Women Soldiers in German Captivity. Chapter Five from the Book “Captivity.” What the Nazis Did to Captured Soviet Women

23 August 2021

“Women in German Captivity: How the Nazis Treated Soviet Prisoners of War”

The Second World War became one of the most destructive tragedies in human history. Millions of lives were lost and the fates of many more people were shattered. All belligerents resorted to extreme measures, justifying their actions by the logic of war. A special place among the crimes belongs to the Nazi regime’s treatment of Soviet women who were taken prisoner.

A warning is necessary that some of the material presented in this study may be emotionally difficult.

The admissions of Nazi officials on these questions, separately from the subject of the Holocaust, are especially noteworthy. The sources include both documented facts and rumors and myths generated by postwar propaganda.

One high-ranking German officer recalled in a postwar interview that there was only one order concerning captured Soviet women servicemembers: “Shoot them.”

Most German units did in fact carry out the order, and among the dead the bodies of women in Red Army uniform—soldiers, medical orderlies, or nurses—were often found bearing signs of brutal torture.

Residents of the village of Smaglyovka, for example, recalled that during the occupation, while German soldiers were in the village, they witnessed the brutal killing of a seriously wounded girl. Despite her helpless condition, the servicemen dragged her off the road, stripped her, and shot her.

According to eyewitness accounts, the girl was tortured before her death. Her body was mutilated and covered in blood. According to the available testimony, the Nazis treated captured women partisans in a similar way: before execution they were often left naked in the cold, subjected to cruel and humiliating treatment.

Women Red Army soldiers in German captivity, Part 1.

The prisoners, of course, continued to be raped.

Women Soldiers of the Red Army Held by Finns and Germans, Part 2. Jews.

Although higher Wehrmacht officers were officially prohibited from establishing personal contact with prisoners of war, such restrictions were observed far less consistently among rank-and-file personnel.

According to a number of accounts, women subjected to sexual violence in most cases did not remain alive: if prisoners survived the assault, they were often subsequently shot.

The position of women in concentration camps was frequently even more tragic. In some cases girls managed to avoid immediate death if a representative of the camp administration assigned them to domestic work or used them as personal servants. Such a “choice,” however, did not guarantee protection from violence.

One of the most notorious places of confinement was Camp No. 337. Prisoners there were often kept naked in the freezing cold for many hours, while as many as one hundred people at a time were housed in barracks. Those who were unable to perform forced labor were immediately killed. According to accounts, up to 700 prisoners of war were killed daily in this Stalag.

Women in Nazi camps were subjected to the same forms of violence and torture as men and in some cases to still more brutal treatment. According to eyewitness testimony, the methods of interrogation and execution used in concentration camps exceeded even the practices of the medieval Inquisition in cruelty.

Soviet soldiers knew very well what captivity meant: information about what happened in the camps was known from escapees, documents, and eyewitness accounts. This awareness often became decisive: many fighters preferred to fight to the last rather than be captured.

The memory of those who died in the war is vivid and tragic.

The first European country entered by the Red Army in August 1944 was Romania. Poet Boris Slutsky described in his diary his first impressions of Constanța:

“Suddenly, almost in the sea, Constanța opens before us. It almost coincides with the average dream of happiness and of ‘after the war’: restaurants, bathrooms, beds with clean linen, shops… And—ladies, smart women in the city—the girls of Europe—the first recognition we received from the defeated…”

He later noted the cultural contrast between soldiers’ everyday life and local reality:

“Barbershops in Europe, where they wash with their hands rather than with a brush; the absence of a bath; washing from a basin… feather beds instead of blankets. Disgust with everyday life led to generalizations.”

He also recorded their first encounter with an organized system of prostitution:

“In Constanța we encountered brothels for the first time. Our initial fascination with free love quickly passed. Not only fear of infection and expense played a role, but contempt for the very possibility of buying a person. Many took pride in refusing. A Romanian woman complained to the commandant’s office that a Russian officer had not paid—his wife had agreed for fifteen hundred lei…”

Some Soviet soldiers perceived Romania as a country associated with disease and moral decline. Slutsky remarked:

“In Romania, in this sunken corner of Europe, our soldiers most strongly felt their rise above Europe.”

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel F. Smolnikov wrote from Bucharest in his diary on 17 September 1944:

“Hotel ‘Ambasador,’ restaurant. I see the idle public strolling… They look at me as though I were a rarity: a Russian officer! I am very modestly dressed. Let them. We shall still reach Budapest.

“It is as certain as the fact that I was in Bucharest. First-class restaurant. The most beautiful Romanian women looked provocatively. The streets are chaotic. There is no music. The public is waiting. A capital, damn it!..”

In Hungary the Red Army encountered not only organized military resistance but also hostility from part of the civilian population. Soviet documents recorded cases in which soldiers who had fallen behind their units were killed or drowned by local residents. At the same time, images of Hungarian women were contradictory. Slutsky wrote:

“They were no worse than the Romanians but caused awkwardness… a little love, a little confusion and, above all, of course, fear.”

Quoting a Hungarian lawyer, he wrote: “The Russians love children very much. They love women very much.” He then added: “He does not understand that Hungarian women also love Russians. That alongside the fear which brought mothers to their knees, there is the love of girls and the desperate tenderness of soldiers’ wives who gave themselves to the killers of their husbands…”

For Soviet soldiers raised in patriarchal traditions, Hungarian customs that allowed premarital intimacy with family approval came as a shock. One local resident explained: “With us one does not buy a cat in a sack,” meaning that a girl was expected to have sexual experience before marriage.

Contacts with the Local Population of Eastern and Central Europe in the Diaries of Soviet Soldiers (1944–1945)

Young and physically healthy men who had passed through the front naturally felt interest in women. Yet the contrast between the traditions in which Soviet soldiers had been raised and the morals prevailing in European countries produced a wide range of reactions, from temptation to rejection. Some were influenced by availability; others condemned such contacts, considering it unacceptable to reduce relationships to physiological needs.

Sergeant A. Rodin, for example, described in his diary his experience of visiting a brothel in Budapest—out of pure curiosity. His impressions were deeply negative:

“…After leaving, a disgusting, embarrassing feeling of falsehood arose. The image of an obviously pretending woman would not leave my mind. Most of our soldiers with whom I managed to speak shared the unpleasant aftertaste of visiting a brothel. Many, including me, held principles according to which physical intimacy without affection seemed impossible.”

That same day Rodin spoke with a local woman who knew Russian well. Asked whether he liked Budapest, the sergeant answered yes but said that the brothels repelled him. The Hungarian girl, hearing his explanation, nodded in agreement: “Yes, you are right—it is not nice to take money in advance…”

Poland

Poland made a different impression. Poet David Samoilov wrote:

“…in Poland we were kept under strict discipline. Misbehavior was punished severely. But Polish women were beautiful. Their manners, speech, and coquettishness attracted us. They were fascinated by the uniform, while our soldiers were fascinated by their appearance and restrained openness. Local men, their former admirers, withdrew into the shadows.”

Frontline soldier A. Rodin also emphasized the strength and vitality of the Polish people, especially the women. On Sunday, 5 November 1944, he observed village life:

“Beautiful, elegant women in silk dresses and stockings, despite hard living conditions and the consequences of occupation, retained youth and energy.”

Their freshness and well-kept appearance surprised him. But the holiday seemed nervous. The laughter was loud—as though for display. The soldiers felt that it was a painful Sunday. Everyone tried to show that it meant nothing to them, while inwardly they envied peaceful life.”

Sergeant N. Nesterov noted the same day:

“The Poles are well dressed and gather in pairs in the cottages. It even feels a little uncomfortable. Could I not sit like that too?..”

Austria

In the spring of 1945 the Red Army entered Austria. Mass capitulation was observed there: villages were covered with white flags, and elderly women raised their hands in submission at the sight of Soviet soldiers. According to B. Slutsky’s recollections, “the soldiers caught up with fair-haired women,” and although the Austrians offered no active resistance, the cultural aspect of what was happening puzzled Soviet servicemen. Before marriage local girls were permitted personal relationships; men were vain, and, as the Austrians themselves said, “gallantry was enough to obtain everything—from the crown.”

Germany

The most tense and morally difficult contact was with the German population, especially women—the mothers, wives, and daughters of those who had taken part in the occupation of the USSR. V. Bogomolov’s diary notes:

“Women—old and young—in hats, turbans, elegant coats and worn clothing. Many in dark glasses, to shield their eyes from the sun and wrinkles.”

According to a report of the head of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army, Shikin, to G. F. Alexandrov dated 30 April 1945, the attitude of Berlin’s civilian population changed as Soviet units advanced:

“At first the women cried, trembled with fear, and raised their hands. But as soon as they became convinced that the behavior of Red Army soldiers did not correspond to the image created by Nazi propaganda, fear gave way to attempts to establish contact. Women tried to emphasize their loyalty and offered help.”

One of the most widely discussed accounts was a note by mortar man A. A. Orlov. He recalled:

“We lived in houses in German towns. A Frau about forty-five years old said that she was responsible for the neighborhood and had gathered twenty women for what she called the ‘sexual servicing’ of soldiers. Our officers were outraged and refused. The woman and this ‘detachment’ were driven away.”

Orlov concluded:

“They expected partisan warfare and sabotage, but encountered discipline and order. For Germans the main thing is obedience to order. If you are the victor, they submit. Not out of fear—from inner conviction. That is the psychology.”

Other testimony

David Samoilov described a similar episode in connection with events in Arendsfelde:

“…a number of women with children appeared. They were led by a large German woman named Frau Friedrich, who declared herself a representative of the civilian population and insisted on immediate registration. When we said that the commandant’s office would handle this, she insisted: ‘There are women and children here; they must be registered.’ While waiting for the authorities the women settled in the basement. Later Frau Friedrich, addressing me as ‘Herr Kommissar,’ offered to provide women to the soldiers. I ended the conversation.”

On 2 May 1945 Vladimir Bogomolov described a meeting with Berlin residents:

“We entered one of the surviving houses. Everything was quiet. The women, gathered in a tight group, bowed fearfully and obsequiously. On their faces were fear and hatred. But their behavior showed conspicuous helpfulness, smiles, and friendly words. In those days stories circulated that one German woman, seeing a Soviet soldier, immediately lay down on a sofa and removed her tights.”

A widespread notion emerged that all German women supposedly did not object to intimacy with soldiers. It was supported both by everyday stories and by consequences such as an increase in venereal disease.

In later discussions of postwar Germany, the subject of “trophies” and Red Army behavior became the object of politicized interpretations. Some claimed that soldiers looted and raped; others said that they helped people, shared food, and saved lives.

The truth, in all likelihood, lay between these extremes. Soldiers did indeed take things from abandoned homes and shops, but looting was punishable and criminal cases were heard by courts. Many servicemen understood that the price of returning home was not only surviving the front but preserving the honor of the victor.

“Trophy” Policy and Everyday Practice

Soviet soldiers who found themselves in Germany in the summer of 1945 actively took part in informal trade, including on black markets such as the one in Berlin’s Tiergarten. These actions, however, were not wholly outside official control.

Under USSR People’s Commissariat of Defense Order No. 0409 of 26 December 1944, all servicemen of the active fronts were permitted once a month to send a personal parcel to the Soviet rear. Parcel weight was strictly regulated: 5 kg for privates and sergeants, 10 kg for officers, and 16 kg for generals. Maximum dimensions were 70 cm on each side.

Deprivation of the right to send a parcel was considered one of the most sensitive disciplinary punishments. Despite official restrictions, in practice soldiers sometimes sent large household items, carpets, appliances, and even pianos.

During demobilization servicemen were permitted to take whatever they could carry as personal property. Bulky objects were often fastened to carriage roofs, while militiamen and railway attendants helped move them at stations using ropes and hooks. In this way a distinctive everyday “trophy” culture developed among victors returning home.

Exchange and transfer of property did not always occur peacefully. In April 1945 a case was recorded in Lippstadt involving the abduction of three Soviet women. They were taken along with stocks of alcohol from an abandoned wine shop, underscoring the complicated security and discipline situation during the final stage of the war.

During the war and in the first months after it ended, Soviet soldiers tried to send home food with a long shelf life. American dry rations containing canned goods, biscuits, concentrates, eggs, jam, and instant coffee were especially prized. Allied medicines such as streptomycin and penicillin, obtained through Allied supply channels or captured depots, were also highly valued.

American soldiers and German young people trade and flirt with one another on the black market in the Tiergarten. Soviet servicemen in the rear had other concerns. Berlin, May 1945.

Almost anything could be obtained only on the “black market,” which appeared almost immediately in every German city. Flea-market stalls offered everything—from automobiles to women. Tobacco and food were the most common currency.

Germans needed food, while Americans, Britons, and French were interested first of all in money—Nazi Reichsmarks, Allied occupation marks, and foreign currency. The page says exchange rates equivalent to substantial earnings quickly flooded postwar Germany.

An American soldier bargains with a Soviet junior lieutenant. Photograph from LIFE magazine, 10 September 1945.

Soviet soldiers also had money. In American eyes they were considered ideal customers—persistent, inexperienced at bargaining, but well supplied with cash. Indeed, from December 1944 Soviet servicemen in Germany received double monetary allowances: rubles and exchange marks. This dual-payment system remained in place for some time before being abolished.

Photographs of Soviet soldiers bargaining at a market. LIFE magazine, 10 September 1945.

The amount of a Soviet serviceman’s pay depended on rank and post. A major serving as deputy commander of a formation, for example, received 1,500 rubles a month in 1945, as well as an equivalent amount in exchange marks at the established rate. In addition, officers from company-command level upward received additional funds for the use of German civilian labor.

To give an idea of prices, there is an account of a Soviet colonel buying a car from a German for 2,500 marks (approximately 750 Soviet rubles).

Soviet servicemen did indeed receive large sums: one month’s officer salary could buy almost anything on the black market. In addition, troops were paid arrears of salary for earlier periods; even after sending the ruble portion home, many still had sufficient funds.

It was therefore simply irrational to risk punishment for looting. Greedy and shortsighted people willing to act recklessly certainly existed, but they were, according to this text, the exception rather than the rule.

A Soviet soldier with an SS dagger on his belt. Pardubice, Czechoslovakia, May 1945.

Soldiers differed in character and taste. Some, for example, especially valued German daggers—SS, naval, or Luftwaffe types. They had little practical use but were regarded as prestigious trophies. The author recalls handling such an SS dagger in childhood; a friend of his grandfather had brought it home from the war.

“I was struck by its black-and-silver beauty and sinister symbolism.”

Great Patriotic War veteran Pyotr Patsienko with a captured Admiral Solo accordion. Grodno, Belarus, May 2013.

Most Soviet soldiers valued not so much weapons as more ordinary but valuable things: clothing, accordions, watches, cameras, radios, crystal, and porcelain. For many years after the war these objects remained in Soviet homes and often occupied places of honor on shelves.

Many have survived to the present day, and no one is in a hurry to accuse their owners of looting: the true circumstances of acquisition have long been lost, and it is entirely possible that the items were simply bought from defeated Germans.

In discussions of historical falsification, a widely known photograph commonly called “Soviet Soldier Takes a Bicycle” is often cited. It became an illustration in publications about Red Army brutality in Berlin, a subject that returns with striking regularity every year around 9 May.

The photograph is usually captioned something like: “Soviet soldier takes a bicycle away from a woman in Berlin, 1945,” or “Looting in Berlin.” For a long time, however, the actual circumstances shown in the photograph remained unknown.

Various sources argued heatedly over what was happening in the image. Opponents of the violence interpretation pointed out that one should not draw conclusions from a single photograph; that the behavior of people in the background did not indicate a conflict; that the soldier’s uniform looked unusual; and that other servicemen, perhaps not Soviet, could be seen nearby.

To clarify the situation, the page says, the primary source was found: the catalog of the documentary exhibition Germany’s War Against the Soviet Union, 1941–1945, held in Berlin in 1991 and later in St. Petersburg. The Russian catalog published for the exhibition in 1994 reproduced the photo on page 257 with the caption: “Soviet soldier takes a bicycle from a woman in Berlin, 1945.”

That source became the basis for later publications in Russia. During further searching, however, a fuller version of the photograph was found in the Life archive under the title Bike Fight, showing additional details at left and right that had been cropped from the other reproduction.

Most important, according to the page, was the original caption attributed to Corbis, the image rights holder: “Russian soldier tries to buy a bicycle from a woman in Berlin, 1945. The dispute arose after the soldier gave the woman money and considered the transaction complete, but she did not agree.”

That description completely changes the context of the photograph: it is presented not as looting but as an unsuccessful attempt to make a purchase.

Thus, the page concludes, dramatic accusations can conceal distortions, and with every photograph it is important to understand its source and context.

Sexual Violence in Germany after the War

From an article by Sergei Manukov:

American professor of forensic medicine Robert Lilly, after studying U.S. armed-forces archives, established that by November 1945 U.S. military tribunals had considered 11,040 cases involving serious sexual crimes committed by American servicemen in Germany.

Despite this, the text says, Western historians for a long time tried to place the main blame for violence on Soviet soldiers, relying on evidence that would not have stood up in court. One prominent representative of this position named here is British historian Antony Beevor, who argued that Western soldiers allegedly had no need to resort to violence because German women agreed voluntarily in exchange for food, coffee, cigarettes, stockings, and other goods.

Western researchers have tended to classify most such contacts as voluntary prostitution. At the time, there was even a saying: “It took the Americans six years to defeat Germany, but one day and a bar of chocolate to conquer German women.”

In practice, however, the boundaries between consent and coercion were blurred. Society did not distinguish between women who agreed to intimacy because of hunger and those who became rape victims under threat of weapons. Therefore, the picture drawn by Beevor and his supporters, the page argues, is far from complete and suffers from one-sidedness.

Miriam Gebhardt, professor of history at the University of Konstanz in Germany, strongly stated that the image of virtuous Western soldiers was an illusion. Her purpose in writing her book, she said, was not to exonerate Soviet servicemen but to pursue historical truth and fairness.

Gebhardt interviewed women who had suffered at the hands of American, British, and French soldiers. In one account, six American soldiers arrived in March 1945 at a village where Katharina W. lived with her eighteen-year-old daughter Charlotte. The women tried to hide but were discovered, dragged from their hiding place, thrown onto a bed, and raped. According to the testimony, instead of chocolate and stockings the attackers threatened them with weapons.

Similar cases occurred in southern Germany in an American occupation zone containing 1.6 million people. In the spring of 1945 the Archbishop of Munich and Freising instructed priests to document events connected with the seizure of Bavaria. Some of those archives were published only decades later.

Priest Michael Merxmüller of the village of Ramsau wrote on 20 July 1945: “Eight girls and women were raped. Some in front of their parents.” Father Andreas Weingand of Haag an der Amper reported on 25 July: “Drunken soldiers raped a married woman, an unmarried woman, and a girl aged sixteen and a half.” Priest Alois Schiml of Moosburg wrote on 1 August: “Seventeen raped women and girls were admitted to the hospital. Some of them had been assaulted repeatedly.”

According to those records, the youngest victim was seven years old and the oldest sixty-nine.

The book When the Soldiers Came, published in the spring of 2015, provoked intense public debate. This was connected both with the sensitive subject and with the fact that the book appeared at a time of worsening relations between the West and Russia. Gebhardt focused mainly on American actions, though other Allies also appear in her study.

According to her estimates, American soldiers raped about 190,000 German women. She argues that British troops behaved more strictly, not because of moral considerations but because of tighter control by officers. As for the French, the situation was complicated by the substantial number of colonial troops in their army. French troops were especially notorious in Stuttgart, where, according to different sources cited by the page, between 2,000 and 4,000 women were raped over three days.

Americans, like their eastern allies, were shocked by Nazi crimes. Propaganda formed an image of Germans as enemies, which increased aggression and inflamed violent impulses. Against this background, the text describes soldiers’ “sexual behavior” as a result of both pressure and impunity.

Gebhardt’s study is linked by the page to modern criticism of American military behavior in later periods, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Archives have increasingly revealed testimony of looting, violence, and killings committed by Americans in Europe.

Nevertheless, in popular memory the American soldier long retained a positive image: disciplined, carrying chewing gum and stockings for women. Miriam Gebhardt acknowledges that her estimates cannot be absolutely precise; there are no official statistics and the figures are approximate.

Historian Antony Beevor and supporters criticized Gebhardt’s conclusions, regarding a figure in the hundreds of thousands as inflated. Even judging by the number of children fathered by Americans, they argue, many such relationships were voluntary. German women themselves gathered at the gates of military camps hoping for barter and assistance.

Even skeptical researchers, however, acknowledge that American soldiers did not always behave like “knightly liberators.” Other authors support this. The American scholar Mary Louise Roberts, for example, also documents extensive sexual violence in her book What Soldiers Do.

According to her data, 152 American soldiers were convicted of rape in France, 29 of whom were executed. These figures are only the tip of the iceberg, she argues, because most women did not file complaints owing to fear and shame.

Roberts writes: “My book debunks the myth of Americans as noble warriors. They looked for sex wherever they saw skirts.”

Thus newer historiography has increasingly re-examined the image of the Western Allies, including the United States, in light of previously muted evidence of violence and crimes.

In France, soldiers who committed sexual assault after coming from across the Atlantic had somewhat different motives, according to the text. For many of them violence against French women was imagined as a kind of adventure.

Many American soldiers’ fathers had fought in France during the First World War. Their stories may have inspired descendants to seek “romantic adventures” with alluring French women. In American popular imagination, France was often associated with the image of one enormous brothel.

Army publications such as Stars and Stripes also played a role, publishing photographs of smiling French women kissing their liberators. The same publications printed key phrases for conversation: “I am not married,” “You have beautiful eyes,” “You are so beautiful,” and the like.

The page argues that journalists effectively encouraged soldiers to take what they wanted. It is therefore unsurprising, it says, that after the Normandy landings in the summer of 1944 France was swept by a “tsunami of male greed and lust.”

The archives of Le Havre city hall contain letters from local residents complaining of “crimes committed by day and night.” They mention rape, robbery, and theft, with violence sometimes taking place in front of witnesses.

American soldiers behaved in France, the text says, as though they were in enemy territory. French attitudes toward them accordingly became increasingly hostile. Many perceived “liberation” as a second occupation, at times harsher than the first, German one.

It was said that French prostitutes sometimes remembered German clients kindly, because American soldiers were often interested not only in sex but also in the contents of their “girlfriends’” purses. The liberators did not disdain theft, and encounters with them could be dangerous. According to official data cited here, twenty-nine American soldiers were sentenced to death for murdering prostitutes in France.

Pamphlets condemning rape were distributed to personnel in an effort to curb violence. The military prosecutor’s office, however, is described as lenient: only those impossible not to prosecute were brought to trial. Racial discrimination was evident—of 152 soldiers and officers convicted of rape, 139 were African American.

Life in Occupied Germany

After the Second World War Germany was divided into occupation zones. Today sharply opposed views exist concerning how the German population lived under the administration of the different Allies.

Denazification and re-education

The Allies’ first task after Germany’s defeat was denazification of the population. All adult citizens were checked using a questionnaire prepared by the Allied Control Council. The Erhebungsformular MG/PS/G/9a contained 131 questions. Formally the survey was voluntary, but in practice it was compulsory: refusal meant loss of food ration cards.

On the basis of the questionnaires the population was divided into five categories: “unaffected,” “exonerated,” “followers,” “offenders,” and “major offenders.” Members of the final three groups were subject to proceedings that determined degree of guilt and punishment. “Offenders” and “major offenders” were sent to internment camps, while “followers” could atone through fines or property.

The system had obvious flaws: mutual protection, corruption, and false testimony allowed many former Nazis to avoid accountability. Hundreds of thousands hid with false documents and along so-called “ratlines.”

At the same time, the Allies launched a broad re-education campaign. Films about Nazi crimes were shown in cinemas; attendance was compulsory and linked to ration cards. German residents were also taken in organized groups to former concentration camps and made to work on their grounds. For most citizens this came as a shock: Goebbels’s propaganda had given them an entirely different picture of Nazism.

Demilitarization

Under the decisions of the Potsdam Conference, Germany was to be demilitarized, including dismantling military factories. The text says the Western Allies interpreted the policy in their own way: in their occupation zones factories were not only dismantled but also actively restored, with efforts to increase metal-production quotas and strengthen the military potential of the future West Germany.

In 1947, it states, more than 450 military-related enterprises were concealed from accounting in the American and British zones of occupation.

The Soviet Union followed a different approach. According to historian Mikhail Semiryaga, during the year after March 1945 senior Soviet bodies adopted nearly one thousand decisions concerning the removal of 4,389 enterprises from Germany, Austria, Hungary, and other European countries. Even that number, the text argues, could not compare with the scale of destruction suffered by the Soviet Union during the war.

The total number of German enterprises dismantled and taken to the USSR amounted to less than fourteen percent of Germany’s prewar industrial stock. As chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee Nikolai Voznesensky noted, deliveries of restored equipment from Germany covered only 0.6 percent of the total direct damage inflicted on the USSR.

Seizure

The subject of appropriation and violence against civilians in postwar Germany remains controversial. Documents are known that confirm cases in which Western Allies effectively appropriated vessels belonging to defeated Germany.

Marshal Zhukov also mentioned collecting trophies. When he came under investigation in 1948, a search reportedly uncovered 194 pieces of furniture, 44 carpets and upholstery pieces, 7 crystal caskets, 55 museum paintings, and many other objects removed from Germany.

According to the documents cited, however, cases of genuine looting among Red Army soldiers and officers were relatively rare. Soviet soldiers more often engaged in what the text calls practical “collecting”—gathering property without formally appropriating it. After personal parcels home were permitted, boxes of sewing supplies, fabrics, and tools were sent to the USSR in large numbers.

Letters show that soldiers themselves often treated this with irony or embarrassment, apologizing to relatives for “this junk” and emphasizing that circumstances had driven them to it.

Strange calculations

The sharpest controversy concerns violence against civilians, especially German women. Until the end of the 1980s, Soviet and Western historiography cited comparatively restrained figures: between 20,000 and 150,000 women assaulted throughout Germany.

A sharp turn came in 1992 with publication in Germany of a book by two feminists, Helke Sander and Barbara Johr, Liberators and Liberated, which proposed a different figure—two million. The text says this estimate was obtained by extrapolating statistics from a single clinic to the entire country, without sufficient justification and without accounting for demographic and territorial differences.

In 2002 Antony Beevor repeated the same figure in Berlin: The Downfall, and after the Russian edition appeared in 2004 the idea of mass violence by the Red Army began to spread widely in public discussion.

Documents of the time, however, classified such cases as “extraordinary incidents” and “immoral phenomena.” Violence against German civilians was suppressed at every level of command. Rapists and looters were prosecuted by military tribunals.

Exact figures remain unavailable because part of the archival material is still classified. Yet a surviving report of the prosecutor of the 1st Belorussian Front concerning unlawful acts against civilians between 22 April and 5 May 1945 records 124 crimes among 908,500 personnel in the seven armies, including 72 cases of rape. Seventy-two cases among almost one million men, the text argues, make claims of “two million” appear at the very least unsustainable.

Violence and looting were also recorded in areas controlled by the Western Allies. Mortar man Naum Orlov recalled: “The British who guarded us chewed gum—which was new to us—and boasted of trophies, waving arms weighed down with wristwatches…”

Australian war correspondent Osmar White, who in general had little sympathy for the Soviets, wrote in 1945: “Conservative discipline prevailed in the Red Army. There was no more looting, rape, or intimidation here than in other armies. Many horrors arose from exaggeration of isolated incidents—because of nervousness, the Russians’ not always delicate manners, and their love of vodka.” He later acknowledged that the only thing he had personally observed was drunken officers firing pistols into the air and at bottles.

Conditions for captured Soviet servicemen, especially women, in German captivity were appalling. Wehrmacht officer Bruno Schneider recalled that before German soldiers were sent to the Eastern Front they were ordered: “Do not stand on ceremony with women of the Red Army—shoot them.”

Numerous accounts are said to confirm this: among bodies found after battles or encirclements were women in uniform—medical orderlies, signalers, nurses—with signs of torture. Abuse generally preceded execution.

Residents of the village of Smaglyovka in Voronezh Region said after liberation in 1943 that during the first months of the war, before their eyes, the Nazis shot a seriously wounded Red Army woman. Before death she was stripped, tortured, and killed. Her body was mutilated.

Similar actions were taken against women partisans, including Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, who before her public execution was reportedly kept undressed in the freezing cold for several hours.

Women in captivity were subjected to selection. The wounded and exhausted were killed. The rest were sent to forced labor. Red Army women were often raped despite the formal prohibition on officers entering intimate relations with Slavic women. Rank-and-file soldiers were allowed more latitude; there were cases in which one woman was assaulted by a group and then killed.

In concentration camps guards often selected the most attractive prisoners and forced them to “serve.” Camp doctor Orland, for example, is described as systematically raping women prisoners in Stalag No. 346 near Kremenchuk. In Stalag No. 337 at Baranovichi, camp commandant Yarosh gave relevant testimony at a 1967 trial.

Stalag No. 337 was distinguished by especially harsh and inhuman conditions. Red Army soldiers and other male prisoners were kept naked in the freezing cold for hours. Hundreds of inmates were driven into lice-infested barracks. Those who collapsed from exhaustion or weakness were immediately shot by the guards. Prisoners of war were killed daily in Stalag No. 337.

Prisoners were subjected to torture that the text says might have shocked even medieval inquisitors: they were stabbed, rubbed with hot red pepper, and subjected to other abuse. Camp commanders were particularly brutal; many, according to testimony, had sadistic tendencies. The commander of Stalag No. 337 was nicknamed “the cannibal” behind his back.

As a continuation of the subject and a supplement to Elena Senyavskaya’s article published on 10 May 2012, the page presents another work by the author, published in a journal.

At the final stage of the Great Patriotic War, after liberating Soviet territory occupied by the Nazis and their allies, the Red Army crossed the border of the USSR. From that moment its victorious path began through the countries of Europe—both those weakened by years of fascist occupation and the allies of the Third Reich, as far as Germany itself. As they advanced westward, Soviet soldiers who had never previously been abroad encountered local populations and gained many new and sometimes contradictory impressions of representatives of other peoples and cultures. These impressions ultimately formed ethnopsychological stereotypes of Europeans.

The image of women occupied a special place among them. References and sometimes detailed descriptions can be found in letters, diaries, and memoirs of frontline soldiers, where lyrical and cynical tones are often mixed.

The first country entered by the Red Army in August 1944 was Romania. In poet Boris Slutsky’s Notes on the War we read:

“Suddenly Constanța opens before us, almost cutting into the sea. It almost coincides with the average dream of happiness and ‘after the war’: restaurants, bathrooms, beds with clean linen, shops with reptilian salesmen. And—women, smart women in the city. European women. The first recognition we received from the defeated…”

He then describes his first impressions of “abroad”:

“Barbershops where they wash with their hands rather than brushes; the absence of baths; washing from a basin where dirt from the hands remains and then one washes one’s face; feather beds instead of blankets—all this caused disgust and generalizations… In Constanța we first encountered brothels… The initial fascination with ‘free love’ quickly passed. Not only fear of venereal disease and expense played a role, but contempt for the very possibility of buying a person.

“Many were proud of their moral position: a Romanian wife complained to the commandant’s office that our officer refused to pay—even though she had agreed for fifteen hundred lei. Everyone had his own understanding. ‘For us this is impossible’… Perhaps Romania will remain in our soldiers’ memory as a country of syphilitics…” Slutsky wrote. He emphasized that it was in Romania, in this “backwater of Europe,” that the Soviet soldier first acutely felt himself to be in Europe.

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Fyodor Smolnikov recorded his impressions of Bucharest on 17 September 1944:

“Hotel ‘Ambasador,’ restaurant, basement. I see the idle public. They do nothing, only wait. They look at me as though I were a curiosity. ‘A Russian officer!’ I am dressed very modestly, even too modestly. Never mind, we shall reach Budapest yet…

“It is as certain as the fact that I was in Bucharest. First-class restaurant, the public dressed provocatively, especially the Romanian women. We spend the night in a good hotel. Chaos on the main street. There is no music; the public waits. It is a capital, damn it! I will not give up the publicity…”

In Hungary the Red Army encountered not only fierce armed resistance but also treacherous attacks from behind, when “drunken and straggling soldiers were killed in farmyards” or drowned in wells.

Women, however, unlike the Romanians, caused more embarrassment. “A little love, a little extravagance and, above all, of course, fear helped,” one officer wrote. A Hungarian lawyer remarked: “Russians love children. Russians love women.” Boris Slutsky added:

“He did not take into account that Hungarian women also love Russians. That besides the fear bringing mothers of families to their knees, there was the tenderness of girls and a desperate attraction to soldiers who had killed their husbands.”

Grigory Chukhray described a similar episode in his memoirs. His unit was quartered with local residents. During a meal, under the influence of vodka, the hosts admitted that they had hidden their daughter in the attic. The Soviet officers were indignant: “Who do you take us for? We are not fascists!”

The embarrassed parents called their thin daughter Marika to the table. She ate hungrily, flirted, and asked questions. By the end of dinner everyone raised a toast to “barátság” (friendship).

“Marika understood the toast. When we went to sleep, she appeared in my room wearing only her underwear. I understood—they wanted to provoke me. But I did not give in. And her charms did not affect me anyway; I pointed her to the door.”

The next morning the hostess, laying the table and distributing dishes, was visibly nervous. “The provocation failed!” I thought. I shared the idea with our Hungarian interpreter. He laughed:

“‘It was no provocation at all! You had a good opportunity and neglected it. Now you are not regarded as a man in this house. You will have to move elsewhere.’

“Why did they hide their daughter in the attic?

“They were afraid of violence. In their country it is considered normal for a girl, before marriage and with her parents’ approval, to experience intimacy with several men. Here they say: ‘You do not buy a cat in a sack…’”

Young, physically healthy men naturally feel attraction to women. But the ease of European morals ruined some Soviet soldiers; others, on the contrary, believed that relations should not be reduced to physiology alone.

Sergeant Alexander Rodin recorded his impressions of visiting—out of pure curiosity!—a brothel in Budapest, part of which was still standing only hours after the fighting:

“…After leaving, a foul, embarrassing sense of falsehood and deception arose. The image of a woman crudely and openly imitating love would not leave my mind… A heavy, unpleasant aftertaste from visiting the brothel remained not only with me, a young man raised on the principle ‘do not kiss without love,’ but with most of our soldiers with whom I spoke…

“In those same days I happened to speak with a pretty Magyar woman (how she knew Russian I do not know). When she asked whether I liked Budapest, I answered that I liked the city but the brothels bothered me.

“‘Why?’ she asked in surprise.

“‘Because it is unnatural, savage,’ I explained. ‘A woman takes money—and immediately begins to “love”!’

“The girl thought for a moment, then nodded with a slight smile and said:

“‘You are right: it is not nice to take money in advance…’”

Poland left a different impression. According to poet David Samoilov, “…in Poland we were kept under strict discipline. Arbitrary behavior was suppressed, and offenses were punished severely.” Among positive impressions he named only the beauty of Polish women: “I cannot say that we liked Poland. Rather the opposite. I encountered nothing worthy, noble, or chivalrous here. On the contrary, everyone—bourgeois and peasants alike—was equally pragmatic and mercenary. Especially in eastern Poland they treated us with caution and hostility, trying to squeeze everything they could from the liberators.

“The women were beautiful and coquettish; they captivated us by their manners and cooing speech, in which everything suddenly became clear. They themselves, it seemed, were fascinated by the strength hidden in masculine roughness or a soldier’s uniform. And their pale, thin admirers, gnashing their teeth, withdrew into the shadows for a moment…”

Not every memory of Polish women was romantic. On 22 October 1944 Junior Lieutenant Vladimir Gelfand wrote in his diary:

“…With beautiful Polish women—pride to the point of disgust… I was told that Polish women dragged our soldiers and officers into bed and then, while lying with them, cut their genitals with razors, strangled them with their hands, and had a prickly light in their eyes. Wild, mad, bad women! Beauty is deceptive; one must be more careful with them.”

Other observations appear in Gelfand’s diary as well. On 24 October he wrote:

“Today in one of the villages I encountered wonderful Polish girls. They complained that Poland lacked men. They called me ‘pan’ but behaved properly. I gently patted one on the shoulder in response to her words and was comforted by the thought that the road to Russia was open to her—there were plenty of men there. She stepped aside and, smiling, said that there were plenty of men here in Poland too. We said goodbye with a handshake.”

On 22 November Gelfand described his impressions of the first large Polish town he encountered—Mińsk Mazowiecki. Alongside architecture and the abundance of bicycles, he especially singled out the urban population:

“A noisy, idle crowd. Women—number one. In white hats, hair neatly arranged, freshness in their appearance, although many are over forty… Men in triangular caps, in hats. Fat and empty. Lipstick, penciled eyebrows, posing, deliberate delicacy… All this is so different from natural life. It seems they live only to be seen. And everything will disappear as soon as the last spectator leaves.”

Not only residents of Polish cities but also villagers left a strong, if contradictory, impression. “The vitality of the Poles, who had endured the horrors of war and German occupation, was astonishing,” Alexander Rodin recalled. “Sunday in a Polish village. Beautiful, smart women in silk dresses and stockings—the same peasant women who on weekdays go barefoot and do heavy farm work. Older women too looked fresh and youthful, although black shadows already lay at the corners of their eyes…”

In his diary on 5 November 1944 he wrote: “Sunday. The residents have already dressed up. They are gathering to visit one another. Men in felt hats, ties, sweaters. Women in silk dresses, bright, untouched stockings. Girls—rosy, curly-haired, with elaborate hairstyles. The soldiers in the corner of the cottage are lively too. But any sensitive person will feel something painful in this Sunday. Everyone laughs loudly, as though trying to show that it does not affect them, that they are not envious. Are we any worse than they are? Who knows what happiness peaceful life is? I have never known it…”

His fellow serviceman Sergeant Nikolai Nesterov made an entry that same day: “Today is a day off. The Poles, dressed up, gather in the cottage and sit in pairs. Suddenly it became somehow awkward. Why can I not sit like that too?..”

Serviceman Galina Yartseva spoke far more harshly of “European morality,” comparing what she saw to “a feast during the plague.” On 24 February 1945 she wrote to a friend from the front: “…If there is an opportunity, I shall send beautiful parcels of trophies. There is plenty to choose from. Here are our own people—stripped and poorly clothed. You look at these people and anger takes hold, hatred! They live, love, stroll about, while we liberate them. They laugh at the Russians—‘Schwein!’ Yes, yes, swine… I love no one except the USSR. I believe in no friendship with Poles or Lithuanians…”

In Austria, which the Red Army entered in the spring of 1945, soldiers encountered “universal capitulation”: “Entire villages were hung with white rags. Old women raised their hands as soon as they saw a person in Red Army uniform.” According to B. Slutsky, the soldiers “caught fair-haired women.” At the same time, by his own observation, Austrian women “were not excessively stubborn”: peasant girls who had had intimate relations before marriage were perceived as “spoiled,” while soldiers on leave felt “as safe as Christ in one’s bosom.” One local man, an employee of a Vienna bank, expressed surprise at Russian insistence and impulsiveness, believing that their forcefulness allowed them “to get anything they wanted from a Viennese woman.” The point here was not only fear but national character and cultural traditions.

And finally—Germany. The women Soviet soldiers encountered were mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters of those who from 1941 to 1944 had committed atrocities on Soviet soil. How did they look in Red Army eyes? Vladimir Bogomolov’s diary, describing a column of refugees, says: “Women—old and young—in hats, turbans, coverings like our own women wear, in elegant coats with fur collars and in cracked clothing of an incomprehensible cut… Many wear dark glasses so as not to squint in the bright May sun, protecting their faces from wrinkles…”

Lev Kopelev recalled meeting refugees in Allenstein: “Two women were sitting on the sidewalk. Hats—fanciful, even with veils. Coats—solid, well kept, and the women themselves smooth and well groomed.” He gives the soldiers’ reaction: “little hens,” “turkeys,” “now that would be something smooth…”

How did the Germans themselves behave on meeting Soviet troops? A report by Shikin, head of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army, to G. F. Alexandrov of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) dated 30 April 1945 stated: “As soon as our units occupy a particular district, residents begin to come out into the streets, almost all with white bands on their sleeves. On meeting our soldiers many women raise their hands, cry, and tremble with fear. But when they become convinced that Red Army soldiers and officers do not correspond to the image imposed by fascist propaganda, the fear recedes. Women come out into the streets and offer services, trying to emphasize their loyalty to the Red Army.”

The restraint and delicacy of German women made a particular impression on Soviet servicemen. Mortar man N. Orlov recalled an episode that astonished him in 1945: “No one in our battalion killed German civilians. One of our intelligence men was even a ‘Germanophile.’ If anything of that kind had happened, command would quickly have punished the guilty man. As for violence against women, I think some people who talk about it exaggerate greatly. I remember a case of another kind. We arrived in a German town and quartered ourselves in houses. A Frau about forty-five approached and asked for the commander. She was taken to Marchenko. She said that she was responsible for the neighborhood and presented twenty German women for the sexual servicing (!) of Russian soldiers. Marchenko knew German, and when she said all this our deputy political commander Dolgoborodov angrily translated her words. The reaction was immediate—the Frau and her ‘detachment’ were shown the door. We were stunned by this at the time: we had expected partisan activity, not something like that. But in Germany order is above all. The victor is the master. They are accustomed to it. That is the psychology…”

David Samoilov described a similar episode in his frontline notes: “At Arendsfelde, where we were stationed, several women with children appeared. They were led by a large, mustachioed Frau of about fifty named Friedrich. She said that she represented the civilian population and demanded that the remaining residents be registered. We answered that this would be possible when the commandant’s office arrived…”

“‘Impossible,’ Frau Friedrich declared. ‘There are women and children here. They must be registered.’

“The civilians supported her words with cries and tears.

“Not knowing what to do, I suggested using the basement of the house in which we were quartered. The women calmly went downstairs and began waiting for the authorities.

“‘Herr Kommissar,’ Frau Friedrich addressed me good-naturedly (I wore a leather jacket). ‘We understand that soldiers need a little. They are prepared,’ she continued, ‘to provide them with a number of young women for…’

“I did not continue the conversation with Frau Friedrich.”

After communicating with Berlin residents on 2 May 1945, Vladimir Bogomolov wrote in his diary:

“We entered one of the surviving houses. Complete silence, a dead hush. We knocked, asking them to open. In the corridor there was muffled whispering, anxious, excited voices. At last the door opened.

“Women—old and young—gathered in a tight group, hunched, frightened, bowing low. They were afraid of us—they had been told that Soviet soldiers, especially Asians, would rape and kill…

“Fear and hatred could be read on their faces. But sometimes it seemed that they themselves wanted to be defeated—their behavior became helpful, their smiles gentle, their words welcoming.

“Stories circulated about one of our soldiers entering a German apartment and asking for a drink, and the German woman, seeing him, lying down on the sofa and taking off her tights.”

“All German women were supposedly ready for anything. They did not object to intimacy with soldiers”—such an opinion became widespread in Soviet troops and was supported not only by numerous examples but also by consequences noted by military doctors.

According to Directive No. 00343/Sh of the Military Council of the 1st Belorussian Front dated 15 April 1945:

“During the troops’ stay on enemy territory, the incidence of venereal disease among servicemen has risen sharply.

“Analysis of the situation shows that venereal diseases were already widespread among the German population before occupation.

“Now the enemy is deliberately leaving infected women behind in order to create centers of mass infection in the ranks of the Red Army.”

On 26 April 1945 the Military Council of the 47th Army reported:

“In March the level of venereal disease among personnel increased fourfold compared with February.

“The proportion infected among German women in the territories examined was 8–15 percent.

There were registered cases in which the enemy deliberately left women with venereal diseases behind in order to infect Soviet soldiers.

In implementation of Order No. 056 of the Military Council of the 1st Belorussian Front, dated April 18, 1945, the following leaflet was distributed among the troops of the 33rd Army:

Comrades, soldiers!

German women are enticing you, women whose husbands have wandered all over Europe, themselves infected and having passed the disease on to their wives.

Before you are German women deliberately left by the enemy with the aim of spreading venereal diseases among Red Army soldiers.

We are close to victory, and soon you will return home to your families.

Will a person infected with a serious disease be able to look his loved ones in the eye?

Can we, soldiers of the Red Army, become a source of epidemics in our native country? No!

The moral character of a Red Army man must be as pure as his family and his Motherland!

Even in Lev Kopelev's memoirs, in which he sharply condemns violence and looting in East Prussia, references of another kind occur: “They sell a loaf of bread... and a wife with a daughter.”

The manner in which such stories are told casts doubt on them, but they are also confirmed by other sources.

In his diary entry of October 26, 1945, half a year after the end of the war, Vladimir Gelfand recorded a frank confession:

“I wanted to enjoy Margo's tenderness — there were not enough kisses and embraces. I expected more, but did not dare ask. The girl's mother was pleased with me and even wanted the relationship to continue.

I brought sweets, butter, sausage, expensive German cigarettes — gifts of trust and love.

That food was enough to give me every reason, and in full view of her mother, to have everything with her daughter. And she would not have objected.

Today food is worth more than life itself. Even the life of such a young and sensual beauty as Margo.”

Interesting entries were also left by the Australian war correspondent Osmar White, who was in Europe in 1944–1945 with George Patton's U.S. Third Army. This is what he wrote in Berlin in May 1945, only a few days after the storming of the city:

“I went to a night cabaret which had opened at the Femina near Potsdamer Platz. The night was sultry and damp. The air was heavy with the smells of sewage and decay.

The façade of the ‘Femina’ was covered with futuristic photographs of naked women and advertisements in four languages. The ballroom and restaurant were full of Russian, British and American officers escorting (or looking for) women.

A bottle of wine cost 25 dollars, horsemeat with potatoes 10, and a packet of American cigarettes an astonishing 20 dollars.

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

The compère opened the show in German, Russian, English and French... This drew an ironic smile from a Russian artillery captain sitting next to me. He leaned over and said in good English: ‘A quick transition from the national to the international! RAF bombers are excellent professors, aren't they?’”

The image of European women that developed among Soviet soldiers was, in general, of women who were sleek and well cared for (in comparison with their compatriots in the liberated territories of the USSR), but at the same time accessible, selfish, promiscuous, or submissive out of fear. Yugoslav and Bulgarian women were exceptions.

Yugoslav female partisans, stern and self-sacrificing, were regarded as comrades in arms and as untouchable. And given the discipline in the Yugoslav army, “discerning girls would probably regard PW [field women] as a special, despised type.”

Boris Slutsky recalled Bulgarian women as follows:

“After Ukraine, after the Romanian excesses, the extreme inaccessibility of Bulgarian women inspired respect. Almost no one boasted of successes. This is the only country where officers out walking were more often accompanied by men than women. Later the Bulgarians proudly said that Russians would return to Bulgaria to marry — because only here were there still ‘pure and untouched’ women.”

Czech women, by contrast, left a very pleasant impression.

Tank crews, covered with dust and decorated with wreaths and flowers, joked: “... You could marry the tank, polish it up. And they take their girls along with them. Good people. I haven't seen people so sincere for a long time...”

On May 11, 1945, Boris Polevoy recorded his impressions of liberated Prague:

“The Czechs are sincere and hospitable.

— If it were possible, I would kiss every soldier and officer of the Red Army for liberating my Prague! — exclaimed a Prague cabman to approving, cheerful laughter.”

In other countries, however, according to Soviet eyewitnesses, the female part of the population did not inspire respect.

“In Europe women surrendered, betrayed first of all,” Boris Slutsky wrote. “I was always troubled and embarrassed by their too easy, even vulgar relations... Decent women, of course, were of no interest.

They resembled prostitutes — everything came down to a few bodily movements, to a complete lack of interest in a man's feelings, arousing indignation and contempt among officers...

Fear of infection, fear of publicity, an unwanted pregnancy — all this concealed bitterness and a particular female estrangement.”

Nevertheless, there were other motives behind the spread of “international love”: women's curiosity about a “different” man, and the unprecedented generosity of Soviet soldiers toward those they liked, which distinguished them favorably from the stingy Europeans.

Junior Lieutenant Daniil Zlatkin, who found himself on the Danish island of Bornholm at the end of the war, recalled:

“We had not seen women for a long time — and when we arrived in Denmark, it was... available, please. They wanted to try, to experience a Russian man.

Why? Because he is attentive and kind.

I gave boxes of chocolates, tables full of food. For a birthday I gave a woman I did not know one hundred roses...”

Serious relationships and marriages were nevertheless barely considered, because the Soviet leadership took a hard line on the matter.

An order of the Military Council of the 4th Ukrainian Front dated April 12, 1945, stated:

“1. Explain to all personnel that marriage with foreign women is illegal and strictly forbidden.

2. Immediately report cases of marriage with foreign women and connections with hostile elements. Those who violate this are to be held accountable.”

A directive of the chief of the Political Directorate of the 1st Belorussian Front dated April 14, 1945, stated:

“Applications are being received from officers asking permission to marry Polish, Bulgarian, Czech women, etc.

Such actions should be regarded as a loss of vigilance and as undermining patriotic feelings.

The impossibility of such marriages must be explained, up to and including a direct prohibition. Not a single case may be permitted.”

And women had no illusions about the intentions of their suitors. “At the beginning of 1945 even the stupidest Hungarian peasant women did not believe our promises. Women in Europe knew that we were forbidden to marry foreigners and suspected that there was a similar order prohibiting joint visits to restaurants, cinemas, and so on. This did not prevent them from loving our men, but it gave that love a purely ‘proper’ [carnal] character,” B. Slutsky wrote.

In general, it must be acknowledged that, with rare exceptions, the image of a woman in Europe that formed among Red Army soldiers in 1944–1945 was very far from the suffering figure with raised hands depicted on Soviet posters bearing the appeal “Europe will be free!”

Footnotes

The layout used the 1944 Soviet poster “Europe Is Free!” by artist V. Koretsky.