After EVERYTHING Germany subjected the world to, I sincerely think rape would have been a predictable act of the Allies since the Allies lost so much in just fighting in the war. Throw in the Holocaust and suffering of civilians and of course, the cost of war, Germany had it coming. THEY LET Hitler and his band of crazies take over and willingly participated in the rounding up and shipping off of Jews and participated in euthanasia.
Russia lost twenty million defending their Motherland and go figure, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
No doubt there were some rapes, but this huge figure sounds like typical feminist drivel.
During WWII there were 9 Red Ball Express drivers who would stop their trucks and rape French women. Eisenhower learned about it and had them hanged. There must have been rapes of German women by U.S. soldiers, but I doubt that they were in the vast numbers the feminists are using to disparage our military in WWII.
Every Army under the sun has done so since the Begging of Time and later hated to admit it.
However, to say it was a sanction top down effort (unlike OTHERS) isn't something that happened either.
The Largest Human Migration in History was the Flight from East Prussia and they wouldn't be doing that if they Feared the Americans more than the Soviets.
The Americans Would Disarm the Germans.
The British Might Shoot them.
The Russians would ship them off to Siberia, or Worse.
I have little doubt this sort of thing happened a lot more than people think. So? That is not news. War is hell.
Only little kids think soldiers on either side are pure.
This Jezebel feminist’s number is as credible as the supposed 1 in 5 college co-eds are raped.
“Did (Western) Allied troops rape 285,000 German women?”
*shrugs* I’m sure people were too busy dodging German women snipers, anti-aircraft gun operators, and Panzerfaust shooters to count.
Well the Russians were allied with the west ......
Because there were 200,000 pregnancies among single women in the American occupied zone, she’s decided they were all rapes.
By the Spring of 46’, the official ration in the American zone was only 1275 calories. In some places it was only 700.
They were trading sex for food.
I’m sure it happened on occasion but it certainly wasn’t sanctioned.
The number of pregnancies doesn’t mean much especially considering the fact that the nazis had been encouraging unwed motherhood all along.
How did she determine that the precise number of 285,000 rapes occurred? By actual count? By a random sample? Stratified sample? We live in Western Civilization where crazies rise to notice and even celebrity status. Rape claims abound which are often false. I don’t believe the claim.
Soviets...probably more than that.
If the term “allies” includes Russia, then possible
It should be stressed that Dr Gebhardt is not a specialist World War II historian, but is better known for her works on other topics, such as the feminist movement in Germany, the philosopher Rudolf Steiner and the history of education. She has also spoken at conferences on Left-wing politics, and it is therefore tempting to regard Dr Gebhardt as one of many academics who is not entirely minded to view countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom in a positive light.
So where does she get her high figures of 190,000 rapes by the Americans, and 45,000 by the British? According to the U.S. Army's figures, American troops carried out 552 rapes in Germany. Even if one applies the 'five per cent rule', then this would mean that the total figure is around 11,000. This is a shockingly high number, to be sure, but nowhere near that of nearly 200,000 by U.S. troops alone. Instead, Dr Gebhardt has looked at childbirth statistics in West Germany, and has assumed that five per cent of the children born to unmarried women from 1945 until 1955 were as a result of rape. Of these, she says 1,900 were born to American men. Even if one were able to accept these assumptions, Dr Gebhardt then takes things to an implausible level. Estimating that for each of these 1,900 births there were 100 rapes, she arrives at her bizarre figure of a total of 190,000 German rape victims.
From the Article “This number is far too high, and is not supported by any documentary evidence whatsoever. One can only assume that Dr Gebhardt is motivated more by some Leftist anti-American agenda than by proper historical inquiry.”
Also keep in mind that some non-military folks take advantage of a war torn area to commit crimes. Same goes for disaster zones.
Certainly the Russians did it and were brutal.
There were 1.5 million American servicemen stationed in Germany eventually. Did 1 in 6 of them have sex with the local women? I’m supposing that the author might label, “rape” any instance of sexual relations between a soldier from an occupying army and a local from the occupied territory. It may not be the sort of violent, brutal horror of war that the term brings to the imagination, but it is also a deeply problematic ethical issue. And I might even argue that the women who were the more readily “seduced” were probably also among the more innocent of the charge of supporting the genocidal madness of Hitler: passive, independent, willing to approach “the enemy...”
“Never mind that the German population was complicit in countless horrors.”
No, I do mind. A hand wave won’t make the difference between the allies and the axis go away any more than it works for Islamism and Western civ.