[ndlr] Parution d’une étude de Miriam Gebhart, journaliste et historienne, sur les viols de femmes allemandes à la fin de la Seconde guerre mondiale.
When the Soldiers Came
The rape of German women at the end of World War II
A new look at the abusers and the victims
The soldiers who defeated the Nazi German forces National Socialist at the end of World War II also brought new suffering to many women. Countless girls and women (and no few men as well) became the victims of sexual violence – all over the country. In contrast to a widely held belief, it was not just “the Russians” who were the offenders, but also American, French and British soldiers.
Using new source material, Miriam Gebhardt has outlined the extent of the violence during the period of occupation at the end of the war – the first historically founded treatment of this topic. She also impressively describes how these women later again became victims – of doctors who arbitrarily agreed to or turned down abortion; of social workers who put pregnant women into homes. And last but not least of a society that right down to the present day would prefer not to talk about the mass crimes, that would rather just forget about the whole business.
Miriam Gebhardt is a historian and journalist and teaches history at the University of Konstanz. She was awarded a PhD for her study Fear of the Juvenile Tyrant: A History of Upbringing in the 20th Century (2009). DVA published her books on Rudolf Steiner: A modern prophet (2011) and Alice in No-Man’s Land. How the German Women’s Movement Lost the Women (2012).
Source : DVA
Pour en savoir plus :
- AFP, Les terribles viols des Alliés occidentaux en Allemagne en 1945, Le Point, 12/04/2015. Selon les recherches de l’historienne allemande Miriam Gebhardt, les Français, les Américains et les Britanniques pourraient avoir abusé de 270 000 femmes allemandes.
- Laurent Ribadeau Dumas, Allemagne : la fin de certains tabous sur la Seconde guerre mondiale, FranceTV info / Géopolis, 11/05/2015.
- Annabelle Georgen, Les soldats de l’Armée rouge ne sont pas les seuls à avoir violé massivement les Allemandes en 1945, Slate, 17/03/2015.
- Klaus Wiegrefe, Postwar Rape: Were Americans As Bad as the Soviets?, Spiegel, 02/03/2015. Un regard critique.
- Maxim Bolshoy / Reuters, Các vụ hãm hiếp tại Đức sau chiến tranh, RFI Vietnam, 09/05/2015.
- Interview von Stephanie Schwaderer, “Unvermutete Übergriffe”, Süddeutsche Zeintung, 22/04/2015, entretien avec Miriam Gebhart.
Image “à la une” : photo Scherl.