4NAZI GERMANY - FORCED PROSTITUTION & RAPE

NAZI GERMANY - FORCED PROSTITUTION AND RAPE
'CASES NOT TRIED' AT THE NUREMBERG TRIALS

There are nine posts in this series on Nazi Germany. Each post touches briefly on the subject given that there are already numerous research papers, articles and books, covering each topic in depth. Many links are included in each post. For the reasoning behind writing these posts, read the Introduction HERE.

0 INTRODUCTION - Why this Series of Posts?

1 UN CHARTER & UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS - Why WWII Drove The Creation Of The UDHR.

2 EUGENICS, RACIAL PURITY AND PERSECUTION - The US Influenced Nazi Germany's Eugenics Program. A Snapshot of the Diverse Groups Persecuted and Imprisoned in Concentration Camps. The Nuremberg Trial, Which Dealt With Racial Purity - RuSHA (USA vs. Ulrich Greifelt et al).

3 FORCED AND SLAVE LABOUR - Without Forced and Slave Labour the Nazi War Machine would have Collapsed and Brought the War to an Abrupt End. A Brief History of Forced and Slave Labour Before, During and After World War II. Details of The Nuremberg Trials for German Industrialists - Flick, Krupp and IG Farben.
4 FORCED PROSTITUTION, SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND RAPE - Sexual Crimes Were Not Tried at Nuremberg even though There Were Established Laws Condemning These Crimes. Information About Nazi Military Brothels and Concentration Camp Brothels. Evidence and Testimonies from Witnesses. Both Axis and Allied Forces were Guilty of Sexual Violence and Rape.

5 NAZI DOCTORS EXPERIMENTS AND TRIALS - The Nazi Doctors' Nuremberg Trial and Details of Their Experiments. Names of Nazi Doctors who Escaped Prosecution. Information about Post War Unethical Experiments Without Informed Consent, in the USA, Russia, South Africa and Israel.

6 STERILIZATION AND EUTHANASIA PROGRAMS - Life “Unworthy of Life” A Brief History of the Sterilization and the Euthanasia Programs and German Public Opposition. Using Cost Benefits Analysis in Nazi Medicine to Educate Children.
7 WORLD WAR II BY DESIGN – THE ECONOMY AND FOREIGN INVESTORS - An Important Component of Nazi Germany's War Infrastructure. Brief History of the German Economy and Hermann Goering's Four Year Plan. Role of Jewish Public Protests and their Boycott of German Goods in 1933 and Germany's Retaliatory Actions. The Real Role of Neutral Countries During the War. Post War Looting of German Patents, Cover Up of German Research on Tobacco and Cancer and the Removal/Kidnap of Nazi Experts to Allied Countries. The Role of Foreign Subsidiaries/Investors before and during World War II in Germany.
8 UNWCC (UNITED NATIONS WAR CRIMES COMMISSION) LAW REPORTS - The UNWCC prepared and published a 15 volume set of law reports covering 89 War Crimes Trials From World War II. This post contains links to all of these law reports and a list of the cases in each volume. Some information on CROWCASS (Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects).

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FORCED PROSTITUTION AND RAPE
'CASES NOT TRIED' AT THE NUREMBERG TRIALS

We must not ignore the reasons why certain Concentration Camp Cases were Never Tried by Allied Forces even though there was ample evidence proving War Crimes had been committed. This post focuses on the conduct of both Axis and Allied forces during World War II.

WHICH LAWS PROHIBITED SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND RAPE BEFORE WORLD WAR II?

According to War Crimes Against Women: Prosecution in International War Crimes Tribunals By Kelly Dawn Askin

Rape had already been outlawed prior to the Nuremberg Trials. Rape was specifically prohibited in the Lieber code (1863) as a serious violation of the laws of war, there was evidence that previous war crimes trials had punished belligerents for sex crimes, and the Hague Conventions (1907) asserted that "family honour and rights.....must be respected".

In the IMT (International Military Tribunals) indictments for "war crimes", sexual assault could have fallen within the purview of "abduction of the civilian population......into slavery and for other purposes" and as "devastation unjustified by military necessity". Sexual assault clearly could have been prosecuted as a war crime under Article 6(b) of the IMT Charter (probably as customary law, certainly as "ill-treatment"), if the drafters and prosecutors had been so inclined, particular sexual assault crimes were included within the evidence submitted to the Nuremberg Tribunal.

Heinous offenses committed on the basis of gender were not, however, treated with the same seriousness, or with any degree of seriousness, and this discrepancy is striking.

One plausible theory is that rape crimes were not eagerly prosecuted because the Allies wanted to limit the prosecution of the Nazis and Japanese for crimes which were not likewise committed by Allied Troops, namely, mass extermination and crimes against peace, and not for crimes which were regularly committed by Axis and Allied Troops alike – most notably, rape crimes. (Askin)

In contrast, at the Tokyo War Crimes Trial “Importantly, rape was one of the war crimes with which some of the defendants were charged. The Tokyo indictment stated acts were “carried out in violation of recognized customs and conventions of war.....[including] mass murder, rape,....and other barbaric cruelties.” Thus at Tokyo, rape was prosecuted successfully under prohibitions against “inhumane treatment”, “ill treatment”, and failure to respect family honour and rights.” (Askin)

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WHY WERE GERMAN MILITARY BROTHELS ESTABLISHED?

Various reasons have been given for the creation of German Military Brothels, which used Forced Labour. To control the spread of venereal diseases, to reduce the risks associated with espionage through sexual contacts with enemy populations, to collect semen for later use and to reduce the likelihood of homosexual activity.

WHY WERE CONCENTRATION CAMP BROTHELS CREATED?

Camp brothels in concentration camps were established for reasons of motivating and rewarding forced/slave labour when they reached production goals. Privileged inmates also frequented these brothels. There was concern that homosexual relationships would rise in the camp environment if heterosexual sexual contact was denied.

WHAT EVIDENCE EXISTS PROVING SEXUAL CRIMES WERE COMMITTED?

From: War against Women - The Impact of Violence on Gender Relations (Swiss Peace Foundation, 1995, 158 p.) - Part III: Violence Against Women in Times of War in Europe - Rape of Women in Germany During and After World War II

Helke Sander's “Liberators Take Liberties” was presented at the Berlin film festival in 1992. Its main subject was the mass rape of women in Germany at the end of World War II. Women were raped by members of the Russian, Polish, French and American forces during and at the end of World War II. During their flight to the West and the period of expulsions, German girls and women were also raped by Czechs, Serbians and Slovenians. Before that German soldiers and members of the SS troops had been the rapists.

Approximately two million girls and women had been raped by the time the war was over; a careful estimate comes up with 100,000 cases in Berlin alone. Most of these cases occurred after January 1945 and during the taking of Berlin in April 1945. The offenders were members of the Red Army. As in most armies, rape was a punishable crime also in the Red Army because it is damaging to army discipline. There were, in fact, cases of prosecution and even summary executions.

487 American GI’s faced military courts for such crimes but the true figure will never be known. In her book “Against our Will”, Susan Brownmiller points out that American soldiers did not have to resort to rape because the sight of the Dollar presented sufficient means of coercion and temptation for hungry women in the liberated countries.

French soldiers were guilty of hundreds of cases of rape in Southern Germany, above all in Stuttgart, Pforzheim and Freudenstadt. .....research showed, however, that British soldiers were practically blameless in this respect.

After the war, the Western Allies showed little interest in bringing up the rapes by members of the Red Army because they would have had to question the behavior of their own troops as well.

Nazi propaganda had prepared German women to regard Russians as rapists but little credence was in fact given to these horror stories.

Ruth Andreas Friedrich, a journalist and underground fighter, wrote in her diary: “For four years Goebbels kept telling us that the Russians were rapists, that they would violate, murder, rob and pillage us. Such propaganda did not shock us and we looked forward to being liberated by the Allies. We did not want to be disappointed. We could not bear it when Goebbels turned out to be right.”

And what about German soldiers and the SS men? A German war veteran will tell you that Germans do not commit rape. There were so many cases of rape committed by SS men that the complaints from the top echelons of the Wehrmacht reached the very top. War records prove that rape was also committed by members of the Wehrmacht.

In order to control the spread of venereal diseases, brothels were set up for the Wehrmacht (approx. 500 throughout the war) and for SS officers where hundreds of girls and prostitutes, mostly of Polish and Russian origin, were forced to work (after March 1942, Jewish women were no longer allowed to work in brothels).

Forced prostitution and rape were common in concentration camps, female prisoners being mainly the victims. Documents presented at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946 prove the fact that systematic acts of rape were committed by the German conquerors.

For this documentary, more than a hundred women talked about their unfortunate experiences at the end of the war and the consequences.

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In the Wikipedia article Sexual enslavement by Nazi Germany in World War II, hotels/brothels were known as German Soldier's Houses DSH, or in German Militärbordelle or Wehrmachtsbordell. It is estimated that a minimum of 34,140 women from occupied states were forced to work as prostitutes during the Third Reich. In most cases, especially in the East, the women were forced to serve as prostitutes after being caught at random on the streets in Łapankas (Nazi German military kidnapping raids against civilians in Poland).

The authors (Thomas Gaevert & Martin Hilbert) of a 2004 German documentary: Frauen als Beute: Wehrmacht und Prostitution - über den Missbrauch von Frauen in deutschen Militärbordellen (Women as Booty: Wehrmacht and Prostitution...) address the rape victims of German Wehrmacht Brothels. Many women remained silent about their experiences after the end of the war.

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One Exhibition (unfortunately now closed) Documented Forced Prostitution in Concentration Camps revealing the particularly sordid chapter from the history of the Nazi concentration camps: forcing female inmates to work as prostitutes for the benefit of male slave laborers.
Links Here to Spiegel Online International and Reuters

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SOME OF THE TESTIMONIES.......

Wendy Jo Gertjejanssen thesis covers the subject of German Military Brothels and Sexual Slavery in Concentration Camps in depth: VICTIMS, HEROES, SURVIVORS - SEXUAL VIOLENCE ON THE EASTERN FRONT DURING WORLD WAR II (PDF)

The following extracts come from testimonies taken after the war and filed as Cases Not Tried by the US Army.

MAX BEULIG was the Blockführer of the prisoners' brothel (Häftlingsbordell) in Buchenwald. His testimony can be found in the USHMMA, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives. Here follows some extracts from his testimony.

Max Beulig worked as the Blockführer from January 1944 to April 1945 in the prisoners’ brothel in the Buchenwald concentration camp. Beulig reported that he received his position from the Lagerführer, Hauptsturmführer Max Schobert. From what Beulig had heard, the installation of the prisoner brothel cost the German Reich 85,000 Reichsmarks. He also reported that in the time he worked at the brothel there were between ten and seventeen women working as prostitutes. Apparently, seven women were sent home, though this is not clear. No new women were "hired." The youngest woman was eighteen years old, the oldest thirty-six years. There were three Polish women, one woman was from the Saar, Jenny Christmann, but it is not clear if she was French or German since she spoke both languages. The other women and girls were all German. (P249)
Source: Beulig, USHMMA, RG.06.005.05M, US Army Cases not Tried, Reel 1

The Buchenwald prisoner brothel was opened “in July 1943 by order of the camp commander, Pister. Beulig also reported that the women ate the same food as the SS.” (P234)
Source: Beulig, USHMMA, RG.06.005.05M, US Army Cases not Tried, Reel 1

In his postwar interrogation, Beulig testified that the women all came from Ravensbrück, and that they all "volunteered" by seeking the commander of Buchenwald, Oberführer Pister out. Apparently, the women wanted this job because they were promised that they would be set free after one year. (PP231-232)
Source: Military Government Court, Max Beulig testimony, p. 3, 24 April 1947, USHMMA, RG.06.005.05M, US Army Cases not Tried, Reel 1

Beulig testified after the war that while he worked in the brothel between “ten and seventeen” women worked in the brothel, and each woman would get three or four men a night, but his overall visitor number was around thirty-five, which would be fewer men for the approximately eighteen to nineteen women. A political prisoner named Wolf was in charge of deciding how many men would visit each night. Apparently, he kept the count at a level where each woman received three or four men a night. (P240)
Source: Beulig, USHMMA, RG.06.005.05M, US Army Cases not Tried, Reel 1

Beulig knew of two German women who became pregnant and had abortions performed after the third month. After three weeks in the hospital they returned to the brothel, rested for fourteen days and resumed work. (P238)
Source: Beulig, USHMMA, RG.06.005.05M, US Army Cases not Tried, Reel 1

Their bedrooms had two beds, one dresser, one table, two chairs, a sink with running cold and warm water, pictures, and flowers. The working rooms were smaller than the bedrooms, and they had a chaise longue, a chair, pictures, a vase with flowers and a sink with running cold and warm water. (P236)
Source: Beulig, USHMMA, RG.06.005.05M, US Army Cases not Tried, Reel 1

This time frame is almost exactly what Beulig reported for Buchenwald, which was that the brothel was usually open from seven to ten in the evening, until all the men were “finished.” (P243)
Source: Beulig, USHMMA, RG.06.005.05M, US Army Cases not Tried, Reel 1

In Buchenwald men paid two Reichsmark until February 1944 when the SS reduced the price to one Reichsmark. Podszun also found the same. (P241)
Source: According to Beulig, he sat with one of the female supervisors, examined the entrance notice or ticket, and the man paid the supervisor. At the end of the evening, Beulig gave the money to the Rapportführer vom Dienst. Beulig, USHMMA, RG.06.005.05M, US Army Cases not Tried, Reel 1.

The men could not choose which woman to visit, but a prisoner named Wolf decided which women received which men. Beulig testified in 1947 that he changed this around according to the wishes of the prisoner (it is not clear if he meant female prisoner prostitute). (P243)
Source Beulig, USHMMA, RG.06.005.05M, US Army Cases not Tried, Reel 1

Beulig testified that the men did not mishandle the women. Apparently the prostitutes were assigned the same clients each week, once or twice. It was policy that a prisoner could only visit the brothel one time a week, but some were able to get permission for a second visit. (P243)
Source: Beulig, USHMMA, RG.06.005.05M, US Army Cases not Tried, Reel 1

Beulig woke the women at seven in the morning (P245)
Source: Beulig, USHMMA, RG.06.005.05M, US Army Cases not Tried, Reel 1. Frau W. said in the Buchenwald brothel they got up at eight. Paul, Zwangsprostitution, 55.

According to Beulig's testimony, three times a week the women had soup for supper. Russian prisoners would bring this to the brothel at six o'clock. The other days the two Russian prisoners would bring the evening meal at lunchtime. It usually consisted of sausage and butter or margarine. One of the female supervisors was in charge of the preparation for the cold evening meal, and the women received it in their rooms between five and six o'clock. (P246)
Source: Creecy, USHMMA, RG-06.005.05M, US Army Commands, Concentration Camp Cases Not Tried, NARA, Reel 5

There were two female German supervisors, one of which worked at the brothel outside of the camp for the Ukrainian SS where two Polish women were brought everyday. The other supervisor worked at the brothel inside the camp. One was forty-four years old, from Berlin and named Marte Gisze. She was also a prisoner and lived in the brothel. The other woman was forty-six years old, and according to Beulig's post-war testimony, the two supervisors did not mistreat the prostitutes. (PP249-250)
Source: Beulig, USHMMA, RG.06.005.05M, US Army Cases not Tried, Reel 1

The men were not allowed to stay overnight. It happened three or four times that Beulig punished a prisoner with a four-week ban on brothel visits because they fought with the women. Once a German prisoner climbed over the wooden partition and visited a woman, and he was punished for this. Once Max Beulig punished a German girl, Uschi Elebrecht, who had received a gold ring and a gold bracelet from the prisoner Hauptmann. He must have reported it to the Lagerführer, who then punished her with six days arrest. She spent the six days in a room in the brothel that was used as a broom cupboard. The room had one window and Beulig testified that he allowed her to have her bed, a table, a chair, and reading material. A female supervisor brought food to her. After the arrest, the girl worked as before. Beulig was unaware what happened to the prisoner who had gifted her the items. (P250)
Source: Beulig, USHMMA, RG.06.005.05M, US Army Cases not Tried, Reel 1

There is discrepancy among the evidence as to whether the SS visited the camp brothels. According to Beulig, the SS did not visit the prisoner brothel in Buchenwald, although it was inspected a few times a week by the SS. Beulig claimed the SS did not use the brothel, but that several SS officers came a few times a week, allegedly to “inspect” the brothel. According to Beulig, there was no brothel at Buchenwald for German SS, only one for the SS Wachen, who were Ukrainian. Two Polish women worked in this brothel, and the German Sturmscharführer Partun was in charge. Beulig testified that Sturmbannführer Schober “inspected” the prisoner brothel every week, and that Schutzhaftlagerführer Obersturmführer Gust and Schutzhaftlagerführer Obersturmführer Merbach visited, as did Rapportführer Hofschulte, and Hauptscharführer Friedrich Wilhelm, but that no other SS visited because it was forbidden.
Source: Beulig, USHMMA, RG.06.005.05M, US Army Cases not Tried, Reel 1

Additionally, Dorothea Binz, one of the SS in charge at Ravensbrück, admitted to the US Army after the war to having sent women from Ravensbrück to brothels throughout the Reich. (P228)
Source: Earl W. Bachelor, Headquarters Third US Army and Eastern Military District Office of the Commanding General, Two-page Report of War Crime to Deputy Theater Judge Advocate, War Crimes Branch US Army APO 633, USHMMA, RG-06.005.05M, United States Army Commands, Concentration Camp Cases Not Tried, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD, Reel 5. In some documents her name is spelled Benz. It also says “houses of prostitution” but does not specify if this only means camp brothels. Since women were sent from Ravensbrück to different kinds of brothels, it could also mean to field brothels as well.

HANNS CHRISTIAN WITT, a survivor of Sachsenhausen, testified to the United Nations War Crimes Commission in 1945 that "girls and women from Women Concentration Camps were made to be prostitutes by SS-Members. They were guarded by beastly Women Nazi Guards in SS-uniform." (P247)
Source: United Nations War Crimes Commission, Research Office, Hanns Christian Witt testimony September 1945, USHMMA, RG-06.005.05M, Reel 5, Third US Army Cases Not Tried

HANNS CHRISTIAN WITT testified to the United States Army that especially barbaric was the treatment of the Polish, Russian, Jewish and political prisoners who had offended against §175 (law against homosexuality). Suspicion alone could lead to cruel death. Ninety five percent of all prisoners regardless of nationality who had been deposited in the [Hamburg-Neuengamme] concentration camp on ground of §175, died within an alarmingly short time without trial or justice because of the sadistic and bestial lust of the SS-Gangsters who indulged in (literally "INTOXICATED") satisfying their sadistic desire by watching the slow death agonies of their victims. (P163)
Source: Hanns Christian Witt, POW soldier, Testimony, page 2 of testimony, USHMMA, Record Group 06.005.05M, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD, United States Army Commands, Concentration Camp Cases Not Tried, Reel 5. The “(literally "INTOXICATED")” is in original, probably a note from the translator. Heinz Heger also testifies in his anonymous memoir about the treatment of homosexuals in concentration camps. Heger, Pink Triangle. Yehiel Dinur also recorded material on the prostitutional relationships between men in Auschwitz. Yehiel Dinur (Ka-Tzetnik 135633), Piepel, trans. Moshe M. Kohn (London: Anthony Blond Ltd, 1961). See also Chapter Two for more detailed discussion of this aspect of camp life.

The United States Army investigating war crimes after the war documented that in 1941 the Nazis began to recruit "young and pretty girls" from the Ravensbrück concentration camp for houses of prostitution on the eastern front, primarily in areas occupied by the SS. Approximately 4,000-5,000 were forced to go, and many committed suicide, knowing their fate. This U.S. army investigation example describes the “girls” as being “ of all nationalities but mostly German.” It is certainly the case that the women were “of all nationalities,” but considering the numbers involved, the women, whether chosen from Ravensbrück, other camps, or from civilian areas in occupied territories, probably were not “mostly German.” (P187)
Source: USHMMA, RG-06.005.05M Reel 8 US Army Cases Not Tried. Both the original German text and the English translation exist on this reel.

This compilation of eyewitness testimony was presented at the Nuremberg war crimes trial, and yet little if any responsibility was taken for any sexual crimes the Germans committed in the east. (P300)
Source: It must be noted that even the cases of rape which did make it to Nuremberg War Crimes Trials were not prosecuted. In fact, no one was prosecuted for rape or other sexual violence. Human Rights Watch explains that “In the second set of Nuremberg war criminal trials, conducted under the authority of Control Council Law number 10, and in Article 6(c) of the Nuremberg Charter, rape was specifically enumerated as a crime against humanity,” but was not included because such crimes had “no nexus to war.” See Theodor Meron, “War Crimes in Yugoslavia and the Development of International Law,” American Journal of International Law, vol 88, no. 1, January 1994, pp. 84-87, quoted in Human Rights Watch/Africa and Human Rights Watch Women's Rights Project, Shattered Lives, 33. Also quoted in Copelon, "Surfacing." See also Khushalani, Dignity, 13-18.


LINKS TO OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION
Sex with a Purpose: Prostitution, Venereal Disease, and Militarized Masculinity in the Third Reich, 223-255 Annette F. Timm - Journal of the History of Sexuality Special Issue: Sexuality and German Fascism, 11, 1/2, January, 2002/April, 2002

Telling Sexual Stories in the Nazi Courts of Law: Race Defilement in Germany, 1933 to 1945, 131-163 - Patricia Szobar - Journal of the History of Sexuality Special Issue: Sexuality and German Fascism

Sex crimes under the Wehrmacht David Raub Snyder. - Lincoln, Neb. ; London : Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2007. - XIV, 287 p. (Studies in war, society) (PDF) HERE

"Rape: The Military Trials of Sexual Crimes Committed by Soldiers in the Wehrmacht, 1939-44," by Birgit Beck, PP 255-273 in Home/Front: The Military, War and Gender in Twentieth-Century Germany (eds), Karen Hagemann and Stefanie Schiller-Springorum, London

US Government Archives - “549.2” Records of U.S. Army, Europe (USAEUR) 1933-64
Records of the War Crimes Branch of the Judge Advocate General Section, including general administrative records, 1942-57; records relating to pre-trial activities, 1944-51, extradition, 1945-52, and medical experiments, 1933-47; war crimes case files ("Cases Tried"), 1945-59 (212 ft.); war crimes case files ("Cases Not Tried"), 1944-48 (195 ft.) etc


PREVIOUS POSTS TO JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED RELATED TO THE SAME TOPIC

Forced Human TRAFFICKING/Sexual Exploitation
This post focuses on the End Users/The Clients (military/civilian) of Trafficked victims in the 20th/21st Century, who have been forced into Prostitution and Sexually Exploited. It is important to recognize that the End Users/The Clients (military/civilian) are actually responsible for fueling the market in human flesh and forced prostitution in the first place and the treatment of victims by traffickers.

RAPE in the Armed Forces - During War and Peace Time

Josef Fritzl - Other Cases of Historical Abduction and Imprisonment of Adults and Children By Parents and Strangers

Go To This Post For Numerous UDHR Translations:
UDHR (Universal Declaration Of Human Rights) in Arabic, Czech, Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian & Spanish - Also Includes links to 359 translations of the UDHR.