Not only have the conquerors set out to destroy Germany economically by pulling down the three pillars of production but they have launched an assault against the German race itself by an attack against its mothers. From the record it appears that the men who met at Yalta deliberately formulated a diabolical program of racial bastardization which they considered an appropriate response to the claim of racial superiority.
A Russian General told General Ira Eaker, Commander of the Mediterannean air forces: “We’ve decided just to kill all the German men, take 17,000,000 German women and that will solve it.” Something on this order was obviously the intent. The millions of German men of marriageable age not killed or disabled in war were marched off into slavery where they could not protect their wives, sweethearts, daughters and sisters. And then the attack began. From the east came the Bolshevized Mongolian and Slavic hordes, repeatedly raping every captured woman and girl, contaminating them with venereal diseases and impregnating them with a future race of Russo-German bastards. In the west the British used colonial troops, the French Sengalese and Moroccans, the Americans an excessively high percentage of negroes. Our own method was not so direct as the Russian: instead of using physical force, we compelled the German women to yield their virtue in order to live – to get food to eat, beds to sleep in, soap to bathe with, roofs to shelter them.
Senator Eastland of Mississippi, after a European tour of observation, told his colleagues in the U.S. Senate early in December, 1945: “The virtue of womanhood and the value of human life are civilized man’s most sacred possessions, yet they are the very cheapest thing in Russian-occupied Germany today.” He had learned first-hand of such incidents as the following, told by a priest in a letter smuggled out of Breslau, Germany, September 3, 1945: “In unending succession were girls, women and nuns violated. . . Not merely in secret, in hidden corners, but in the sight of everybody, even in churches, in the streets and in public places were nuns, women and even eight-year-old girls attacked again and again. Mothers were violated before the eyes of their children; girls in the presence of their brothers; nuns, in the sight of pupils, were outraged again and again to their very death and even as corpses.”[l]
Meanwhile newspaper headlines assured us that “Ivan and Joe Are Brothers Under the Skin.”
Prime Minister Churchill had told the Germans in January, 1945, just before they surrendered unconditionally: “We Allies are no monsters. This, at least, I can say on behalf of the United Nations. . . Peace, though based on unconditional surrender, will bring to Germany and Japan immense and immediate alleviation of suffering and agony.”[2]
When our Russian Allies “liberated” Danzig they promptly liberated all the women of their virtue and chastity – by raping all – from small girls to ladies as much as 83 years of age. A 50-year-old teacher says that her niece, 15, was violated seven times the day after the Russians arrived, while her other niece, 22, was raped 15 tirnes the same day. When women of the city pleaded for protection, a Russian officer told them to seek shelter in the Catholic Cathedral. After hundreds of women and girls were securely inside, the brave sons of mother Russia entered and “playing the organ and ringing the bells, kept up a foul orgy through the night, raping all the women, some more than 30 times.[3]
A Catholic pastor of Danzig states: “They even violated eight-year-old girls and shot boys who tried to shield their mothers.”
It was the same in all regions overrun by the Communist Armies. When Berlin fell the Commander told his Russian soldiers the women of the city were theirs, to help themselves. They did! The only escape the women had was suicide. The following is an eye-witness account of what the Russians did in eastern Germany written by a veteran American newspaperman who had been taken prisoner by the Germans in Paris and later freed by the Russians with whom he stayed for nearly three months as they swept over eastern Germany and on to Berlin and beyond:
“REDS TERRORIZE CONQUERED WITH RAPE AND DEATH
“London, August 4, 1945 – As our long line of British Army lories (trucks) carrying American, British, and French liberated prisoners of war from the Russian to the main Anglo-American zone of Germany rolled through the main street of Brahlsdorf, the last Russian occupied-town, a pretty blond girl darted from the crowd of Germans watching us and made a dash for our truck. “Clinging with both hands to the tailboard, she made a desperate effort to climb in. But we were driving too fast and the board was too high. After being dragged several hundred yards she had to let go and fell on the cobblestone street. “That scene was a dramatic illustration of the state of terror in which women in Russian-occupied eastern Germany were living. All these women, Germans, Polish, Jewish, and even Russian girls ‘freed’ from Nazi slave camps were dominated by one desperate desire – to escape from the Red zone.”
“In the district around our internment camp – the territory comprising the towns of Schlawe, Lauenburg, and Buckow and hundreds of larger villages – Red soldiers during the first weeks of their occupation raped every woman and girl between the ages of 12 and 60. That sounds exaggerated but it is the simple truth.” (emphasis added) “The only exceptions were girls who managed to remain in hiding in the woods or who had the presence of mind to feign illness – typhoid, dyptheria or some other infectious disease. Flushed with victory – and often with wine found in the cellars of rich Pomeranian land owners – the Reds searched every house for women, cowing them with pistols or tommy guns, and carried them into their tanks or trucks. “Husbands and fathers who attempted to protect their women folk were shot down and girls offering extreme resistance were murdered.
“Some weeks after the invasion, Red ‘political commissions’ began a tour of the countryside ostensibly in search of members of the Nazi party. In every village the woman were told to report for examination of papers to these commissions, which looked them over and detained those with sex appeal. The youngest and prettiest were taken by the officers and the rest left to the mercy of the privates. “This reign of terror lasted as long as I was with the Reds in Pomerania. Several girls whom I had known during my captivity committed suicide. Others died after having been raped by ten soldiers in succession. “In an isolated farmhouse where my French comrade and myself spent three months after joining the Reds, there were eight young girls from neighboring villages hiding from the Reds. One was always on watch and when the Russians were seen approaching they scampered off into a nearby woods and hid in the dense underbrush. This sometimes happened several times daily and the girls never had a quiet moment but while we were there the Reds never discovered them. “All of these girls already had been raped and three of them – one a little girl of 13 – were pregnant. “Inevitably the Red occupation is having a disastrous effect on the morality of the inhabitants and the existing conditions of anarchy will exert an evil influence for years. Many woman have been infected with venereal diseases and now a very few youthful girls have joined the Reds for pleasure and food and are helping them spot their compatriots. “Whenever possible, girls attach themselves to liberated Anglo-American or French prisoners of war for protection against the Russians. Curiously, the Reds seemed to have a special code of honor in this respect – they will take an Allied prisoner’s watch but won’t touch his girl.
“When the Red Army starts a big offensive its commanders held out prospects of unrestricted rape and pillage as encouragement to the troops, but later they try to stem the tide of lust – not on grounds of humanity but because it threatens to undermine discipline. “Squadrons of Cossacks, used by the Reds as they were by the Tsar, as mounted police, periodically surrounded villages in Pomerania and searched all the houses for deserters and stragglers who had remained behind with women. The Cossacks mercilessly drove the soldiers off to jail with their ‘nagaikas’ – Cossack whips – but they kept the women for their own pleasure.”[4]
In refusing Yamashita’s plea for clemency General MacArthur in the following words condemned the Japanese leader for his maltreatment of the defenseless: “The soldier, be he friend or foe, is charged with the protection of the weak and unarmed. It is the very essence and reason for his being. When he violates this sacred trust, he not only profanes his entire cult but threatens the very fabric of international society. The traditions of fighting men are long and honorable. They are based on the noblest of human traits – sacrifice.”[5]
The Russians were not alone in violating these principles. Police records of Stuttgart show that during the French occupation, 1,198 women were raped and eight men violated by French troops, mostly Moroccans. Dr. Karl Hartenstein, prelate of the Evangelical church in the city estimated the number at 5,000. Frau Schumacher, secretary of the police woman’s section, in submitting a documented report on numerous rapings, said that on the night the French evacuated the city a child of 9 was raped and killed, her mother also raped and shot, and her father killed by Moroccans. In the town of Vailhingen, with a population of 12,000, for example, 500 cases of rape were reported.[6] So it went in areas occupied by the French.
While a good number of American troops have resisted the example of others and deported themselves in a manner becoming their Christian backgrounds, the record for our occupation forces as a whole is dark. An Associated Press dispatch from Nuernberg, Germany, quotes a letter which appeared in STARS AND STRIPES written by Capt. Frederick B. Eutsler, Chaplain of the 478th United States port battalion, charging that public behavior of American troops in Germany had become deplorable. He urged that the newspaper “launch a crusade against this disgraceful conduct which is earning a bad name for our army,” and added, “I refer particularly to the assumption of many GI’s that every German woman is immoral and it is their privilege to force their attentions on these women and insult them with indecent proposals.[7]
In April, 1946, the military authorities found it necessary to “crack down” and ordered stricter adherence to soldierly standards so as not to “discredit” the “fine performance of our troops in general.”[8] That same month an anonymous staff sergeant wrote in STARS AND STRIPES a charge that married men in the army were afraid to bring their wives to Germany because many American soldiers behaved like “supercharged wolves” toward women in public. He wrote: “Wise up, men. The hardest part of the war is now being fought, not with tommy guns, but with personalities. Let’s show the Germans that we are men, not pigs.”
In reporting the latter, Edward P. Morgan of the Chicago Daily News foreign service wrote: “Whether he knew it or not the sergeant aired a subject which long has been a sore spot with Arnerican – and other – women in the European theatre. Ask almost any woman correspondent who has been around Europe at all and she will tell you reluctantly that the conduct of the average American soldier in public toward women is “disgraceful” compared to the reserve and discipline of his British, Russian, and French Allies.
“Now that spring has come to Bavaria, one of the favorite pastimes of the GI’s in Nuremberg seems to be to drive slowly along the curb in jeeps and reach out and pat the posteriors of startled frauleins.”[9] When wives of men in our occupation forces arrived in Germany it became necessary, for their protection against indecent advances by American men, to wear special badges on their arms to distinguish them from German women. One of the consequences of the immoralities of howling G.I. wolf packs is an upsurge in venereal diseases which has reached epidemic proportions. Before we arrived, although the rate had increased with the return of German soldiers from France and North Africa, it was still moderate and well under control. After our arrival, contamination soared. In December, 1945, only 7 per cent of German civilians receiving venereal disease treatment were men; by August, 1946, however, men constituted 41 per cent of the patients.[10] In other words, contamination had spread from our troops to the German women and finally to German men.
A large proportion of the contamination has originated with colored American troops which we have stationed in great numbers in Germany and among whom the rate of venereal infection is many times greater than among white troops. In July, 1946, the current rate of infections among white soldiers was 190 per 1,000 men per annum, meaning that slightly less than one in five would be infected in the course of a year. In contrast the rate among negro troops stationed in the American zone of Germany was 771 per thousand![11] In speaking of this general problem, Lee Hills, Chicago Daily News foreign correspondent, writes: “Two of the biggest headaches in the American occupation of Germany are problems we brought with us. One is the extreme youth and inexperience our army men . . . The other problem – and one so politically touchy the War Department is afraid to remedy – is the heavy use of Negro American troops. The result, despite some superb Army leadership at the top, is that American prestige has steadily dropped from its V-E Day peak. “The top men in Germany, almost without exception, think it’s a mistake to have so many (42,000) Negro troops here. ‘They’re simply not trained and disciplined for this job, which is vastly more complicated and delicate than fighting,’ said one general. ‘They have a higher crime rate, a venereal disease rate several times that of the white soldier, and a worse record for mischief in general. . . Frankly, the worst problem comes from our colored troops going with white German girls. This stirs bitter hatred among German men. Many of our own soldiers feel almost as strongly about it.'”[12]
That the German women do not accept advances from American troops out of choice but rather out of sternest necessity is shown by the close connection between the venereal disease rate and availability of food. As one correspondent writes: “Statistics show that the venereal rate is related to the food supply of the German civilians during our occupation. After the winter’s supply of potatoes was issued to the Germans last fall, there was a drop in the number of soldiers infected. As frauleins became more hungry, more soldiers were infected. Ration cuts last spring also were reflected in higher venereal figures.”[13] The German press broke its long silence on the subject of venereal contamination in a front page editorial in the NEUE ZEIT, a Soviet licensed Berlin newspaper. The author, a young woman editor named Renate Lengnick, whose husband had not returned from the American zone of occupation, where he was a prisoner of war, struck at the collapse in moral foundations for sex relations: She wrote: “There are husbands and sweethearts who have not yet returned. Many never will return. There are girls who will never have husbands. There is unemployment. Apprenticeships are empty promises. There is little to inspire hope. “Thirty-five per cent of the civilian venereal disease victims are girls under 20. For most of them it was desperation that turned them to sex indulgence. They needed food, clothing, and shelter. Most important of what they lacked was hope for a normal, decent life. “Doctors and police must continue their campaign of eradication without abatement. We must also rescue the spirit as well as the bodies of youth from demoralization.”[14]
The main difference between American and Russian methods of ravishing the unconditionally surrendered women of Germany is the American capitalistic, free economy touch. THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY, for Decernber 5, 1945, reports:
“The American provost marshal, Lieutenant Colonel Gerald F. Beane, said that rape represents no problem to the military police because ‘a bit of food, a bar of chocolate, or a bar of soap seems to make rape unnecessary.’ Think that over if you want to understand what the situation is in Germany.”
Dr. George N. Schuster, President of Hunter College, charged, after a visit to the American zone:
“You have said it all when you say that Europe is now a place where woman has lost her perennial fight for decency because the indecent alone live.” “Except for those who can establish contacts with members of the armed forces, Germans can get nothing from soap to shoes.”[15]
L.F. Filewood, writing in the WEEKLY REVIEW, London, Oct. 5, 1945, stated:
“Young girls, unattached, wander about and freely offer themselves, for food or bed . . . Very simply they have one thing left to sell, and they sell it . . . As a way of dying it may be worse than starvation, but it will put off dying for months – or even years.”[16]
Significantly, the Potsdam Declaration declares:
“The Allied armies are in occupation of the whole of Germany and the German people have begun to atone for the terrible crimes committed under the leadership of those whom in the hour of their success, they openly approved and blindly obeyed.”
It fails to declare that the crimes to be committed by the Allied armies of occupation would eclipse those of which the Nazi armies have been accused. Now that the war is over and the heat of combat has died down enough to enable us to view the cold facts again, it must be brought home to the Arnerican people that much of what they have been led to believe was born of propaganda, that the German army, for example, actually behaved itself very correctly toward the people of occupied territories whose governments were signatories of the Hague and Geneva Conventions. The facts are now well known, and are beyond dispute, despite the opposite picture previously painted in the press as part of the horrendous business of war.
William L. Shirer, in his Berlin Diary (p. 412), on June 17, 1940, in the first flush of German occupation, described how many French women had fled Paris for fear of what the German armies might do to them. “It seems,” he wrote, “the Parisians actually believe the Germans would rape the women and do worse to the men . . . The ones who stayed are all the more amazed at the very correct behavior of the troops – so far.” And their behavior never changed.
Frederick C. Crawford, President of Thompson Products, after a tour of inspection in which he, with others of the War Department, visited areas where the Germans had been in occupation for four years, in his “REPORT FROM THE WAR FRONT”, said:
“The Germans tried to be careful in their dealings with the people . . . We were told that if a citizen attended strictly to business and took no political or underground action against the occupying army, he was treated with correctness.”[17]
Reference Notes:
[1] From “In den Haenden unserer russischen Allierten,” Der Wanderer, April 11, 1946.
[2] Time, Jan. 29, 1945.
[3] Nord-Amerika, Dec. 6, 1945, as summarized by Dr. A.J. App, Slave-Laboring German Prisoners of War.
[4] B.J. Kospoth, London, August 4, 1945, Washington Times Herald, and Congressional Record, Dec. 4, 1945, p. 11554.
[5] Walter Trohan, Washington, Feb. 6, 1945, Chicago Tribune Press Service.
[6] David Darrah, Stuttgart, Germany, July 24, 1945, Chicago Tribune Press Service.
[7] Associated Press, Nuremberg, Germany, Feb. 24, 1946.
[8] Associated and United Press, Frankfurt, Germany, April 24, 1946.
[9] Edward P. Morgan, Nuremberg, Germany, April 3, 1946, Chicago Daily News Foreign Service.
[10] Hal Foust, Berlin, Aug. 17, 1946, Chicago Tribune Press Service.
[11] Hal Foust, Berlin, July 22, 1946, Chicago Tribune Press Service.
[12] Lee Hills, Frankfurt, Germany, Aug. 8, 1946, Chicago Daily News Foreign Service.
[13] Same as No. 11.
[14] Same as No. 10.
[15] Dr. A.J. App, Ravishing the Women of Conquered Europe.
[16] Catholic Digest, December, 1945.
[17] Requoted from Dr. A.J. App, Ravishing the Women of Conquered Europe