rape during the occupation of germany rape during the occupation of germany as allied troops entered and occupied german territory during the later stages of world war ii, mass rapes of women took place both in connection with combat operations and during the subsequent occupation of germany. scholars agree that the vast majority of the rapes were committed by soviet occupation troops. the wartime rapes were followed by decades of silence. territorial changes and occupational zones of nazi germany after its defeat. the map includes the front-line along the elbe from which u.s. troops withdrew in july 1945. rape types acquaintance rape campus rape corrective rape lgbt victims date rape gang rape genocidal rape gray rape live streaming rape marital rape prison rape rape chant serial rape statutory rape unacknowledged rape rape by deception effects and motivations effects and aftermath pregnancy from rape rape trauma syndrome causes post-assault mistreatment weinstein effect sociobiological theories rape culture by country afghanistan belgium china democratic republic of the congo egypt finland france germany india pakistan papua new guinea philippines saudi arabia south africa sweden united kingdom united states during conflicts circassian genocide nanking massacre world war ii eastern front italian campaign occupation of germany / japan / poland liberation of france / serbia kashmir conflict vietnam war bangladesh liberation war bosnian war rwandan genocide darfur genocide sri lankan civil war isil syrian civil war tigray war russian invasion of ukraine laws marital rape laws by country marry-your-rapist law rape shield law false accusation of rape rape investigation rape kit sexual consent in law related articles history of rape date rape drug rape statistics rape by gender rape of males anti-rape device rape crisis centers rape investigation rape myth rape pornography rape and revenge films rape fantasy rape schedule anti-rape movement portals law portal according to historian antony beevor, whose books were banned in 2015 from some russian schools and colleges, nkvd (soviet secret police) files have revealed that the leadership knew what was happening, but did little to stop it. it was often rear echelon units who committed the rapes. according to professor oleg rzheshevsky, "4,148 red army officers and many privates were punished for committing atrocities". the exact number of german women and girls raped by soviet troops during the war and occupation is uncertain, but historians estimate their numbers are likely in the hundreds of thousands, and possibly as many as two million. soviet troops sexual violence was committed by the armies of the western allies and the red army as their troops fought their way into the third reich and during the period of occupation. mass rape by soviet soldiers first began during the battle of romania and during the budapest offensive in hungary. on the territory of nazi germany, it began on 21 october 1944 when troops of the red army crossed the bridge over the angerapp creek (marking the germany–poland border) and committed the nemmersdorf massacre before they were beaten back a few hours later. the majority of the assaults were committed in the soviet occupation zone; estimates of the numbers of german women raped by soviet soldiers have ranged up to 2 million. according to historian william hitchcock, in many cases women were the victims of repeated rapes, some as many as 60 to 70 times. at least 100,000 women are believed to have been raped in berlin, based on surging abortion rates in the following months and contemporary hospital reports, with an estimated 10,000 women dying in the aftermath. female deaths in connection with the rapes in germany, overall, are estimated at 240,000. antony beevor describes it as the "greatest phenomenon of mass rape in history" and concludes that at least 1.4 million women were raped in east prussia, pomerania and silesia alone. according to the soviet war correspondent natalya gesse, soviet soldiers raped german females from eight to eighty years old. soviet and polish women were not spared either. when general tsygankov, head of the political department of the first ukrainian front, reported to moscow the mass rape of soviet women deported to germany for forced labour, he recommended that the women be prevented from describing their ordeal on their return to russia. when the yugoslav partisan politician milovan djilas complained about rapes in yugoslavia, joseph stalin reportedly stated that he should "understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometres through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle". on another occasion, when told that red army soldiers sexually maltreated german refugees, he reportedly said: "we lecture our soldiers too much; let them have their initiative." nevertheless, there are no surviving records to prove that rape was legally sanctioned. konstantin rokossovsky issued order no 006 in an attempt to direct "the feelings of hatred at fighting the enemy on the battlefield", which had little effect. there were also several arbitrary attempts to exert authority. for example, the commander of one rifle division is said to have "personally shot a lieutenant who was lining up a group of his men before a german woman spreadeagled on the ground". studies the historian norman naimark writes that after mid-1945, soviet soldiers caught raping civilians were usually punished to some degree, which ranged from arrest to execution. the rapes continued until the winter of 1947–48, when the soviet military administration in germany finally confined soviet army troops to guard posts and camps strictly and to separate them from the residential population in the soviet zone of germany. in his analysis of the motives behind the extensive soviet rapes, norman naimark singles out "hate propaganda, personal experiences of suffering at home, and an allegedly fully demeaning picture of german women in the press, not to mention among the soldiers themselves" as some reasons for the widespread rapes. naimark also noted the effect that tendency to binge-drink alcohol (of which much was available in germany) had on the propensity of soviet soldiers to commit rape, especially rape-murder. naimark also notes the allegedly-patriarchal nature of russian culture and of the asian societies constituting the soviet union, where dishonor had been repaid by raping the women of the enemy. the fact that the germans had a much higher standard of living visible even when in ruins "may well have contributed allegedly to a national inferiority complex among russians". combining "russian feelings of inferiority", the resulting need to restore honor, and their desire for revenge may be reasons for why many women were raped in public as well as in front of husbands before both were killed. according to antony beevor, revenge was not the only reason for the frequent rapes, but the soviet troops' feeling of entitlement to all types of spoils of war, including women, was an important factor as well. beevor exemplifies that with his discovery that soviet troops also raped soviet and polish girls and women that were liberated from nazi concentration camps as well as those who were held for forced labour at farms and factories. the rapes were often perpetrated by rear echelon units. the description of the events by beevor was criticized by general of the russian army makhmut gareev, who said the work by beevor was "worse than joseph goebbels's propaganda". russian professor oleg rzheshevsky claimed that 4,148 red army officers and "a significant number" of soldiers were convicted of atrocities for crimes committed against german civilians. richard overy, a historian from king's college london, has criticised the viewpoint put forth by the russians by asserting that they refuse to acknowledge soviet war crimes committed during the war: "partly this is because they felt that much of it was justified vengeance against an enemy who committed much worse, and partly it was because they were writing the victors' history." geoffrey roberts writes that the red army raped women in every country they passed through but mostly in austria and germany: 70,000–100,000 rapes in vienna, and "hundreds of thousands" of rapes in germany. he notes that the german army probably committed tens of thousands of rapes on the eastern front but that murder was the more typical crime for them. in 2015, beevor's books were banned and censored in some russian schools and colleges. eyewitness accounts a documentary book, war's unwomanly face by svetlana alexievich, includes memories by soviet veterans about their experience in germany. according to a former army officer, "we were young, strong, and four years without women. so we tried to catch german women and.... ten men raped one girl. there were not enough women; the entire population run from the soviet army. so we had to take young, twelve or thirteen year-old. if she cried, we put something into her mouth. we thought it was fun. now i can not understand how i did it. a boy from a good family.... but that was me." a woman telephone operator from the soviet army recalled: "when we occupied every town, we had first three days for looting and ... . that was unofficial of course. but after three days one could be court-martialed for doing this.... i remember one raped german woman laying naked, with hand grenade between her legs. now i feel shame, but i did not feel shame back then.... do you think it was easy to forgive ? we hated to see their clean undamaged white houses. with roses. i wanted them to suffer. i wanted to see their tears. decades had to pass until i started feeling pity for them." while serving as an artillery officer in east prussia, aleksandr solzhenitsyn witnessed war crimes against local german civilians by soviet military personnel. of the atrocities, solzhenitsyn wrote: "you know very well that we've come to germany to take our revenge." social effects the exact number of german women and girls raped by soviet troops during the war and occupation is uncertain, but western historians estimate their numbers are likely in the hundreds of thousands and possibly as many as two million. the number of babies, who came to be known as "russian children", born as a result is unknown. however, most rapes did not result in pregnancies, and many pregnancies did not result in the victims giving birth. abortions were the preferred choice of rape victims, and many died as a consequence of internal injuries after being brutally violated, or due to untreated sexually transmitted diseases because of a lack of medicine or badly-performed abortions. many women committed suicide after rape, mostly due to being unable to cope with their traumatic experience, although some were forced to by their fathers because of their "dishonor", while others were shot and killed by their husbands for "consenting to sexual relations with allied soldiers". many german women were verbally abused by german soldiers on the streets or in their homes for being "allied whores", while a lot of them even received threatening letters from german men. in addition, many children died in postwar germany as a result of widespread starvation, scarce supplies and diseases such as typhus and diphtheria. the infant mortality in berlin reached up to 90%. as for the social effects of the sexual violence, norman naimark noted: in any case, just as each rape survivor carried the effects of the crime with her till the end of her life, so was the collective anguish nearly unbearable. the social psychology of women and men in the soviet zone of occupation was marked by the crime of rape from the first days of occupation, through the founding of the gdr in the fall of 1949, until—one could argue—the present. west berliners and women of the wartime generation refer to the soviet war memorial in treptower park, berlin, as the "tomb of the unknown rapist" in response to the mass rapes by red army soldiers in 1945 during and after the battle of berlin. hannelore kohl, the former wife of former west german chancellor helmut kohl, had been gang-raped at the age of 12 by soviet soldiers in may 1945, according to her biographer. as a consequence, she sustained a serious lifelong back injury after she had been thrown out of a first-floor window. she suffered long and serious illnesses, which experts thought to be the consequences of childhood trauma. hannelore kohl took her own life in 2001. in soviet literature initially, east