstick on her and my face,to make it look like we had measles. Fortunately the soldiers never came into our appartment so we never had to find out if our ruse would work. At the time I just dealt with it - but now thinking back I realise how dreadful it was. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/98/a4269198.shtml
So now we had to decide what to do. The two girls still said we should go and wait. Either go and meet the Russians or wait until the Russians are coming now to this town. And I, as I wasn’t such a committed Communist, all of a sudden had an uneasy feeling and said I personally would prefer to go and see where we can find the English or American line. Which, of course, we had no idea where it was. And as I was the only German speaking part of our little group, they had to come with me. Which was very fortunate for us because later we got to know that quite a few others of our group, of our escape group there, got into the hands of the Russians and had the most terrible experiences there. Not only that some of them were shot but all of them were raped and had the most terrible time. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/08/a4066508.shtml
“They used the baths as toilets (not ever having had any) and washed food and themselves in the Loos. When the chain was pulled and the potatoes and vegetables flushed away, they shot all the basins in the belief that someone was stealing them.”
Can anyone verify that statement, just for curiosity sake?
No matter what level of Siberian conscription there was in Russia, I can’t hardly imagine they were really that stupid.
It might be apocryphal, but there are plenty of versions of similar events including in one the other links in my last post. Also these.
However there were comedic episodes also. This story was related to me by my good friend Joszi, who was living in Budapest when the Russians “liberated” Hungary. His family was forced to billet Russian soldiers in their house. One day, Joszi heard the rat-a-tat of a machine gun upstairs. He discovered a Russian who had been washing his wooden false teeth in the toilet (he had never seen one before, so thought it was a wash basin). Unfortunately, the soldier had hit the flush button and his precious teeth went down. In his fury he blasted the toilet to pieces with his gun. The soldier claimed that a demon had snatched his teeth, so he killed it. Joszi everafter referred to these soldiers as “far beyond the mountains of civilization”. http://frosthitstherhubarb.blogspot.com/2005/11/we-remember-bud-talkinghorn-wwii.html
Can you imagine, and I saw this with my own eyes, they came to the house where there was a normal flush toilet, and they somehow thought this was a source of water, so they went there and washed their faces in the toilet. http://www.radio.cz/en/article/65174
Given the conduct of some current migrants to Australia when encountering modern Western appliances for the first time, it’s plausible.
There at least one very importaint reason- the criminal situation during the first mounth after the capitulation .
Don’t forget there were not just the Soviet soldiers but and a hell lot of repatriates, former slaves who were coming back to their homelands.
This was about several millions of repatriants in the Soviet zone, And they had a hell not so much reasons to behave themself well toward the GErmans civils.
Thsy also commited the crimes.
The Beevour described it in their book “Berlin-downfall 1945”.
Moreover the other very convincing reason - the food for thier children.
In fact the food supplies in the BErline wasn’t so good and many of Soviet soldiers and officers give off part of personal rations to thier “girfriends”.This fact Beevour also has described.
BTW allies made the same- they buyed the “German’s love” for food.
