Brothels of the Third Reich and the children of the occupation

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

November 1944. The Red Army liberated the USSR from the Wehrmacht. The invaders were driven out forever. But the descendants of the invaders remained - and became Soviet children.

It was not customary to talk about the fact that during the period of the German occupation Soviet women made children of the Germans. And most of all this was the unfortunate people themselves who were ashamed of, who were called collaborators and "German beddings." They were so ashamed that many, after the return of the Red Army, drowned German babies, forged documents for children, or fled with them to other villages, fearing denunciation from neighbors.

The historian BN Kovalev, who investigated this problem, cites the following case: in the occupied North-West of Russia, a woman "took root" from the Germans of two children; on the day of the liberation of her village, she brought the kids to the road, laid them on the ground and shouted "death to the German invaders!" "Killed them with a cobblestone."

"Love" at the front

Of course, in a huge number of cases, sexual contacts between Germans and Soviet women are rape and other forms of coercion. Descriptions of these terrible crimes sounded at the Nuremberg trials and are well known.

But there was something else, especially in the rear, where everyday life is more stable than in the frontline zone: there were indirect violence (deals), and real romances, even unofficial weddings. By the way, when the Red Army entered the territory of Germany, many Soviet servicemen began to have romances with German women, either of a “business” nature (sex in exchange for bread and protection), then sincerely romantic.

Contacts with Russian women at times ended very badly for the Germans. And the point here is not only in venereal diseases or in the fact that the girl could turn out to be an underground worker, thanks to which this German could be shot the next day by partisans on the march.

The fact is that the Nazis considered sexual intercourse between the Aryan and the "Untermenschs" as a "racial shame" and damage to German blood, and therefore was prohibited. According to the German historian Regina Mühlhäuser, in 1944 alone, the Wehrmacht field courts convicted 5349 German soldiers for “forbidden sexual intercourse with the Russian population” (that is, outside brothels).

Of course, in fact, there was much more sexual intercourse. For the most part, the officers turned a blind eye to them, and the prohibitions and instructions coming from Berlin were simply ignored. So, in occupied Novgorod every morning, Germans, returning from local residents, fled to the barracks around the city.

The women agreed to contact the invaders for many reasons: someone was really starving and wanted to feed their children or find a protector from constant harassment, someone was carried away by the "beautiful life" with German officers, someone really fell in love.

But most of the time, of course, it was about exchange transactions. In some cases it took unexpected forms: for example, the Spaniards from the "Blue Division", being near Novgorod, plundered the neighboring Russian villages in order to bring cows and pigs to "their" girls as a gift; then the Spaniards "took care" of the Russians in Orthodox churches.

As a result, sexual collaboration reached such a scale that the occupation administration had to somehow deal with the consequences. Since March 1943, in a number of places, the Germans began to pay Russian mothers the children acquired from the Germans in alimony of 200-300 rubles a month.

German brothels, "theaters" and "love" from the underground

The few brothels in the rear could not meet the needs of the Wehrmacht. In addition to the fact that there were not many of them, the Germans could not recruit personnel - the Russians did not go to them, except perhaps those who were engaged in prostitution before the war, but there were not many of them either.

Moreover, the population was extremely negative about the opening of brothels. For example, in Smolensk, only prostitutes from France and Poland worked in a brothel for pilot officers, who were brought to Russia especially for this. In brothels in Pskov, local women were recruited - partly forcibly, partly recruiting those who, out of despair, earned their living. The same was true in other occupied cities.

Free prostitution on the streets was also allowed. When in Velikiye Luki the Germans decided to organize a "House of Noble Maidens" (they wanted to call it that!), To manage it they found a certain Drevich, a Jewess who had previously run an underground brothel in Odessa. But it did not work to open the institution - the building selected for this was destroyed by an aerial bomb. After that, the Jewess Drevich was shot by the Germans.

In addition to brothels, the Germans also created "theatrical groups", in fact, engaged in the same satisfaction of the sexual needs of the military. These "cabarets", in which Russian women worked for food, drove along the front line. After dancing and singing, informal communication with drinking began, well, and … I see.

Another category of women who voluntarily got in touch with the Germans were underground workers. The girls endured humiliation and insults to help the partisans. In some cases, everything ended tragically.

According to the recollections of intelligence officer Z. Voskresenskaya ("Now I can tell the truth …"), one such underground worker named Olga was left as a resident in Orel. But they forgot about her, no one read her reports with hard-won information, and after the liberation of Orel she was sentenced to 25 years for “cooperation with the Nazi invaders” - that is, dancing and drinking with the Germans. Only a few years later, Olga managed to achieve a review of the case, release, rehabilitation and the return of her good name.

Children of the occupation: "Germans" and "Fascists"

But most of the German mistresses escaped criminal prosecution. In some cases, it was necessary to endure the contempt of the neighbors. "Litter" - it still sounds rather soft against the background of what they were told.

The children acquired from the Germans were called "fascist", "German", etc. A significant part of the German children were sent to orphanages. Sometimes people treated such women and their children with understanding, and they lived like ordinary Soviet families, usually without a father. Neighbors knew that women were often forced to make contact with the enemy, and it was foolish to blame them. Protect them by the Red Army - nothing would have happened …

How many German children were born during the occupation in the USSR, no one counted. In Norway for 5 years of occupation from the Germans was born approx. 5 thousand babies, in France - approx. 200 thousand. Considering that there were more than 70 million people in the occupation in the USSR, and more than 5 million invaders passed through the Eastern Front, we will not be mistaken if we assume that we are talking about at least several tens of thousands.

In the 2000s. some old German veterans became interested in the children left behind in Russia, sometimes they even found them. But they did not receive favorable answers. One son of a German, whom his biological father and a veteran of the Wehrmacht found in 2011 (see "AiF", No. 29 of 20.07.2011), reacted to the news about his father with the words: “Does he want to see me? He is not my father, but b … fascist. He raped my mother like he raped."

His mother slept with the corporal to feed the sick child. After the war, she was forced to move, and later told her son the truth about his origin. But many children of the occupation did not learn anything.