Abstract
No one will ever know exactly how many German women were raped by Soviet soldiers at the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the peace. It may have been tens of thousands or more likely hundreds of thousands. If one includes all of the instances of rape, gang-rape, and rape murder during the Soviet offensives against and occupation of East Prussia, Silesia, Pomerania, Austria, the Czech lands and other German-inhabited areas of Eastern Europe, the numbers of victims might reach as many as two million. Some have suggested that over 125,000 women were raped in greater Berlin alone during and after the victorious offensive.1
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Notes
For numbers see Norman M. Naimark, The Russians in Germany: The History of the Soviet Occupation Zone, 1945–1949, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1995, pp. 132–3
Antony Beevor, The Fall of Berlin 1945, New York, Viking, 2002, p. 410
Jan Foitzik, Sowjetische Militäradministration in Deutschland (SMAD) 1945–1949. Struktur und Funktion, Berlin, Akademie Verlag, 1999, pp. 60ff.
See Giles MacDonough, After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation, New York, Basic Books, 2007.
Boris Slutskii, O drugikh i o sebe, Moscow, Vagrius, 2005, pp. 99–105.
Silka Satjukow, Besatzer: “Die Russen” in Deutschland 1945–1994, Göttingen, Vanderhoeck und Ruprecht, 2008, pp. 284–99.
Claudia Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family, and Nazi Politics, New York, St Martin’s, 1987.
Gisela Bock, “Racism and Sexism in Nazi Germany: Motherhood, Compulsory Sterilization and the State”, Women and Violence 8:3 (1983), p. 402.
M. I. Semiriaga, Kak my upravliali Germaniei: Politika i zhizn’, Moscow, osspen, 1995, pp. 186–93.
Nikolai Inozemstev, Tsena pobedy v toi samoi voine: Frontevoi dnevnik, Moscow, Nauka, 1995, pp. 190–1.
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© 2012 Norman M. Naimark
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Naimark, N.M. (2012). The Russians and Germans: Rape during the War and Post-Soviet Memories. In: Branche, R., Virgili, F. (eds) Rape in Wartime. Genders and Sexualities in History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137283399_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137283399_15
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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