Current Events > Lots of Raping Went Down After World War II, Lots and Lots and Lots of Raping

(+) Yeah! (+)

A German historian estimates in a new book that French, British and American soldiers raped 860,000 Germans at and after the end of the Second World War, including 190,000 sexual assaults by American soldiers.

Professor Miriam Gebhardts book When the Soldiers Came, published this week, includes interviews with victims, stories of the children of rape and research that she conducted over the course of a year and a half into birth records in Allied-occupied West Germany and West Berlin.

Now, 70 years after the war, its long past the time when one could be suspected of dealing with German victimhood, Gebhardt, an author and lecturer at the University of Konstanz, told The Local.

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War. War never changes.
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This isn't surprising. I already knew this, but winners write history, and America buried this news.
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I wish I had more to say about this than yeesh, but I really don't.

Yeesh.
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solosnake posted...

A German historian estimates in a new book that French, British and American soldiers raped 860,000 Germans at and after the end of the Second World War, including 190,000 sexual assaults by American soldiers.

Professor Miriam Gebhardts book When the Soldiers Came, published this week, includes interviews with victims, stories of the children of rape and research that she conducted over the course of a year and a half into birth records in Allied-occupied West Germany and West Berlin.

Now, 70 years after the war, its long past the time when one could be suspected of dealing with German victimhood, Gebhardt, an author and lecturer at the University of Konstanz, told The Local.

Oh, they came alright. And this is just the spoils of war. About as natural to humanity as breathing
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Yeah...that title probably sounds better in German. >_>

Those numbers aren't good and the Soviets were even worse in the East. The late 40s were not a good time to be German in general before the Marshall Plan kicked in for the West at least.
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Where's the Japanese numbers?
Allegedly, pretty much all the Japanese did in Korea and China was rape everything that stopped moving long enough.

I know America loves to fetishize Soldiers as a concept and make them out to be paragons of good and righteous behavior but a lot of soldiers are, in general, piece of shit human beings otherwise
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wackyteen posted...

I know America loves to fetishize Soldiers as a concept and make them out to be paragons of good and righteous behavior but a lot of soldiers are, in general, piece of shit human beings otherwise

Platoon may have been the first film otherwise, give or take Apocalypse Now.

How does someone go about counting all this up?

Questionmarktarius posted...

Where's the Japanese numbers?
Allegedly, pretty much all the Japanese did in Korea and China was rape everything that stopped moving long enough.

Japan pretty much buried that information too. or at least tries to pretend it didn't happen
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TheGrindery posted...

How does someone go about counting all this up?

Germany is rather infamous for strict record-keeping about everything, especially during the Nazi era.

so I wonder how many of the Greatest Generation were secretly rapists

anyway at least I know neither of my grandfathers did this. they both were stationed in america and never went overseas

Questionmarktarius posted...

Where's the Japanese numbers?
Allegedly, pretty much all the Japanese did in Korea and China was rape everything that stopped moving long enough.

There's a reason it was called the "Rape of Nanking" and not the Destruction of Nanking

Also I pretty much guarantee German soldiers did same through the war.
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This reminds me of the part in Blazing Saddles when people are applying to be bad guys.

Questionmarktarius posted...

wackyteen posted...

I know America loves to fetishize Soldiers as a concept and make them out to be paragons of good and righteous behavior but a lot of soldiers are, in general, piece of shit human beings otherwise

Platoon may have been the first film otherwise, give or take Apocalypse Now.

But that's mainly because it was highly publicized that American soldiers were behaving like savages. Had that not been the case, I highly doubt there would be Vietnam movies depicting the actual brutality of war on civilians.
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WalkingLobsters posted...

Questionmarktarius posted...

wackyteen posted...

I know America loves to fetishize Soldiers as a concept and make them out to be paragons of good and righteous behavior but a lot of soldiers are, in general, piece of shit human beings otherwise

Platoon may have been the first film otherwise, give or take Apocalypse Now.

But that's mainly because it was highly publicized that American soldiers were behaving like savages. Had that not been the case, I highly doubt there would be Vietnam movies depicting the actual brutality of war on civilians.

Yeah... Vietnam was just a giant clusterfuck, all around.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Where's the Japanese numbers?
Allegedly, pretty much all the Japanese did in Korea and China was rape everything that stopped moving long enough.

This is after world war II so you are looking for the japanese numbers, but for the other reason.

WalkingLobsters posted...

This isn't surprising. I already knew this, but winners write history, and America buried this news.

Except for the parts about the Soviets raping. The Soviets had to be demonized.

Actually, the USSR was so concerened about being seen as barbaric looters they redressed pictures to hide anything that may be an extra watch, including compasses.
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Tons of US soldier were banging German women left and right after the war. Their men came back crippled, their society had gone to shit, their towns were destroyed so they traded sex for handouts from US soldiers. And they often times sent their kids to scavenge through the rubble while they banged
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CarlGrimes posted...

War. War never changes.

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The real life version of any romantic story about a soldier reconnecting with his wartime lover and the child of their relationship was actually just rape, then going home and pretending it never happened.

There's no good guys in war.
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When the Soldiers Came

I see what she did there
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White Eagle posted...

Yeah...that title probably sounds better in German. >_>

Nope.
Wenn die Soldaten kommen

Basically exactly the same.

Edit: I used come instead of came. Actually, it's worse
Als die Soldaten kamen
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I imagine the title was intentional given the subject matter.
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while certainly not defensible, that sounds like a count comparable to the day the soviet troops took berlin

if you were not american it sucked to be a civilian during WWII
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Reminds me of the scene from Fury where Shane took the german woman to a tank and they took turns on her and then suggested raping young dude's "girlfriend"

Questionmarktarius posted...

TheGrindery posted...

How does someone go about counting all this up?

Germany is rather infamous for strict record-keeping about everything, especially during the Nazi era.

Let's try again. How does someone go about counting all this up, after Germany's defeat and in the chaos and ruins of a divided country that resembles the aftermath of a low-level nuclear attack, amid the largest migrations of human beings in history? Who do you think would have been compiling and keeping these records -- Dnitz's government, under virtual house arrest in Flensburg?

No one should leave this topic and simply start quoting that figure of 860,000 rapes as if it was gospel unless they have at least some inkling of how that estimate was calculated. I don't, and I'd be intrigued to know. I don't know if it's obvious to Gebhardt, but birth records may not be the most reliable barometer of just how consensual sexual relationships actually were between occupying troops and German women over the years.
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Japan literally took Korean and Chinese women hostage. They were called 'comfort women', and IIRC, Japan still refuses to apologize for that.

Dash_Harber posted...

Japan literally took Korean and Chinese women hostage. They were called 'comfort women', and IIRC, Japan still refuses to apologize for that.

Japan refuses to admit they did anything during that period of time.
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Crazyman93 posted...

Japan refuses to admit they did anything during that period of time.

Japan refuses to admit to many problems in general.

Then they focus on non-issues and try to make it a problem.
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Crazyman93 posted...

Dash_Harber posted...

Japan literally took Korean and Chinese women hostage. They were called 'comfort women', and IIRC, Japan still refuses to apologize for that.

Japan refuses to admit they did anything during that period of time.

And United States refuses to apologize for instantaneously obliterating two Japanese cities.
War is war.

War sucks in general. I cringe whenever somebody on CE suggest we should go to war to like... solve other countries' problems or something? Like let's invade North Korea, let's march into wherever ISIS is. But yeah countless pointless deaths aside, the end result of a war is never gonna be pretty. Also probably the relief and reconstruction efforts would be expensive and most likely half-assed. Who cares about those countries on the other side of the world? If I close my eyes, maybe things don't exist
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Questionmarktarius posted...

Crazyman93 posted...

Dash_Harber posted...

Japan literally took Korean and Chinese women hostage. They were called 'comfort women', and IIRC, Japan still refuses to apologize for that.

Japan refuses to admit they did anything during that period of time.

And United States refuses to apologize for instantaneously obliterating two Japanese cities.
War is war.

I wasn't making a commentary about war and apologies, I was pointing out that the Japanese government still doesn't want to admit it happened. Americans seem to brag about nuking cities every chance they get.

wackyteen posted...

I know America loves to fetishize Soldiers as a concept and make them out to be paragons of good and righteous behavior but a lot of soldiers are, in general, piece of shit human beings otherwise

It's really not a soldier thing, it's a people thing. A lot of people when given the chance to do fucked up shit free of consequences will gladly do it. Just look at riots. Obviously most things that happen in most riots aren't as bad as mass war rape(though rapes do happen in riots sometimes) but it's a very similar sort of mentality. Mass mindless cruelty is a terrible thing.

Cant help but giggle at the book's title

Man, im going to hell
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Dash_Harber posted...

I wasn't making a commentary about war and apologies, I was pointing out that the Japanese government still doesn't want to admit it happened. Americans seem to brag about nuking cities every chance they get.

Ah.
I guess, hubris is less obnoxious than denial, yes.

Related: The 11 fathers of Asia: 800 million modern men are descended from a handful of ancient leaders - including Genghis Khan

https://goo.gl/QwEWz4
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Crazyman93 posted...

White Eagle posted...

Yeah...that title probably sounds better in German. >_>

Nope.
Wenn die Soldaten kommen

Basically exactly the same.

Edit: I used come instead of came. Actually, it's worse
Als die Soldaten kamen

Ah. I thought there might be another word that escaped my rudimentary knowledge of German.
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...Professor Miriam Gebhardts book When the Soldiers Came, published this week, ... Gebhardt, an author and lecturer at the University of Konstanz, told The Local.

Very interesting surname. Wonder if this isn't simply a coincidence, or if I'm reading too much into this.
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Yeah some of the horror stories i've read on the Soviet atrocities during the fall of Berlin just make me want to vomit. Women literally being thrown onto horse carts and raped to death by lines of soldiers. Once they died they were pushed to the back of a cart and another thrown up there to meet the same fate. Girls as young eight. Babies ripped from their mother's breast and smashed to the ground or used as target practice.
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The point I'd reiterate, though, is that Gebhardt is relying on birth records to determine the incidence rate of rape, and seems to have assumed that none of these sexual relationships were consensual. I'm not convinced that's a reliable methodology.
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I guess that wasn't sensationalist enough?
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TheGrindery posted...

This reminds me of the part in Blazing Saddles when people are applying to be bad guys.

"What are your crimes?"
"Rape, robbery, arson, rape..."
"You said rape twice."
"... I like rape."

Good ol' Blazing Saddles. Favorite Mel Brooks movie.
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Tag
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considering what the Germans did to all of western europe's women and even worse-Russian women; its not surprising we won and got revenge.
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wackyteen posted...

I know America loves to fetishize Soldiers as a concept and make them out to be paragons of good and righteous behavior but a lot of soldiers are, in general, piece of shit human beings otherwise

People are, in general, piece of shit human beings. Being a soldier doesnt necessarily change that.
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They also raped French girls.

There's your "heroes."
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Questionmarktarius posted...

Where's the Japanese numbers?
Allegedly, pretty much all the Japanese did in Korea and China was rape everything that stopped moving long enough.

Fucka you dolphin and whale!
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@Funkdamental

Kinder von Soldaten, sogenannte Besatzungskinder, waren schlechter gestellt als unehelicher Nachwuchs aus rein deutschen Beziehungen. Sie hatten kein Recht auf Waisen- oder Kriegsversehrtenrente. Ihre Vter waren zumeist unbekannt.

Children of soldiers, so-called 'Besatzungskinder', were thought of less well than children born out of wedlock between pure German couples. They had no right to orphan allowance or war disability allowance. Their fathers were often unknown.

https://m.focus.de/politik/deutschland/als-die-soldaten-kamen-die-frauen-mussten-minutioes-die-eigene-vergewaltigung-schildern_id_4508576.html

(Translation my own)

This article suggests that there were official record keeping systems and that there was no ulterior motive that would motivate mothers to claim they were raped by soldiers.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say, that the real number of such children was much larger.
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