Page 458 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo II

1098 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

very different women in East and Central Europe whom they met there and who were
4
not able to protect themselves. Thus I want to stay away from simple-minded answers
and rather analyze the Red Army with tools that were given to us by the so-called New
Cultural History, Gender History and the so-called New Research on Violence. 5
In this paper I will not write about my PhD-project or its main questions. In accord-
ance to the scope of the PhD-panel I will rather present some of the sources I use when
addressing these incidents of sexual violence by Red Army soldiers. The reason for that
is that monographs on sexual violence by Soviet soldiers should not only be criticized
6
for their too easy arguments but also for there too easy approach towards their sources.
Therefore I will examine in this paper three sets of sources, that all utter experiences of
rape by Red Army soldiers and therefore have to be viewed when addressing these acts
of violence. All of them contain so-called Ego-documents, personal documents written
by ordinary individuals. My aim is to give some ideas of how different people can re-
member and speak of rape; to show what kind of narrative trends can be found in these
testimonies, and what these narratives are used for. As I will talk about very traumatic
events I hope that this paper employs a sensitive and non-voyeuristic language in regard
to these even if it remains a tightrope walk.
The first set of sources that I will address is what I will call “German sources”. Ger-
man sources are testimonies, diaries and memories, by women from the German majority
society, that is, by women who were not persecuted by the national-socialist institutions
during the Third Reich. In regard to these testimonies I will point to some differences
that become obvious when we compare contemporary diaries by German women from
1944/1945 and their memories about these days. As I will show the women describe
the experienced sexual violence in their diaries in very short and sometimes cynic ways.
It is their memories in which the rapes gain special emphasis as Regina Mühlhäuser, a
7
German historian, has shown already shown some years ago. By pointing to the social-

4 This thesis on the gender-relationships within the Red Army is much broader elaborated in: Kerstin Bischl,
Telling stories. Gender relationships and masculinity in the Red Army 1941-45, in: Röger, Maren; Leiserowitz,
Ruth (Ed.): Women and Men at War – A gender Perspective on World War II and its Aftermath in Central and
Eastern Europe, Osnabrück: fibre 2012, 117-134.
5 The first one to offer such a perspective on war time rape: Gaby Zipfel, “Blood, sperm and tears.” Sexuelle
Gewalt in Kriegen [Sexual Violence in wars], in Mittelweg 36 10, 2001, 3-20; for an overview on cultural
history: Daniel, Ute, Clio unter Kulturschock. Zu den aktuellen Debatten der Geschichtswissenschaft [Clio
under cultural shock. Current debates in historical science], in: Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterrincht,
48, 1997, 195-218; 259 -78; for an overview on the “the New Research on Violence”: Jörg Baberowski,
Gewalt verstehen, in: Zeithistorische Forschungen 5, 2008, 5 -17.
6 For the last two monographs see the reviews by: Maria Daldrup: Rezension zu: von Münch, Ingo: „Frau,
komm!“. Die Massenvergewaltigungen deutscher Frauen und Mädchen 1944/45[Massrapings of German
women and girls], Graz 2009, in: H-Soz-u-Kult, 07.12.2011, http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/
rezensionen/2011-4-171 (05.11.2013); Maren Röger: Rezension zu: Hytrek-Hryciuk, Joanna: „Rosjanie
nadchodzą!“. Ludność niemiecka a żołnierze Armii Radzieckiej (Czerwonej) na Dolnym Śląsku w latach
1945-1948 [The German people and Red Army soldiers in lower Silesia in 1945-1948], Wrocław 2010, in:
sehepunkte 11 (2011), Nr. 12, http://www.sehepunkte.de/2011/12/20994.html (05.11.2013).
7 Regina Mühlhauser, Vergewaltigungen in Deutschland 1945. Nationaler Opferdiskurs [Rape in Germany
1945. A national discourse of victimhood], in: Klaus Naumann (Hg), Nachkrieg in Deutschland, [Afterwar in
Germany], Hamburg 2001, 384–408.