Женщины освобождённой Европы глазами советских солдат: правда про  "2 миллиона изнасилованых немок"

“The Women of Liberated Europe Through the Eyes of Soviet Soldiers: The Truth About ‘Two Million Raped German Women’”

Voennoye Obozreniye — “The Women of Liberated Europe Through the Eyes of Soviet Soldiers and Officers (1944–1945)”

9 May 2016

And finally, Germany. And the women of the enemy—the mothers, wives, daughters and sisters of those who, from 1941 to 1944, had abused the civilian population in the occupied territory of the USSR. How did Soviet servicemen see them? Vladimir Bogomolov described the appearance of German women walking among crowds of refugees in his diary: “Women—old and young—in hats, in scarves tied like turbans or simply draped over their heads like our grandmothers, in smart coats with fur collars and in worn clothing of an incomprehensible cut.

Many women wear dark glasses so that they do not have to squint in the bright May sun and thus protect their faces from wrinkles…” [20]

Lev Kopelev recalled meeting Berlin evacuees in Allenstein: “Two women on the pavement. Elaborate hats, one even with a veil. Good-quality coats, and they themselves smooth and well groomed.” [21] He also reproduced soldiers’ comments about them: “hens,” “turkeys,” “wouldn’t mind one as smooth as that…”

How did German women behave when they encountered Soviet troops? A report dated 30 April 1945 from Shikin, deputy head of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army, to G. F. Aleksandrov of the Central Committee of the VKP(b), concerning the attitude of Berlin’s civilian population toward Red Army personnel, stated: “As soon as our units occupy a particular district of the city, residents gradually begin to come out into the streets; almost all have white armbands on their sleeves. When they meet our servicemen, many women raise their hands, cry and tremble with fear, but as soon as they become convinced that the soldiers and officers of the Red Army are quite different from what fascist propaganda had portrayed them to be, this fear quickly passes; more and more of the population comes out into the streets and offers its services, trying in every possible way to emphasize its loyal attitude toward the Red Army.” [22]

What impressed the victors most was the submissiveness and pragmatism of German women. In this connection it is worth citing the account of mortar soldier N. A. Orlov, who was astonished by their behavior in 1945: “No one in our mortar battalion killed German civilians. Our special-department officer was a ‘Germanophile.’ Had such a thing happened, the punitive authorities would have reacted quickly. As for violence against German women, it seems to me that some people, when they talk about the phenomenon, ‘lay it on a little thick.’ I remember an example of another kind. We entered some German town and quartered ourselves in houses. A ‘Frau’ of about forty-five appeared and asked for ‘Herr Kommandant.’ She was brought to Marchenko. She said she was responsible for the neighborhood and had gathered twenty German women to provide sexual (!!!) services to Russian soldiers. Marchenko understood German, and I translated the meaning of what she had said for political officer Dolgoborodov, who was standing beside me. Our officers reacted angrily and with swearing. The German woman was driven away along with her ‘detachment,’ which was ready to provide services. In general, German submissiveness amazed us. We had expected partisan warfare and sabotage from the Germans. But for that nation, order—Ordnung—is above all. If you are the victor, they stand on their hind legs before you, consciously and without coercion. That is their psychology…” [23]

David Samoilov describes a similar case in his wartime notes: “At Arendsfelde, where we had just settled, a small crowd of women with children appeared. They were led by a huge, mustachioed German woman of about fifty—Frau Friedrich. She announced that she was the representative of the civilian population and asked us to register the residents who remained. We replied that this could be done as soon as the commandant’s office appeared.

‘That is impossible,’ said Frau Friedrich. ‘There are women and children here. They must be registered.’

The civilians confirmed her words with cries and tears.

Not knowing what to do, I suggested that they occupy the cellar of the house in which we had quartered ourselves. Reassured, they went down into the cellar and began settling there while waiting for the authorities.

‘Herr Commissar,’ Frau Friedrich said amiably to me (I was wearing a leather jacket), ‘we understand that soldiers have certain little needs. They are prepared,’ Frau Friedrich continued, ‘to allocate several younger women to them for…’

I did not continue the conversation with Frau Friedrich.” [24]

After speaking with women in Berlin on 2 May 1945, Vladimir Bogomolov wrote in his diary: “We enter one of the surviving houses. Everything is quiet, dead. We knock and ask them to open. We can hear whispering in the corridor, muffled and agitated voices. Finally the door opens. Women of indeterminate age, huddled in a tight group, bow fearfully, low and obsequiously. German women are afraid of us; they had been told that Soviet soldiers, especially Asians, would rape and kill them… Fear and hatred are on their faces. But sometimes it seems that they enjoy being defeated—their behavior is so obliging, their smiles so ingratiating and their words so sweet. These days stories are circulating about one of our soldiers entering a German apartment and asking for a drink; as soon as the German woman saw him, she lay down on the sofa and took off her underpants.” [25]

“All German women are depraved. They do not object to men sleeping with them” [26]—this opinion circulated among Soviet troops and was reinforced not only by many visible examples but also by unpleasant consequences that military doctors soon detected.

Directive No. 00343/Sh of the Military Council of the 1st Belorussian Front, dated 15 April 1945, stated: “During the period in which the troops have been on enemy territory, cases of venereal disease among servicemen have risen sharply. Study of the causes of this situation shows that venereal diseases are widespread among the Germans.

Before retreating, and now as well in the territory occupied by us, the Germans have adopted the practice of deliberately infecting German women with syphilis and gonorrhea in order to create major centers for the spread of venereal disease among Red Army servicemen.” [27]

On 26 April 1945, the Military Council of the 47th Army reported that “…in March, the number of venereal disease cases among servicemen rose fourfold compared with February of this year…

Eight to fifteen percent of the female population of Germany in the areas examined is infected.

There have been cases in which the enemy deliberately left German women suffering from venereal disease in order to infect servicemen.” [28]

To implement Resolution No. 056 of the Military Council of the 1st Belorussian Front of 18 April 1945 on the prevention of venereal disease, the 33rd Army issued a leaflet that read:

“Comrade servicemen!

You are being tempted by German women whose husbands visited all the brothels of Europe, became infected themselves, and infected their German women.

Before you are also German women who have been deliberately left by the enemy to spread venereal diseases and thus put Red Army soldiers out of action.

You must understand that our victory over the enemy is near and that soon you will be able to return to your families.

How will a man who brings home an infectious disease be able to look his loved ones in the eye?

Can we, soldiers of the heroic Red Army, be a source of infectious disease in our country? NO! For the moral image of a Red Army soldier must be as pure as the image of his Motherland and his family!” [29]

Practical-minded Germans were most concerned with the question of food supplies, for which they were prepared to do almost anything. Thus a certain Doctor of Medicine Kalisturkh, in a discussion with colleagues about the Red Army’s attitude toward the German population, said: “One cannot conceal that I personally saw bad treatment of our women by individual Russian soldiers, but I said that the war was to blame for this, and most importantly that our soldiers, especially the SS men, had behaved far worse toward Russian women.” Then, without transition, he added: “I was very worried about the food question…” [30]

Even in the memoirs of Lev Kopelev, who angrily described acts of violence and looting by Soviet servicemen in East Prussia, there are passages reflecting another side of “relations” with the local population: “People told stories about the Germans’ submissiveness, servility and ingratiation: look at them, they will sell their wives and daughters for a loaf of bread.” [31] The disgusted tone in which Kopelev reports these “stories” implies that he regarded them as unreliable. Yet they are confirmed by many sources.

Vladimir Gelfand described in his diary his courtship of a German girl (the entry was made six months after the end of the war, on 26 October 1945, but it is nevertheless quite characteristic): “I wanted to enjoy pretty Margot’s caresses to the full—kisses and embraces alone were not enough. I expected more, but did not dare demand or insist. The girl’s mother was pleased with me. No wonder! On the altar of trust and favor from her relatives I had laid sweets and butter, sausage, expensive German cigarettes. Even half of these products would have been enough to give one the fullest grounds and right to do anything one wanted with the daughter before her mother’s eyes, and she would say nothing against it. For food today is worth more even than life, and even than the life of such a young and sweet sensual creature as the tender beauty Margot.” [32]

Interesting diary entries were also left by Australian war correspondent Osmar White, who was in Europe in 1944–1945 with General George Patton’s Third U.S. Army. This is what he recorded in Berlin in May 1945, only a few days after the end of the assault: “I walked through the night cabarets, beginning with the Femina near Potsdamer Platz. It was a warm, damp evening. The air smelled of sewage and rotting corpses. The façade of the Femina was covered with futuristic pictures of nudes and notices in four languages. The dance hall and restaurant were filled with Russian, British and American officers accompanied by women (or hunting for them). A bottle of wine cost 25 dollars, a horse-meat-and-potato hamburger 10 dollars, and a packet of American cigarettes an astonishing 20 dollars.

The cheeks of Berlin women were rouged and their lips painted as though Hitler had won the war. Many women wore silk stockings.

The hostess opened the show in German, Russian, English and French. This prompted a quip from a Russian artillery captain sitting beside me. He leaned toward me and said in decent English: ‘Such a rapid transition from the national to the international! RAF bombs are excellent professors, are they not?’” [33]

The overall impression of European women formed among Soviet servicemen was that they were well groomed and smartly dressed (in comparison with their countrywomen exhausted by war in the half-starved rear, in territories liberated from occupation, and with women at the front wearing washed-out tunics), accessible, self-interested, promiscuous or timidly submissive. Yugoslav and Bulgarian women were exceptions. Stern and ascetic Yugoslav partisan women were perceived as comrades-in-arms and considered untouchable. Given the strict morals of the Yugoslav army, “the partisan girls probably looked upon the PPZh [‘field wives’] as creatures of a particularly bad sort.” [34]

Boris Slutsky recalled Bulgarian women as follows: “…After Ukrainian good nature, after Romanian debauchery, the stern inaccessibility of Bulgarian women astonished our men. Almost no one boasted of conquests. It was the only country where officers out for an evening were very often accompanied by men and almost never by women. Later Bulgarians were proud when they were told that Russians intended to return to Bulgaria for brides—the only women in the world who had remained pure and untouched.” [35]

Beautiful Czech women, who joyfully greeted Soviet liberating soldiers, made a pleasant impression. Embarrassed tank crews, standing on combat vehicles covered in oil and dust and decorated with wreaths and flowers, said to one another: “…As if a tank needs a bride to decorate it. But their girls just keep hanging them on. Good people. I haven’t seen such warm-hearted people for a long time…” The Czechs’ friendliness and hospitality were sincere. “…‘If it were possible, I would kiss every soldier and officer of the Red Army for liberating my Prague,’ a Prague tram worker said amid general, approving laughter.” [36] This was how Boris Polevoi described the atmosphere in the liberated Czech capital and the mood of local residents on 11 May 1945.

In the other countries through which the victorious army passed, however, the female population did not command the same respect. “In Europe the women surrendered, betrayed first of all…” B. Slutsky wrote. “I was always shocked, confused and disoriented by the ease, the shameful ease, of sexual relations. Decent women, unquestionably acting without self-interest, resembled prostitutes in their hurried availability, their desire to skip the intermediate stages, their lack of interest in the motives that drove a man toward intimacy with them. Like people who had learned only three obscene words from the entire vocabulary of love poetry, they reduced everything to a few bodily movements, arousing resentment and contempt even among the greenest of our officers… The restraining motives were not ethics at all, but fear of infection, fear of publicity, fear of pregnancy.” [37] He added that under conditions of conquest “general depravity covered over and concealed specifically female depravity, making it invisible and unashamed.” [38]

Among the motives that contributed to the spread of “international love,” despite all the bans and severe orders of the Soviet command, there were several others: women’s curiosity about “exotic” lovers and the unprecedented generosity Russians showed toward the objects of their affection, which distinguished them favorably from more tight-fisted European men.

Junior Lieutenant Daniil Zlatkin found himself in Denmark, on the island of Bornholm, at the very end of the war. In an interview he said that the interest of Russian men and European women in one another was mutual: “We had not seen women, and we needed to… And when we arrived in Denmark… it was free, please. They wanted to check, to try, to find out what a Russian man was like, how it was, and it seemed to turn out better than with the Danes. Why? We were unselfish and kind… I gave a box of chocolates half the size of a table; I gave a hundred roses to a woman I did not know… for her birthday…” [39]

At the same time, few thought about a serious relationship or marriage, because the Soviet leadership had clearly stated its position. A resolution of the Military Council of the 4th Ukrainian Front dated 12 April 1945 stated: “1. Explain to all officers and all personnel of the Front that marriage to foreign women is illegal and categorically prohibited. 2. Report immediately through the chain of command all cases of servicemen entering into marriage with foreign women, as well as all connections between our people and hostile elements of foreign states, so that those responsible may be held accountable for loss of vigilance and violation of Soviet laws.” [40]

A directive from the head of the Political Directorate of the 1st Belorussian Front dated 14 April 1945 stated: “According to the head of the Main Personnel Directorate of the People’s Commissariat of Defense, the Center continues to receive applications from officers of the active army asking for permission to marry women who are citizens of foreign states (Poles, Bulgarians, Czechs and others). Such cases should be regarded as a blunting of vigilance and of patriotic feeling. Political and educational work must therefore pay particular attention to explaining in depth the inadmissibility of such acts by Red Army officers. Explain to all officers who do not understand the lack of prospects for such marriages the inadvisability of marrying foreign women, up to and including a direct prohibition, and do not permit a single case.” [41]

The women, too, entertained no illusions about their admirers’ intentions. “At the beginning of 1945 even the stupidest Hungarian peasant girls did not believe our promises. European women already knew that we were forbidden to marry foreigners, and suspected that there was a similar order against appearing together in restaurants, cinemas and so on. This did not prevent them from loving our Don Juans, but it gave that love an exclusively ‘owaidum’ [carnal] character.” [42] B. Slutsky wrote.

On the whole, it must be acknowledged that the image of European women formed among Red Army soldiers in 1944–1945, with rare exceptions, was very far from the suffering female figure with chained hands who looks hopefully from the Soviet poster bearing the slogan “Europe Will Be Free!”

Full version with references.

© Narodny Korrespondent