Sex Crimes under the Wehrmacht

7. Sexual Assault

CHAPTER SEVEN Sexual Assault In cases of sexual assault, the military judicial authorities demonstrated the same pragmatic interest in recycling usable instruments of war that they had in cases of homosexuality. Prisoners’ transgressions were measured closely against their service records both at trial and when being considered for reintegration into the Wehrgemeinschaft. Gerichtsherren ordered a high percentage of convicted rapists to begin their “rehabilitation” in parole battalions and field penal units rather than in prisons. Established in 1941 and 1942, these formations were created by the Wehrmacht so that the reclamation of human matériel would also serve the war effort. The vast majority of these special penal formation detainees descended the penal chain, ultimately rejoining the regular troops. As they did with homosexual offenders, the military judicial authorities generally evaluated servicemen convicted for rape on the basis of their ability and willingness to carry a weapon in good faith. Cases of sexual assault establish more clearly than any other offense category that Wehrmachtjustiz was a military organization that had been designed to serve military interests. The Gerichtsherren, as masters of the military judicial process, harnessed the system in a relentless attempt to confront the military realities on the various battlefronts . Hence, in this chapter, the reintegration of perpetrators will be overshadowed by the commanders’ and courts’ focus on practical military considerations in the respective theaters of war.1 Sex under the Swastika George Mosse, in Nationalism and Sexuality, concludes that German fascism perceived a lack of sexual control as “a characteristic of the enemies of ordered society. The enemies of society and the inferior races were identical in racist thought, while the superior race possessed the attitudes, manners, and morals of existing society.” The Nazi attitude toward sexuality, according to Mosse, emphasized the home, the family, restraint, and discipline. Under National Socialism, 134 PA R T I I sexual intoxication of any kind was viewed as both unmanly and antisocial . “Those who could not control their passions were either considered abnormal . . . or would inevitably drift into abnormality.” As a form of heightened nationalism, racism supported bourgeois respectability . It emphasized the difference between virtue and vice, the necessity of a clear line between the normal and abnormal according to the rules laid down by society. . . . Those who stood apart from the norms of society were totally condemned. It was no longer the specific sexual acts alone that were considered abnormal, but the entire physical and mental structure of the person practicing these acts. Such a person was excluded from society and the nation.2 National Socialism’s attempt to inaugurate “a new era of discipline, morality, and Christianity,” in conjunction with women’s special role within Nazi ideology as the propagators of the master race, leads one to expect that a military judiciary bent on societal purification would have considered perpetrators of sexual assaults against German women especially dangerous to the Volksgemeinschaft. As Mosse points out, however, the regime’s priorities often proved irreconcilable with its ideals, and the case files indicate that commanders and courts were concerned about matters other than social respectability, decorum, and Nazi population policy.3 One also might expect that, given Nazi racial concepts, military courts would have dealt leniently with soldiers accused of raping Slavic women, as many scholars have indeed claimed.4 Again, however, the case files reveal a different picture, with servicemen often receiving very severe punishments for assaults against east European women. Overall, the evidence suggests that commanders functioning as Gerichtsherren and the courts subordinated to them proceeded against sexual assaults with practical military considerations rather than ideology in mind. Varying between theaters, the courts’ jurisprudence and sentencing practices were geared toward meeting the specific military realties on the various battlefronts. As in cases of homosexuality, the courts demonstrate a complex mix of moderation and ruthlessness in cases of sexual assault. In contrast to homosexual offenses, which only occasionally produced a “victim,” sexual assaults created victims in the truest sense of the word. There- S E X U A L A S S A U LT 135 fore, classifying punishments as draconian or mild is problematic and contentious. Is three years’ imprisonment for the violent rape of a teenager mild or draconian? Is three years of penal servitude for the rape of a grandmother moderate or harsh? Whose standards hold sway? For the purposes of this discussion, punishments in cases of sexual assault can only be...