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The historical subject of the rapes committed by Soviet soldiers against women and girls (German, Hungarian, Polish, Yugoslav, Chinese, and others) during and after the Second World War still seems controversial, particularly in Russia today. Using many German, Russian, and English-language sources, I have studied this subject in detail.

'Is it true that most of the babies born in East Germany after WW II were half-Russian

for at least a generation?'

No, that's untrue. While it was common for German women and girls to be raped by

Soviet soldiers (many of whom were not Russian) from 1945 (the war's last year)

until long after the war, most rapes did not result in pregnancies, and many such pregnancies did not result in the victims (who preferred to have abortions) giving birth. Many rape victims died as a consequence of internal injuries (after being brutally violated), untreated sexually transmitted diseases (the needed drugs were hardly ever available for women in Germany soon after the war), badly performed abortions, or suicides (particularly for traumatised victims who had been raped many times).

The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949

by Norman Naimark, an American historian, states that it was common for Soviet

soldiers to rape German women (an enjoyable 'perk of occupation') long after the war.

Consequently, German women had a significantly lower level of approval than German men had toward Soviet Communism or the Soviet military occupation of Germany.

'While the battle continued, another savage onslaught was going on. It was grim and personal. The hordes of Russian troops coming up behind the disciplined front-line veterans now demanded the rights due the conquerors: the women of the conquered.'

--Cornelius Ryan (The Last Battle, 1966)

In his book on the 1945 Battle of Berlin, Cornelius Ryan described (based on his interviews with victims) the rapes of at least several German women by Soviet soldiers.

Soviet officers varied in their attitudes toward rape,which officially was a major crime under Soviet military laws. On one hand, some Soviet officers ordered the executions of some Soviet soldiers who were believed guilty of rape. On the other hand, some Soviet officers participated in rape or encouraged their men to rape (out of a sense of revenge or perhaps to promote more 'male-bonding' within a unit). Broadly speaking, most Soviet soldiers seem to have condoned (or been unable to restrain their men) most rapes committed by Soviet soldiers toward the end of or shortly after the war. There seems to have been a popular attitude among Soviet soldiers that German or Hungarian (Hungary was allied with Germany until the end) women and girls were their rightful 'spoils of war' to be taken by force and freely enjoyed in celebrating victory.

As far as I know (yes, I have spoken with some Russians), the general attitude in Russia today toward the historical subject of the many rapes committed by Soviet soldiers during or after the Second World War is one of denial (admitting there were a few rapes at most) or complete rationalization ('the Nazis brutally raped our country first, so our soldiers have the right to take revenge by raping some German women'). The 2003 publication of the Fall of Berlin 1945 by Antony Beevor, a British military historian, which (like Cornelius Ryan's earlier book) described some (of the many) rapes of German women by Soviet soldiers, provoked outrage among many Russians, who liked to deny that Soviet soldiers had done anything wrong in their treatment of German women and girls. In my view, the overwhelming evidence (from many sources, including Soviet) makes such vehement denials seem motivated by nothing more than self-righteous nationalism and a dishonest refusal to face the facts. In the interest of fairness, I am not singling out the Soviet peoples or the Russian people for moral condemnation. War crimes have been committed by combatants of about every nationality, race, and religion. With regard to the subject of rape in the Second World War, the crimes of Japanese soldiers in China were perhaps the worst of all. And, while it's not as bad as the Japanese in China, American soldiers have a bad record of rape (most of which has been censored in the US media) in their Asian wars, and most Americans seem deeply in denial about US war crimes (which tend to be ignored or whitewashed in the 'patriotic' US media).

Through the Maelstrom: A Red Army Soldier's War on the Eastern Front, 1942-45 by Boris Gorbachevsky is a memoir, which discusses the subject of rape by Soviet soldiers with remarkable honesty. Recently, a Russian woman historian (who grew up after the war) asserted that it was rare for Soviet soldiers to rape German women and, in those rare cases, the rapists were properly punished by Soviet military justice. Based on what he had observed in wartime, Boris Gorbachevsky wrote that this Russian woman historian was extremely ignorant and misinformed about the realities of rape in the Soviet Army. According to Boris Gorbachevsky, rape was a common practice among Soviet soldiers (he roughly estimated that 1/3 of Soviet soldiers had raped at least one woman or girl), and most Soviet officers seemed to do little or nothing to discipline their men for it. Although a few Soviet soldiers were executed for rape, a Soviet soldier could rape a woman in Germany while usually feeling quite confident that he never would be punished for it. Indeed, Boris Gorbachevsky was present at a gathering of Soviet soldiers, who (except himself) boasted about how many German women they already had raped and how much they had enjoyed it.

The excuse that Soviet soldiers (selectively) raped German women only to avenge much worse Nazi war crimes is without merit. It's true, of course, that the Axis (primarily the Germans, but other nationalities, such as the Romanians, also were responsible) committed many terrible war crimes in the USSR. But it's untrue that Soviet soldiers were so carefully discriminating as to select only apparently pro-Nazi German women to rape for revenge. Many of their rape victims were too young (girls) to have had any legal or moral responsibilities for the war. Some of their rape victims were undoubtedly anti-Nazi, in fact, being Jews or Communists. Particularly when they were drunk, Soviet soldiers were not choosy about their rape victims, almost any female would do to satisfy their lusts. Indeed, Soviet soldiers raped many women and girls from some countries that were allied with the USSR. Milovan Djilas, a Yugoslav Communist, complained to Stalin that Soviet soldiers had raped many Yugoslav women while briefly passing through Yugoslavia (Stalin replied that his soldiers were naturally just having some fun.). In his book Retribution: The Battle of Japan 1944-45, Max Hastings, a British military historians, wrote that many Chinese women were raped by Soviet soldiers when they liberated parts of China from Japanese rule.

In addition to the books that I have mentioned, here are some books of interest:

A Woman in Berlin is the journal of a German rape victim.

The Siege of Budapest by Krisztian Ungvary (Many Hungarian women were raped.)

Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945 by Catherine Merridale