The Red Army’s Liberation Mission and the Distorting Mirror of Enemy Propaganda

26 January 2017

Berlin capitulated

In the West, the thesis of Red Army “outrages” in the German territory it occupied is constantly repeated. One of the most widespread anti-Russian myths today is the claim of mass rapes allegedly committed by Soviet servicemen in 1945. Its origins go back to the end of the war—to Goebbels’s propaganda—and then to publications by former members of the anti-Hitler coalition who soon became the USSR’s opponents in the Cold War.

On 2 March 1945, Third Reich Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary: “…in fact, in the Soviet soldiers we are dealing with scum from the steppes. This is confirmed by reports of atrocities reaching us from the eastern territories. They really are horrifying. They cannot even be reproduced individually. First of all, mention must be made of the dreadful documents received from Upper Silesia. In certain villages and towns all women from ten to seventy years old were subjected to countless rapes. It seems this is being done on orders from above, since a clear system can be discerned in the behavior of the Soviet soldiery. We shall now launch a broad campaign against this at home and abroad.” On 13 March another entry appeared: “The war in the East will now be guided by only one feeling—the feeling of revenge. By now all our compatriots believe that the Bolsheviks are committing atrocities. There is no longer anyone who ignores our warnings.” On 25 March: “The published reports of Soviet atrocities have everywhere aroused anger and a thirst for revenge” (110).

Later Dr. Werner Naumann, an assistant to Reich Commissioner Goebbels, admitted: “Our propaganda about the Russians and what the population should expect from them in Berlin was so successful that we brought Berliners to a state of extreme terror,” but “we overdid it—our propaganda ricocheted back against us” (111). The German population had long been psychologically prepared for the image of a bestially cruel “subhuman” and was ready to believe any crime attributed to the Red Army (112).

“In an atmosphere of horror bordering on panic, fueled by refugees’ stories, reality became distorted and rumor defeated facts and common sense. Terrifying stories of the most nightmarish atrocities crept through the city. Russians were described as narrow-eyed Mongols who mercilessly and thoughtlessly killed women and children. It was said that priests were burned alive with flamethrowers, nuns were raped and then driven naked through the streets. People were frightened with stories that women were being turned into prostitutes who followed military units, while men were being sent to forced labor in Siberia. Radio even once broadcast that the Russians nailed their victims’ tongues to tables” (113).

According to Osmar White, “Goebbels’s propaganda <...> hammered a paranoid fear of the ‘hordes from the East’ into German minds. When the Red Army reached the outskirts of Berlin, a wave of suicides swept through the city. According to some estimates, between 30,000 and 40,000 Berliners took their own lives in May–June 1945” (114). In his diaries he wrote that “there was nothing new in Russophobia. The troops encountered it all the way from the Rhine as they met thousands of panic-stricken people fleeing west. The Russians are coming! Whatever happens, one must flee from them! When it was possible to question any of these people, it almost always turned out that they knew nothing about the Russians. They had been told so. They had heard it from a friend, brother, or relative who had served on the Eastern Front. Well, of course Hitler had lied to them! His theories about the master race were absurd; his claims that the British were decadent and Jews were subhumans who ate decomposed brains were lies. But when he spoke about the Bolsheviks, the Führer had been right!” (115).

At the same time Allied media took up the initiative in circulating anti-Soviet horror stories. Indeed, “anti-Russian hysteria was so strong, and so many stories of Russian atrocities were circulating, that the head of the Anglo-American public-relations bureau considered it necessary to gather correspondents in order to give an ‘explanation’: ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘that among the Germans there is a strong and organized movement aimed at sowing the seeds of distrust among the Allies. The Germans are convinced that a split among us will be to their advantage. I want to warn you not to believe German stories about Russian atrocities without thoroughly checking their authenticity’” (116). But the Cold War was already taking shape. In 1946 Austin App’s pamphlet The Rape of the Women of Conquered Europe appeared in the United States.

What, then, actually happened in the Soviet occupation zone? How did all this propaganda froth relate to reality—and to what was occurring in the western occupation zones of Germany?

When discussing the scale of rape in the area under Soviet responsibility, one should cite an excerpt from a report by the military prosecutor of the 1st Belorussian Front on implementation, as of 5 May 1945, of Stavka Directive No. 11072 and Military Council Directive No. 00384 of the 1st Belorussian Front, concerning a change in attitudes toward the German population: “In carrying out the instructions of the Front Military Council, the Front Military Prosecutor’s Office systematically monitors implementation of the directives of the Supreme High Command and the Front Military Council concerning a change in attitudes toward the German population. It must be stated that instances of robbery, violence and other unlawful acts by our servicemen against the local German population have not only failed to cease, but during the period from 22 April to 5 May continued to be rather widespread. I give figures characterizing the situation in seven armies of our front: the total number of outrages by servicemen against the local population recorded in these seven armies was 124, including: rape of German women—72, robberies—38, murders—3, other unlawful acts—11” (117).

It should be emphasized that these are figures for seven armies of the front storming Berlin in the very midst of urban combat—that is, 908,500 personnel at the beginning of the Berlin operation, of whom 37,600 became irrecoverable losses and 141,900 medical casualties (118)—and only seventy-two rape cases in two weeks. Given that, according to military-prosecutor and tribunal materials, the number of rapes and “other outrages” subsequently declined, a figure of 100,000 Berlin women allegedly “violated by Soviet barbarians,” to put it mildly, does not emerge from these data—let alone two million. Another tendency was noted in a report of the military prosecutor of the 1st Belorussian Front dated 2 May 1945: “There are cases in which Germans engage in provocation, alleging rape where none took place. I personally established two such cases. No less interesting is the fact that our people sometimes report up the chain of command, without verification, that violence and killings have occurred, whereas an inquiry shows this to be fiction” (119). False accusations also occurred.

At the same time, according to Osmar White, the Soviet administration’s efforts to restore normal life for German civilians immediately after the fighting ended were far more effective than those of its Western counterparts. “At the end of my first day in Berlin,” he wrote in his diary, “I was certain the city was dead. Human beings could not live in this appalling heap of rubble.

“By the end of the first week my ideas began to change.

“Society began to come alive among the ruins. Berliners began to receive food and water in quantities sufficient to survive. More and more people were employed on public works directed by the Russians.

“Thanks to the Russians, who had great experience in dealing with similar problems in their own devastated cities, the spread of epidemics was brought under control.

“I am convinced that in those days the Soviets did more to give Berlin a chance to survive than the Anglo-Americans could have done in their place.

“Russian methods of maintaining order and obtaining results in the essentials were not restrained by sentimental scruples. They understood mass psychology and knew that the sooner Berliners became inspired by the idea of helping themselves, the better it would be for everyone. A few days after the capitulation they supported the idea of publishing newspapers. Then they restored radio broadcasting, permitted the organization of entertainment, and announced that they would approve the formation of trade unions and democratic political parties…” (120).

He goes on, emphasizing the reaction of the Germans themselves: “Radio, newspapers, politics, concerts… The Russians wisely nourished a revival in the desert of despair. They showed generosity to the followers of the monster lying in his lair beneath mountains of rubble. But Berliners did not look at the world the way the Russians wanted them to. Everywhere one heard the whisper: ‘Thank God that you—the British and Americans—have come here. The Russians are animals; they … rape, rob, and shoot…’” (121).

Yet for the Germans themselves in the Soviet occupation zone, the difference between the conduct of Soviet troops and that of German troops on Soviet territory was striking. Thus a certain physician, Dr. Kalisturkh, discussing the Red Army’s attitude toward the German population with colleagues, stated: “It cannot be concealed 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, and especially the SS men, had behaved much worse toward Russian women” (122).

In Germany Soviet soldiers encountered the women of the enemy—the mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters of those who from 1941 to 1944 had abused civilians in the occupied territory of the USSR, while they themselves had asked their husbands in letters to “send a fur coat and children’s shoes from Russia.” What did Soviet servicemen see when they met them? Vladimir Bogomolov described the appearance of German women moving in a crowd of refugees in his diary: “The women—old and young—wear hats, scarves wound like turbans or simply draped like our peasant women’s, smart coats with fur collars, and worn clothing of an incomprehensible cut. Many women wear dark glasses so as not to squint in the bright May sun and thereby protect their faces from wrinkles…” (123). Lev Kopelev recalled meeting evacuated Berlin women in Allenstein: “Two women on the sidewalk. Elaborate hats, one even with a veil. Good-quality coats, and they themselves smooth and well-groomed” (124). He also quoted soldiers’ comments about them: “hens,” “turkeys,” “wouldn’t mind one that smooth…”

Sexual contacts by Red Army soldiers were officially forbidden, and rape was punishable severely. Nevertheless, “intimacy” did occur, most often voluntarily (usually in exchange for food). Soviet servicemen were surprised by the submissiveness of German women and even by their desire to please the victors, as well as by what many of them saw as promiscuity and venality.

In this connection it is worth citing the account of one veteran, mortar man N. A. Orlov, who was shocked by the behavior of Germans (and German women) in 1945: “No one in the mortar battalion killed German civilians. Our special-department officer was a ‘Germanophile.’ Had anything like that happened, the punitive authorities’ reaction to such an excess would have been swift. As for violence against German women, it seems to me that some people, when speaking of such a phenomenon, somewhat ‘lay it on thick.’ I remember an example of another kind.

“We entered some German town and quartered ourselves in houses. A Frau of about forty-five appears and asks for the ‘Herr Kommandant.’ They brought her to Marchenko. She says that she is responsible for the neighborhood and has gathered twenty German women to provide sexual (!!!) services to Russian soldiers. Marchenko understood German, and I translated what the woman had said for Deputy Political Commander Dolgoborodov, who was standing next to me. The reaction of our officers was angry and profane. The German woman was driven away, together with her ‘detachment,’ which was ready to provide its services… I repeat, I do not remember anyone in my company raping a German woman. There were not many men in the mortar company; such ‘deeds’ would sooner or later have become known to their comrades. My tongue is my enemy—one of our own would have let something slip, the main thing was that it should not be to the special-department officer…” (125).

David Samoilov gives a similar episode in his wartime notes: “At Arendsfelde, where we had just settled in, a small crowd of women with children appeared. They were led by an enormous, mustachioed German woman of about fifty—Frau Friedrich. She declared that she was a representative of the civilian population and asked us to register the remaining residents. 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 civilian population confirmed her words with cries and tears.

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

“‘Herr Kommissar,’ Frau Friedrich said to me good-naturedly (I was wearing a leather jacket), ‘we understand that soldiers have little needs. They are prepared,’ Frau Friedrich continued, ‘to set aside several younger women for them, for…’

“I did not continue the conversation with Frau Friedrich” (126).

Even in the memoirs of dissident Lev Kopelev, who angrily describes violence and looting by Soviet servicemen in East Prussia, one finds lines reflecting another side of “relations” with the local population: “They told stories about the submissiveness, servility and ingratiation of the Germans: there, they said, that is what they are like—they sell their wives and daughters for a loaf of bread” (127). The disgusted tone in which Kopelev relays these “stories” implies that he considered them unreliable. Yet they are corroborated by many sources.

Vladimir Gelfand, for example, 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 is nevertheless highly characteristic): “I wanted to enjoy to the full the caresses of pretty Margot—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. Of course! On the altar of her relatives’ trust and goodwill I had offered sweets and butter, sausage, and expensive German cigarettes. Even half of these products is enough today to give one the fullest grounds and right to do whatever one wishes with the daughter before her mother’s eyes, and the mother will say nothing against it. For foodstuffs today are dearer even than life—even the life of such a young and sweet sensual creature as the gentle beauty Margot” (128).

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, agitated voices. At last 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 like being defeated—their behavior is so attentive, their smiles so ingratiating, their words so sweet. These days a story is making the rounds about one of our soldiers entering a German apartment and asking for a drink, and the German woman, the moment she saw him, lying down on the sofa and taking off her panties” (129).

“All German women are depraved. They have nothing against sleeping with them” (130)—such an opinion circulated among Soviet troops and was reinforced not only by many visible examples but also by their unpleasant consequences, which military doctors soon discovered.

Directive No. 00343/Sh of the Military Council of the 1st Belorussian Front, dated 15 April 1945, stated: “During the troops’ stay on enemy territory, cases of venereal disease among servicemen have risen sharply. Study of the reasons for this situation shows that venereal diseases are widespread among the Germans. Before retreating, and also now in the territory occupied by us, the Germans have taken the path of artificially infecting German women with syphilis and gonorrhea in order to create major centers for the spread of venereal disease among Red Army servicemen” (131).

On 26 April 1945 the Military Council of the 47th Army reported that “…in March the number of venereal diseases among servicemen increased fourfold compared with February of this year. …The female population of Germany in the districts examined is infected at a rate of 8–15%. There are cases in which the enemy deliberately leaves German women suffering from venereal diseases in order to infect servicemen” (132).

To implement Resolution No. 056 of the Military Council of the 1st Belorussian Front of 18 April 1945, “On Measures to Prevent the Spread of Venereal Diseases” (133), the troops of the 33rd Army issued a leaflet reading as follows: “Comrade servicemen!

“German women are tempting you—women whose husbands visited all the brothels of Europe, became infected themselves, and infected their German women.

“Before you are also those German women whom the enemy has deliberately left behind to spread venereal disease and thereby put Red Army soldiers out of action.

“You must understand that our victory over the enemy is near and that soon you will have the opportunity to return to your families. With what eyes will a man look his loved ones in the eye if he brings home an infectious disease?

“Can we, soldiers of the heroic Red Army, be a source of infectious diseases in our country? NO! For the moral character of a Red Army soldier must be as pure as the image of his Motherland and family!” (134).

In May 1945, several days after the end of the assault on Berlin, Australian war correspondent Osmar White recorded in his diary his impressions of what he had seen: “I made a tour of the night cabarets, starting with the ‘Femina’ near Potsdamer Platz. It was a warm, humid 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 horsemeat-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 mistress of ceremonies opened the concert in German, Russian, English, and French. This provoked a jibe 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?’” (135).

It should be acknowledged that in most European countries through which the army of victors passed, the female part of the population did not inspire much respect. “In Europe the women surrendered, defected before everyone else…” B. Slutsky wrote. “I was always astonished, thrown off balance, disoriented by the ease, the shameful ease, of amorous relations. Respectable women, unquestionably disinterested, resembled prostitutes in their hasty availability, their wish to bypass the intermediate stages, their lack of interest in the motives that pushed a man toward intimacy with them. Like people who had learned three obscene words from the entire vocabulary of love poetry, they reduced the whole affair to a few bodily movements, provoking hurt 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” (136). He added that under conditions of conquest “universal corruption covered over and concealed specifically female corruption, made it invisible and unashamed” (137).

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 Russians’ unprecedented generosity toward the objects of their affection, which distinguished them favorably from parsimonious 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, test, try a Russian man—what is he, what is it like—and it seemed to work out better than with the Danes. Why? We were selfless and kind… I would give a box of chocolates half the size of a table; I gave one hundred roses to a woman I did not know … for her birthday…” (138).

At the same time few contemplated serious relationships or marriage, because the Soviet leadership had clearly stated its position on the matter. A Resolution of the Military Council of the 4th Ukrainian Front dated 12 April 1945 read: “1. Explain to all officers and all personnel of the Front that marriage to foreign women is illegal and categorically prohibited. 2. All cases of servicemen entering into marriage with foreign women, as well as connections between our people and hostile elements of foreign states, are to be reported immediately through the chain of command so that the guilty parties may be held accountable for loss of vigilance and violation of Soviet laws” (139). A directive of 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 requesting authorization for marriages with women of foreign states (Polish, Bulgarian, Czech women, etc.). Such facts should be regarded as a dulling of vigilance and patriotic feeling. Therefore political-educational work must pay attention to a thorough explanation of the inadmissibility of such acts on the part of 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 direct prohibition, and permit not a single case” (140).

Nor did the women harbor illusions about the intentions of their suitors. “At the beginning of 1945 even the stupidest Hungarian peasant girls no longer believed 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 the like. This did not prevent them from loving our womanizers, but it gave that love a strictly ‘ouaidum’ [carnal] character” (141), B. Slutsky wrote.

The overall impression of European women formed among Soviet servicemen was of women who were well-groomed and smartly dressed (compared with their compatriots exhausted by the war in the half-starved rear, on territories liberated from occupation, and even with their frontline female comrades dressed in washed-out tunics), readily available, self-interested, promiscuous, or timidly submissive. With rare exceptions, their image proved very far removed from the suffering figure with shackled hands who gazed hopefully from the Soviet poster “Europe Will Be Free!” What Red Army soldiers experienced in 1944–1945 when they encountered European mores can fairly be described by the modern term “culture shock.”

Today in the West the theme of mass rapes allegedly committed by the Red Army in Germany and other countries at the final stage of the war is almost a fashionable trend (142). The ungrateful old lady Europe—never noted for chastity, either physiological or political, and stained by mass collaboration during the years of Nazi occupation—cannot forgive the Russian soldier who defeated fascism precisely for what she herself was incapable of: the generosity and humanism that, in this author’s view, distinguished the Soviet liberating soldier in distant 1945. And she goes to extraordinary lengths to smear those who sacrificed their own lives while saving not only their own people but other nations from destruction and enslavement.

Notes

110. Goebbels, J. Diaries of 1945: The Last Entries, trans. from German. Smolensk, 1998. URL: http://www.erhb.com/Иозеф_Геббельс/Дневники_1945_года._Последние_записи /5/, /13/, /22/.
111. Ryan, C. The Last Battle: The Assault on Berlin Through Eyewitness Accounts, trans. from English. Moscow, 2003, pp. 23, 24, 427.
112. Sulzmann, R. “Propaganda as a Weapon in War,” in The Results of the Second World War: Conclusions of the Defeated. St. Petersburg; Moscow, 1998, pp. 536–537.
113. Ryan, C., op. cit., pp. 23, 24, 427.
114. White, O. Conquerors’ Road: An Eyewitness Account of Germany 1945. Cambridge University Press, 2003 [1996], XVII, p. 221. All quotations are given according to the translation posted at: http://www.argo.net.au/andre/osmarwhite.html
115. Ibid.
116. Ibid.
117. Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (TsAMO RF), fond 233, opis 2380, file 35, fols. 93–102.
118. “The Secrecy Classification Has Been Lifted: Losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in Wars, Combat Operations, and Military Conflicts.” Moscow, 1993, p. 219.
119. TsAMO RF, fond 233, opis 2380, file 41, fols. 226–338.
120. White, O., op. cit. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
121. Ibid.
122. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), fond r-9401, opis 2, file 96, fols. 203, 21, 205.
123. Bogomolov, V. O. “Germany, Berlin. Spring 1945,” in My Life, or Did I Dream You?.. Moscow: Nash Sovremennik, 2005, nos. 10–12; 2006, no. 1. http://militera.lib.ru/prose/russian/bogomolov_vo/03.html
124. Kopelev, L. To Be Preserved Forever, 2 vols., vol. 1, parts 1–4. Moscow: Terra, 2004, ch. 11. http://lib.rus.ec/b/137774/read#t15
125. From an interview with Naum Aronovich Orlov on the “I Remember” website: http://www.iremember.ru/minometchiki/orlov-naum-aronovich/stranitsa-6.html
126. Samoilov, D., op. cit., p. 88.
127. Kopelev, L., op. cit., ch. 12. http://lib.rus.ec/b/137774/read#t15
128. Gelfand, V. N. Diaries 1941–1946. http://militera.lib.ru/db/gelfand_vn/05.html
129. Bogomolov, V. O. My Life, or Did I Dream You?.., Nash Sovremennik, 2005, nos. 10–12; 2006, no. 1. http://militera.lib.ru/prose/russian/bogomolov_vo/03.html
130. From a political report on communicating Comrade Stalin’s Directive No. 11072 of 20 April 1945 to personnel of the 185th Rifle Division, 26 April 1945. Cited in Bogomolov, V. O., op. cit. http://militera.lib.ru/prose/russian/bogomolov_vo/02.html
131. Cited in Bogomolov, V. O., op. cit. http://militera.lib.ru/prose/russian/bogomolov_vo/02.html
132. Ibid.
133. TsAMO RF, fond 233, opis 2380, file 31a, fols. 257–259.
134. Bogomolov, V. O., op. cit.
135. White, O., op. cit.
136. Ibid., pp. 177–178.
137. Ibid., p. 180.
138. From an interview with D. F. Zlatkin, 16 June 1997, private archive.
139. Cited in Bogomolov, V. O., op. cit. http://militera.lib.ru/prose/russian/bogomolov_vo/04.html
140. Ibid.
141. Slutsky, B., op. cit., pp. 180–181 (Notes on the War. Poems and Ballads. St. Petersburg, 2000, p. 174).
142. Senyavskaya, E. S. “The Red Army in Europe in 1945: Old and New Stereotypes of Perception in Russia and the West,” Obozrevatel — Observer. Scientific and Analytical Journal, 2012, no. 2, pp. 111–127; no. 3, pp. 85–101.

Related material:

• Soviet Troops in Germany: Psychology and Ideology of the Victors
• Soviet Warrior — Liberator of Europe: Psychology and Behavior at the Final Stage of the War

© Sodaz Ot