THE FORGOTTEN VICTIMS OF WWII:

MASCULINITIES AND RAPE IN BERLIN, 1945

 

James W. Messerschmidt

University of Southern Maine

 

Forthcoming in:

Violence Against Women, 12 (7) July 2006

 

Susan Brownmiller (1975), in her book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, reported over thirty years ago that during WWII Nazi soldiers massively raped Jewish women (and women of other ethnicities) as they invaded the Soviet Union. In response, Brownmiller argues, the Red Army exacted revenge through mass rape as they conquered town after town across Germany. Brownmiller (p. 63) points out that the Soviet mass rape in Germany embodied an “anti-female sentiment disguised within the glorious, vengeful struggle, an exuberant manifestation of the heroic fighting man who is fighting the good fight.”         

A Woman in Berlin is the diary of a woman (Anonymous, 2005) who recounts the latter mass rape in the final and decisive city of the Soviet campaign—Berlin. During the two-week advance to capture Berlin—the final days of the Third Reich—2.5 million Red Army soldiers and 6,250 Soviet tanks easily crushed the 85,000 demoralized Nazi defenders (many of whom were Hitler Youth as young as 14 years) who were critically short of equipment, ammunition, and fuel. Neither Hitler nor Göebbels attempted to evacuate the 2 million or so Berliners prior to the Soviet attack. And as these two Nazi leaders and their wives committed suicide (Göebbels earlier had poisoned his six children), it is estimated that some 130,000 (because so many girls and women suffered repeated and gang rapes, the actual number is ostensibly higher) Berlin girls and women were brutally raped by Soviet soldiers—ten percent of the rape victims having committed suicide.

Worldwide public discourse since WWII heralded the bravery of the Red Army; glossed over are the abhorrent atrocities committed by these same men upon the girls and women of Berlin. We have here an historically unique contextual contradiction whereby German girls and women—many of whom were Nazi supporters—were sexually victimized by Red Army soldiers who had earlier courageously liberated Hitler’s concentration camps. Arguably, it is insufficient merely to document the great number of tortured women—we must additionally ask why this deplorable violence was committed by these very “liberators” against the forgotten victims of WWII?

Unfortunately, the Introduction to A Woman in Berlin, written by Antony Beevor, is not helpful in answering this question. Beevor, an ex-officer in the British Army, has written four novels and eight nonfiction books. In particular, he authored Berlin: The Downfall 1945 (2002), which outlines in stunning detail the horrendous acts committed by the Red Army during their capture of Berlin. Yet despite beneficial documentation in his 2002 publication, Beevor (2005: xix), in his Introduction to A Woman in Berlin, argues that historians are wrong to assume that this particular mass rape resulted from war strategy. Although rape as a war strategy has a long history, for Berlin, Beevor argues, no document to date received from Soviet archives indicates any declaration that rape was a war strategy: “Stalin was merely amused by the idea of Red Army soldiers having ‘some fun’ after a hard war” (p. xix). Beevor (p. xix) continues:

            Meanwhile, loyal Communists and commissars were taken aback and

            embarrassed by the mass rapes. One commissar wrote that the Soviet

            propaganda of hatred had clearly not worked as intended. It should have

            instilled in Soviet soldiers a sense of disgust at the idea of having sex

            with a German woman.

I do not quarrel with Beevor’s conclusion that rape as a war strategy was not formalized by Soviet military leaders. However, what troubles me is Beevor’s complete disregard of the fact that such massive Berlin rape was a masculine strategy in the context of that war. My concern is further supported by Beevor’s complaint that rape, allegedly, is an act of violence, not sex. As Beevor (p. xix) argues, the idea “that rape has more to do with violence than sex is a victim’s definition of the crime, not a full explanation of male motive.” Beevor reasons that sex is the major component of the Berlin mass rape resulting from the alleged “barracks eroticism” created by Stalinist policies of sexual repression in the 1930s. Indeed, for Beevor, Red Army soldiers were careful “to find the most attractive” women to rape and often (p. xx):

German women developed informal agreements with a particular soldier or officer, who would protect them from other rapists and feed them in return for sexual compliance. A few of these relationships even developed

into something deeper, much to the dismay of the Soviet authorities and the outrage of wives at home.

            My reading of A Woman in Berlin differs considerably from Beevor’s. First, I found example after example of degradation, humiliation, and domination as part and parcel of physically violent Soviet rape. The following case, reported in the diary, is representative (Anonymous, 2005: 225):

                        Little nineteen-year-old Gerti . . . .described how three Russians hauled

                        her out of the basement into a stranger’s apartment on the first floor,

                        threw her on the sofa, and had their way with her—first one after the

                        other, then in no particular order. Afterward . . . they rummaged through

                        the kitchen, but all they found was some marmalade and ersatz coffee . . .

                        Laughing, they spooned the jam into Gerti’s hair, and once her head was

                        covered they sprinkled it generously with ersatz coffee.

            This story exemplifies an act of violent sexual domination intended to devalue and humiliate the victim. It is not an expression of overwhelming repressed “drive” for heterosexual intercourse. In fact, none of the reported rapes in A Woman in Berlin indicates explosive acts resulting from sudden and uncontrollable sexual deprivation. What Beevor misses is an important insight about rape: The act of rape violently destroys the woman’s integrity by denying the victim her own will to engage, or not to engage, in sexuality as she chooses. By denying this freedom, the rapist actually creates conditions of dominance, control, and subordination. In other words, regardless of the Red Army rapists’ motives, the act of rape itself is one of domination, devaluation, and violence. And as the diarist notes, Soviet soldiers did not look for “the most attractive” to victimize; “for them any woman will do” (p. 59). Indeed, the Red Army rapists even victimized Jewish women who had successfully avoided Nazi capture (p. 197):

                        For months the [Jewish] couple had been looking forward to the liberation

                        of Berlin, spending entire nights huddled by the radio, listening to the

                        foreign broadcasts. Then when the first Russians broke into the basement

                        and went after the women, there was a scuffle. Shots were fired. One

                        bullet richocheted off the wall and hit the man in his hip. His wife threw

                        herself at the Russians, begging them to help, in German. Whereupon,

                        they took her into the hallway, three men on top of her, as she kept howl-

                        ing and screaming, “But I’m Jewish, I’m Jewish.” In the meantime her

                        husband bled to death.

            This is particularly distressing because Jewish women—during the capture and occupation of Berlin by “their liberators”—were now compelled to escape victimization from both the Nazi’s and the Red Army.

Arguably, the mass rape in Berlin helped maintain and reenforce an alliance among Soviet soldiers by humiliating and devaluing “Other” women. It served both to separate Soviet men from all German women and to bond together as Soviet men. Moreover, engaging in sexual intercourse is a fundamental masculine practice—men must “perform” adequately in every situation and, therefore, inadequate performance threatens one’s masculinity. Accordingly, mass rape in war is an imposing display of masculine collective power and sexual conquest, whereby the victims suffer emotional and physical violence while the perpetrators establish their masculine self-worth—in front of other soldiers—at the expense of the victims.

Second, the massive rape in Berlin grew out of the newly emerged relationship among nationalism, militarism, and patriarchal masculinity in Stalinist Soviet society. Under Stalin, Soviet policies emphasized rapid industrialization and modernization, the “mother heroine” was celebrated as both worker and mother, homosexuality and abortion were once again criminalized (both had been decriminalized immediately following the Bolshevik revolution of 1917), and patriarchal gender relations were reenforced. Indeed, women’s rapid movement into the labor force was accompanied by an elevation of men’s status in Soviet society. Stalin’s idea of “socialism in one country” emphasized industrialization as the foundation of a highly productive “socialist” economy, “essential to produce the military might necessary to protect the socialist homeland from its foreign enemies” (Schrand, 2002: 198). The result was a configuration of masculinity during the Stalin era that made the “male soldier” its primary element: “Even while the Stalin regime was coming to see all women as potential mothers, it was treating all men as potential soldiers” (p. 203).

The upshot was a militarized culture in which the Red Army was celebrated as the preeminent masculine institution in Soviet society (Schrand, 2002). And this military-heroic form of masculinity was simultaneously intimately associated with nationalism, for to be a “soldier-hero” one must be willing to fight and die for the Soviet nation (Petrone, 2002). Thus, in the Stalinist era masculinity took on a new meaning (pp. 188-189):

            Men’s relationships with one another were portrayed as charged with

            emotion, and these relationships were seen as fostering a communal

            heroism that was distinct from the bravery of 1905 and 1914. The source

            of individual acts of heroism was a Soviet camaraderie, a masculine

            community that gave the New Soviet Man new strengths. However, it was

            only after Stalin came to power that the Soviet male hero was consistently

            depicted as larger than life and without blemish.

Consequently, fighting in a war became the discursive hegemonic masculine ideal, rising above other forms of Soviet masculinities. And as Patricia Albanese (2001) points out, it is this particular social situation—a tripartite relationship among nationalism, militarism, and patriarchal masculinity—that is ideal for the emergence of mass rape. Albanese shows that in time of war, the rise of nationalism and militarism is fertile ground for the institutionalization of patriarchal relations that place “enemy women” at an increased risk of violence. In other words, “Rape comes to be interpreted as a means of humiliating the Other and destroying a society’s cultural, traditional, and religious integrity” (p. 1007). “Other” women become victims of rape not only because they are women, but because—as in the case under discussion—they are German women (p. 1007). As Albanese (p. 1011) concludes: “Thus, sexual violence against their [German] women is but one of the ways to destroy their national pride, manhood, and honor. What results is the commonly seen connection between sex and violence in war.”

Third, following from two above, Soviet mass rape in Berlin simultaneously degraded German men, labeling them impotent for their inability to protect German women. Women then were also targets of sexual violence because they were viewed as “possessions” of German men. By intimidating and humiliating women through mass rape, the Soviets simultaneously challenged the masculinity of German men—they were essentially emasculated—while Soviet men were hyper-masculinized. Thus, a hierarchy of masculinities was constructed. Indeed, in the case of Berlin, if there was a husband “around,” the Red Army rapists often made sure the husband was cognizant of the rape. The following case of a husband and wife who owned a Berlin distillery is illustrative (Anonymous, 2005: 136):

            As they were rummaging for liquor the Russians finally found Elvira and

            him behind a wooden patrician, along with another woman. . . . Here the

            man [husband] shrugs his shoulders, doesn’t want to say any more, walks

            out of the kitchen. “They lined up,” his wife whispers to us. . . “Each took

            his turn.” She says there were at least twenty, but she doesn’t know

            exactly. She had to bear the brunt of it herself. The other woman wasn’t

            well.

Throughout A Woman in Berlin this emasculation of German men prevails. At one point the diarist is both concise and explicit: “Among the many defeats at the end of this war is the defeat of the male sex” (p. 43). In fact, anticipating the German soldiers’ return to Berlin after the war, the diarist writes that the men would tell stories about exploits that depicted them in “good light,” while the women “will have to keep politely mum; each one of us will have to act as if she in particular was spared” (p. 149).

Mass rape committed by Soviet soldiers during WWII functioned, then, to establish masculine domination over Other women, Other men, and Other nation—it symbolized the defeat of the entire Nazi nation by the masculine Red Army soldier-hero. Although no document yet exists declaring rape a formal war strategy in Berlin, mass rape served effectively as an unofficial masculine maneuver to frighten and intimidate the Berlin civilian population into complying with the wishes and demands of its Soviet occupiers.

Finally, I conclude with a challenge to Beevor’s assertion that some German women in Berlin developed “informal agreements” with Soviet soldiers/officers for protection from other rapists. The diarist’s personal experiences with rape do not describe an “informal agreement” but, rather, a desperate yet heroic individual survival strategy. During the Red Army occupation of Berlin, the diarist recorded diverse forms of rape: some girls/women victimized through gang rape; some individually in public, some in private; and some women actually selflessly surrendering their bodies to protect other girls/women from victimization. Although the diarist was the victim of certain of these types of rape, one particular type convinced her that she must develop a strategy to avoid continued victimization from numerous different soldiers. The diarist describes a Saturday afternoon when two Soviet soldiers “came careening into” her makeshift tenement. One of the soldiers immediately grabbed, and then shoved, her “onto the bedstead”; subsequently, the only sound she heard was his “involuntary grinding of teeth when my underclothes are ripped apart. The last untorn ones I had” (p. 63). The diarist details the brutal degradation that followed (pp. 63-64):

            Suddenly his finger is on my mouth, stinking of horse and tobacco. I

            open my eyes. A stranger’s hands expertly pulling apart my jaws. Eye

            to eye. Then with great deliberation he drops a gob of gathered spit into

            my mouth.

            During the rape the diarist experienced numbness, was “frozen with dizzy shivers,” and felt as if she was “sinking into the ground.” Whenever she opened her eyes, the rapist was oppressively close (p. 64):

                        The stranger’s lips are open, yellow teeth, one in front half broken off. The

                        corners of the mouth lift, tiny wrinkles radiate from the corners of his

                        eyes. The man is smiling.

            Immediately upon the departure of the rapist (p. 64):

                        I stand up—dizzy, nauseated. My ragged clothes tumble to my feet. I

                        stagger through the hall . . . into the bathroom. I throw up. My face green

                        in the mirror, my vomit in the basin. I sit on the edge of the bathtub,

                        without daring to flush, since I’m still gagging and there’s so little water

                        left in the bucket.

                        Damn this to hell! I say it out loud. Then I make up my mind.

                        No question about it: I have to find a single wolf to keep away the pack.

                        An officer, as high-ranking as possible, a commandant, a general,

                        whatever I can manage.

            Thus, the diarist began to search for a “single wolf,” and eventually met and successfully attracted a First Lieutenant. The diarist chose him because he had sufficient rank to guarantee a “taboo” from other rapists (p.66):

                        My mind is firmly made up. I’ll think of something when the time comes.

I grin to myself in secret, feel as if I’m performing on the stage. I couldn’t

care less about the lot of them! I’ve never been so removed from myself,

so alienated. All my feelings seem dead, except for the drive to live. They

shall not destroy me.

            Indeed, the diarist cleverly tricked the First Lieutenant into believing that they actually had a “relationship” when, in reality, she simply had him “eating out of my hand.” And because of his power over other Red Army soldiers, he is the only soldier/officer allowed to “sleep” with her (pp. 72, 82). For the diarist, then, her strategy worked: “I’m very proud I actually managed to tame one of the wolves—most likely the strongest in the pack, too—to keep away the others” (p. 83). In short, the diarist is not describing a genuinely consensual “informal agreement” but, rather, she unfolds for us her agency in distinguishing between “who’s truly evil from who is bearable” (p. 77). Bluffing a situationally tolerable “single wolf” was her strategy for survival in this context through avoiding unknown numbers of repeated and brutal rapes by sundry members of the “wolf pack.”

 

References

Albanese, Patricia. 2001. “Nationalism, War, and Archaization of Gender Relations in the

            Balkans.” Violence Against Women, 7 (9): 999-1023.

Anonymous. 2005. A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in a Conquered City, A Diary.

            New York: Metropolitan Books.

Beevor, Antony. 2002. The Fall of Berlin 1945. New York: Viking.

Beevor, Antony. 2005. “Introduction” in A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in a

Conquered City, A Diary, xii-xxi. New York: Metropolitan Books.

Brownmiller, Susan. 1975. Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape. New York:

Bantam.

Petrone, Karen. 2002. “Masculinity and Heroism in Imperial and Soviet Military-

Patriotic Cultures.” In Russian Masculinities in History and Culture, edited by

B. E. Clements, R. Friedman, and D. Healy, 172-193. New York: Palgrave.

Schrand, Thomas G. 2002. “Socialism in One Gender: Masculine Values in the Stalin

            Revolution.” In Russian Masculinities in History and Culture, edited by

            B.E. Clements, R. Friedman, and D. Healy, 194-209. New York: Palgrave.