War trophies 1945. War trophies: how Soviet soldiers “robbed” the population of Germany
“Two days later, a Komsomol meeting of the battalion was convened, the battalion commander spoke and told Sadovy’s version, adding that he believed him, and therefore Bronstein was not worthy to be a Komsomol organizer, and his suitability to be an assistant platoon commander should be considered.
I was shocked and didn't know how to justify myself. My attempts to explain myself were thwarted by the presiding political officer, Senior Lieutenant Vasilenko.
My eyes darkened, and some “bunnies” were jumping in them. Blood rushed to my head, and without realizing anything, I jumped into the dugout where our platoon was located, grabbed a captured machine gun and rushed outside.
Seeing the battalion commander, I headed towards him, firing upward. He looked around and, seeing me, rushed to run through the bushes, and at his side dangled a holster with a pistol, which he had forgotten about.
Having given another burst of fire for warning, I calmed down and, realizing that I had done something stupid, went to my company to the foreman. There he handed over his machine gun, and the foreman gave him a glass of vodka.
In the morning a squad came for me and took me to the regimental guardhouse. And three days later I was called to a meeting of the regiment’s Komsomol bureau, where I was expelled from the Komsomol, and by order of the regiment commander, I was deprived of my driver’s license and sent to a rifle unit. They left me the rank of senior sergeant.
Soon Podkolzin informed me that some kind of trophy team was being formed, that is, a team collecting some kind of military trophies, and he recommended me as its deputy commander, to which I, of course, agreed.
Finally, such a team was created, it included forty drivers, some of the most experienced. We were lined up on the street to meet the new commander, whom none of us had seen or known. Finally, an officer came out of the building and I, giving the command to attention, imitating a step, went to meet him.
Raising my hand, saluting, and raising my eyes, I was dumbfounded - my new temporary commander was Captain Yamkova, apparently removed from the post of battalion commander for some actions and sent to the front reserve.
Having received weapons the next day and two Studebakers to boot, we set out for our destination, which was unknown to any of us.
In the evening, while spending the night in a small Polish village, the captain called me to his place and secretly told me that a big offensive was planned soon. And our team is indeed a trophy team, but trophies are German passenger cars, which, as a rule, are destroyed in the heat of battle, and we need to preserve them.
To do this, you should go among the attackers during the battle, capture the cars yourself, set up guards and then send them to their destination. Only he himself, and now me, should know about this on the team. We will inform the rest of this just before the battle in which we have to participate.
Since not every German unit had passenger cars, we would only participate in battles on the instructions of the headquarters of the formation to which we would be assigned.
However, on January 14, 1945, when the offensive of the 1st Belorussian Front began, Captain Yamkov had to make a lot of efforts to prevent us from participating in breakthrough battles, reasonably declaring that there were no passenger cars on the front line of the German defense.
At the same time, on January 17, we all had to participate in an offensive foot battle on the southwestern outskirts of Warsaw together with the first Polish army, half staffed by our guys, and which was tasked with finishing off the encircled garrison.
For this battle, all of us were subsequently awarded a medal for the liberation of Warsaw. But we were unable to find intact cars among the completely destroyed city.
Soon the order came to immediately move to the area of the city of Radom, where the headquarters of the German corps was surrounded in the forest near the village of Pshysykha (as in memory).
We quickly got ready and were already there in the evening. After spending the night in the village, at 7 o’clock in the morning we arrived at the starting point of the upcoming offensive, in a small village called Russian Brody, located on the very edge of the forest.
As we were told, a large column of various vehicles with the property of the corps headquarters entered the forest the day before and, stretching along a wide clearing, found themselves surrounded by our troops.
It was guarded by a covering battalion and scattered small units of German troops who retreated from Radom after its capture. The Germans refused the offer to surrender. Therefore, it was decided to destroy them.
Yamkova went to look for the authorities, questioning the soldiers who were here, and I gathered my guys and again reminded us what to do: stick together, not scatter, and at the same time act in groups of 10 people, listen to the commands of the infantry commanders, and make decisions according to the circumstances and the order of the senior ten.
It began to dawn and finally Yamkova appeared with a pistol in his hand. “Spread out! - he ordered - we will go soon too.” Having taken a pre-agreed position, I listened to the sounds coming from the forest, but everything was quiet. After an infinitely long time, it seemed to me, perhaps 15-20 minutes later, the forest seemed to tremble from the explosions of grenades and machine gun shots. The command “forward” sounded, and the soldiers surrounding me almost ran towards the forest, and we followed them. I ran after the soldiers, holding my machine gun at the ready, trying to follow the trail of the one in front.
There was little snow in the forest, and it was easy to run, but the trees got in the way, and I kept tripping over their roots. How did I feel at that time? Anger and fear at the same time, but the anger was stronger, I wanted to push the trees apart with my hands and quickly get to the Germans.
And the worst thing is the limited visibility in the forest: an enemy appears behind every large tree, and you frantically twist the barrel of your machine gun in different directions.
The first wave of attackers, encountering forest debris and enemy fire, lay down and we too, but not for long. In the rear of the Germans, shots and cries of “Hurray” were heard, and all the soldiers and we stood up in one impulse and rushed forward, avoiding the rubble.
Running from tree to tree, I, along with others, jumped out into a clearing, where the battle was already in full swing, gradually turning into simple destruction of people. Directly opposite me was a large German truck. The driver had already been killed, and his hatless head with red hair stood out clearly in the snow.
Next to the truck stood an Oppel-Kadet passenger car with the door open. Near her in the snow lay a German officer in a fur coat with a collar, but in a cap, and, as it seemed, was aiming at me with a pistol.
Instinctively, I rushed down, simultaneously pressing the trigger of the machine gun. I don’t know who killed him, but when I raised my head, the officer turned over and fell into the snow, and two of our infantrymen were running towards him.
Approaching the car, I examined it, it was intact. The soldiers, having removed the watch from the dead man and shaking out all the small change from his pockets, ran on.
The murdered officer was young and handsome, the pleasant aroma of expensive perfume emanated from his clothes, and my nervous excitement gave way to sadness. The shots died down. I, realizing that now no one would touch the car, walked along the column, looking for my people.
The entire clearing was filled with wounded and killed Germans, and the corpses of drivers were hanging from the cabs. There were few of our soldiers killed here, but in the forest they were encountered literally at every step. The orderlies were already putting the wounded into cars and our Studebakers, which had been temporarily confiscated for this purpose.
We had no serious losses in the group - only three slightly wounded, and the trophies included eleven serviceable passenger cars of various brands, suitable for driving under their own power. The very next day, among the corpses that had not yet been removed, Polish marauders worked, avoiding meeting us, loading their carts with German junk.
After a ten-day business trip, we returned to the 29th reserve automobile regiment, and three days later, me and seven other drivers familiar with foreign cars were sent to the 41st Red Banner Automobile Regiment of the 5th Shock Army.
The battalion, commanded by Major Chirkov, was assigned to the newly organized forward detachment of the army for operational operations ahead of our main forces and consisted of an infantry regiment, a tank brigade, mortars and some other military units.
Our army could not keep up with the rapidly retreating Germans. The rear was catastrophically behind, the soldiers did not receive hot food, and it was impossible to stockpile ammunition, which is why this group was created.
Having placed infantry soldiers on the vehicles, she was constantly in contact with the enemy, along the way capturing small German cities where our troops were not expected to arrive.
I remember one episode when our small detachment, where I was, consisting of fifteen vehicles with soldiers and three guns, drove into some town and stopped in its center.
There were shops here, there were buses, there were policemen at the intersections, and there were a lot of people on the street, and you could call Berlin from pay phones on the street. We looked at it all in shock.
The soldiers began to jump from their vehicles, and the city was instantly empty. The streets were covered with white sheets hung from windows, balconies and even on entrance doors.
So, without encountering serious resistance, we reached the Oder River, north of the fortified city of Küstrin, and even captured a bridgehead on the western bank of the river. Küstrin itself was captured only in March, and the bridgehead was held until April by the entire army." - From the memoirs of senior sergeant of a separate auto regiment V. Bronstein.
According to the Russophobes, the Red Army soldier captured in an archival photograph takes away her bicycle from a German woman. Russophiles may object: the liberating soldier helps the cyclist straighten the handlebars. It is unlikely that it will be possible to find out what the heroes of this photograph, taken in the German capital in August 1945, are actually doing.
For an idea of prices. Certificate of purchase by a Soviet colonel from a German of a car for 2,500 marks (750 Soviet rubles)
The Soviet military received a lot of money - on the “black market” an officer could buy himself whatever his heart desired for one month’s salary. In addition, the servicemen were paid their debts in salary for past times, and they had plenty of money even if they sent home a ruble certificate. Therefore, the risk of “getting caught” and being punished for looting was simply stupid and unnecessary. And although there were certainly plenty of greedy fools, they were the exception rather than the rule.
A Soviet soldier with an SS dagger attached to his belt. Pardubicky, Czechoslovakia, May 1945
The report of the 7th branch of the Political Department of the 61st Army of the 1st Belorussian Front dated May 11, 1945, “On the work of the American army and military authorities among the German population,” reported:
“American soldiers and officers are prohibited from communicating with the local population. This ban, however, is being violated. Recently there have been up to 100 cases of rape, although rape is punishable by execution.”
At the end of April 1945, Hans Jendretsky, released from prison by the Western Allies, reported on the situation in the zone of Germany occupied by American troops:
“Most of the occupation troops in the Erlangen area to Bamberg and in Bamberg itself were Negro units. These Negro units were located mainly in those places where there was great resistance. I was told about such atrocities of these Negroes as robbing apartments, taking away decorations , destruction of residential premises and attacks on children.
In Bamberg, in front of the school building where these blacks were quartered, lay three shot blacks, who some time ago had been shot by a military police patrol for attacking children. But white American troops also committed similar atrocities..."
Australian war correspondent Osmar White, who in 1944-1945. was in Europe in the ranks of the 3rd American Army under the command of George Paton wrote:
“After the fighting moved to German soil, many rapes were committed by front-line soldiers and those directly behind them.
Their number depended on the attitude of senior officers to this. In some cases, the perpetrators were identified, prosecuted and punished.
Lawyers remained secretive, but admitted that some soldiers were shot for cruel and perverted sexual acts with German women (especially in cases where they were blacks). However, I knew that many women had also been raped by white Americans. No action was taken against the criminals.
On one sector of the front, one rather distinguished commander wittily remarked: “Copulation without conversation is not fraternization with the enemy!”
Another officer once dryly remarked about the anti-fraternization order: “This is certainly the first time in history that a serious effort has been made to deny soldiers the right to women in a defeated country.”
An intelligent, middle-aged Austrian woman from Bad Homburg said: “Of course, the soldiers take women... After the occupation of this city, for many nights we were woken up by soldiers knocking on the door and demanding Fraulen. Sometimes they broke into the house by force. Sometimes the women managed to hide or run away."
The “ban on fraternization” (no-fraternization rule), proclaimed immediately after the Americans entered German territory, never took effect. It was absurdly artificial, and it was simply impossible to put it into effect. It was originally aimed at preventing British and American soldiers from cohabiting with German women.
But as soon as the fighting ended and the troops were stationed at their permanent locations, a significant number of officers and soldiers, especially from the military administration, began to establish relationships of all categories with German women - from going to prostitutes to normal affairs...
After several miserable and pointless military trials of scapegoats, the “ban on fraternization” became an empty phrase.
As far as I know, soldiers from the American division that liberated Buchenwald in April were sleeping with German women by the end of May. They boasted about it themselves.
When the camp was cleared and turned into a center for displaced people, the rows of barracks where hundreds of Eastern Europeans died of starvation and disease were furnished with furniture looted from Weimar and turned into a brothel. He prospered and supplied the camp with countless canned goods and cigarettes."
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Austin Epp's 1946 pamphlet "The Rape of the Women of Conquered Europe" published in the USA contains several reports from the American and English press:
“John Dos Passos, in Life magazine, January 7, 1946, quotes the “red-cheeked major” as declaring that “lust, whiskey and robbery are a soldier’s reward.”
One serviceman wrote in Time magazine on November 12, 1945: “Many normal American families would be horrified if they knew with what complete insensitivity to all human things our boys behaved here...”
Edward Wise wrote in his diary: “We moved to Oberhunden. The colored guys created a hell of a mess here. They set fire to houses, slaughtered all the Germans with razors and raped them.”
An army sergeant wrote: "Both our army and the British army... have had their share of robbery and rape... Although these crimes are not characteristic of our troops, yet their percentage is large enough to give our army a sinister reputation, so We too can be considered an army of rapists."
The German daily ration set by the Western occupation authorities was lower than the American breakfast. Therefore, the entry characterizing military prostitution does not seem accidental:
“On December 5, 1945, the Christian Century reported: “The American chief of military police, Lieutenant Colonel Gerald F. Bean, said that rape was not a problem for military police because a little food, a bar of chocolate or a bar of soap made rape unnecessary. Think about this if you want to understand the situation in Germany."
According to Time magazine on September 17, 1945, the government supplied soldiers with approximately 50 million condoms a month, with picturesque illustrations of how to use them. In effect, the soldiers were told: "Teach these Germans a lesson - and have a nice time!"
The author of one of the articles in the New York World Telegram dated January 21, 1945 stated: “Americans look at German women as prey, like cameras and Lugers.”
Dr. G. Stewart, in a medical report submitted to General Eisenhower, reported that during the first six months of the American occupation the rate of venereal diseases increased twenty times the level that had previously existed in Germany."
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The “paradise life” in the western zone of occupation turned out to be such that even refugees frightened by propaganda about Russian atrocities gradually returned to areas occupied by Soviet troops.
Thus, in the report of I. Serov to L. Beria dated June 4, 1945, on the work carried out for the month of May to provide for the population of Berlin, it was said:
“By interviewing returning Berliners, it was established that Germans living on Allied territory were subjected to cruel treatment by British and American troops, and therefore they were returning to our territory.
In addition, the German population, living on Allied territory, is already experiencing food shortages. Within a month from the moment the Soviet troops occupied Berlin, about 800 thousand people returned to the city, having fled with the retreating German units, as a result of which the number of its inhabitants increased to 3 million 100 thousand people. On our side, the population is supplied with bread regularly, according to established standards, and there were no interruptions during this time."
The first burgomaster of Bonnac (Lichtenberg district) stated, commenting on the food standards introduced by the Russian command for the residents of Berlin:
“Everyone says that such high standards amazed us. Especially high standards for bread. Everyone understands that we cannot claim such food as was established by the Russian command, therefore, with the arrival of the Red Army, we expected starvation and the sending of the survivors to Siberia After all, this is truly generosity when we are convinced in practice that the standards established now are higher than even under Hitler...
The population fears only one thing - whether these areas will go to the Americans and the British. This will be extremely unpleasant. One cannot expect good supplies from the Americans and the British."
A resident of the city of Hoffmann, in a conversation with his neighbors, said this: “From the stories of Germans arriving in Berlin from the territory occupied by the Allies, it is known that they treat the Germans very badly, beat women with whips. The Russians are better, they treat the Germans well and give food. I I wish there were only Russians in Berlin."
The German woman Eda, who returned to Berlin, spoke about the same thing based on her own experience among her neighbors: “In the territory occupied by the Allies, life is very difficult for the Germans, since the attitude is bad - they often beat with sticks and whips.
Civilians are only allowed to walk at designated times. No food is provided. “A lot of Germans are trying to cross into the territory occupied by the Red Army, but they are not allowed in.”
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Chief Corporal Kopiske recalled: “We went to the village of Mecklenburg... There I saw the first “Tommies” - three guys with a light machine gun, apparently a machine gun squad.
They lounged lazily on a haystack and didn’t even show any interest in me. The machine gun was on the ground. Everywhere crowds of people were heading west, some even on carts, but the British clearly didn’t care.
One was playing a song on a harmonica. This was only the advance detachment. Either they simply didn’t take us into account anymore, or they had their own, special idea of waging war.
A little further, at the railway crossing in front of the village, we were met by a post for collecting weapons and watches. I thought I was dreaming: civilized, prosperous Englishmen taking watches from mud-covered German soldiers!
From there we were sent to the schoolyard in the center of the village. Quite a few German soldiers had already gathered there. The Englishmen guarding us rolled chewing gum between their teeth - which was new to us - and boasted to each other about their trophies, raising their hands high, covered in wristwatches."
From the memoirs of Osmar White: “Victory meant the right to spoils. The winners took from the enemy everything they liked: booze, cigars, cameras, binoculars, pistols, hunting rifles, decorative swords and daggers, silver jewelry, dishes, furs.
The military police paid no attention to this until predatory liberators (usually auxiliary soldiers and transport workers) began stealing expensive cars, antique furniture, radios, tools and other industrial equipment and coming up with cunning methods of smuggling the stolen goods to the coast so that and then transport it to England.
Only after the fighting ended, when the robbery had turned into an organized criminal racket, did the military command intervene and establish law and order. Before that, the soldiers took what they wanted, and the Germans had a hard time.”
Let's talk about the trophies of the Red Army, which the Soviet victors took home from defeated Germany. Let's talk calmly, without emotions - only photographs and facts. Then we will touch on the sensitive issue of rape of German women and go through facts from the life of occupied Germany.
A Soviet soldier takes a bicycle from a German woman (according to Russophobes), or a Soviet soldier helps a German woman straighten the steering wheel (according to Russophiles). Berlin, August 1945. (as it actually happened, in the investigation below)
But the truth, as always, is in the middle, and it lies in the fact that in abandoned German houses and shops, Soviet soldiers took everything they liked, but the Germans had quite a bit of brazen robbery. Looting, of course, happened, but sometimes people were tried for it in a show trial at a tribunal. And none of the soldiers wanted to go through the war alive, and because of some junk and the next round of struggle for friendship with the local population, to go not home as a winner, but to Siberia as a condemned man.
Soviet soldiers buy up on the “black market” in the Tiergarten garden. Berlin, summer 1945.
Although the junk was valuable. After the Red Army entered German territory, by order of the USSR NKO No. 0409 dated December 26, 1944. All military personnel on active fronts were allowed to send one personal parcel to the Soviet rear once a month.
The most severe punishment was deprivation of the right to this parcel, the weight of which was established: for privates and sergeants - 5 kg, for officers - 10 kg and for generals - 16 kg. The size of the parcel could not exceed 70 cm in each of three dimensions, but large equipment, carpets, furniture, and even pianos were sent home in various ways.
Upon demobilization, officers and soldiers were allowed to take away everything that they could take with them on the road in their personal luggage. At the same time, large items were often transported home, secured to the roofs of the trains, and the Poles were left to the task of pulling them along the train with ropes and hooks (my grandfather told me).
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Three Soviet women kidnapped in Germany carry wine from an abandoned wine store. Lippstadt, April 1945.
During the war and the first months after its end, soldiers mainly sent non-perishable provisions to their families in the rear (American dry rations, consisting of canned food, biscuits, powdered eggs, jam, and even instant coffee, were considered the most valuable). The Allied medicinal drugs, streptomycin and penicillin, were also highly valued.
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American soldiers and young German women combine trading and flirting on the “black market” in the Tiergarten garden.
The Soviet military in the background in the market has no time for nonsense. Berlin, May 1945.
And it was possible to get it only on the “black market”, which instantly appeared in every German city. At flea markets you could buy everything from cars to women, and the most common currency was tobacco and food.
The Germans needed food, but the Americans, British and French were only interested in money - in Germany at that time there were Nazi Reichsmarks, occupation stamps of the victors, and foreign currencies of the allied countries, on whose exchange rates big money was made.
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An American soldier bargains with a Soviet junior lieutenant. LIFE photo from September 10, 1945.
But the Soviet soldiers had funds. According to the Americans, they were the best buyers - gullible, bad bargainers and very rich. Indeed, since December 1944, Soviet military personnel in Germany began to receive double pay, both in rubles and in marks at the exchange rate (this double payment system will be abolished much later).
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Photos of Soviet soldiers bargaining at a flea market. LIFE photo from September 10, 1945.
The salary of Soviet military personnel depended on the rank and position held. Thus, a major, deputy military commandant, received 1,500 rubles in 1945. per month and for the same amount in occupation marks at the exchange rate. In addition, officers from the position of company commander and above were paid money to hire German servants.
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For an idea of prices. Certificate of purchase by a Soviet colonel from a German of a car for 2,500 marks (750 Soviet rubles)
The Soviet military received a lot of money - on the “black market” an officer could buy himself whatever his heart desired for one month’s salary. In addition, the servicemen were paid their debts in salary for past times, and they had plenty of money even if they sent home a ruble certificate.
Therefore, taking the risk of “getting caught” and being punished for looting was simply stupid and unnecessary. And although there were certainly plenty of greedy marauding fools, they were the exception rather than the rule.
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A Soviet soldier with an SS dagger attached to his belt. Pardubicky, Czechoslovakia, May 1945.
The soldiers were different, and their tastes were also different. Some, for example, really valued these German SS (or naval, flight) daggers, although they had no practical use. As a child, I held one such SS dagger in my hands (my grandfather’s friend brought it from the war) - its black and silver beauty and ominous history fascinated me.
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Great Patriotic War veteran Pyotr Patsienko with a captured Admiral Solo accordion. Grodno, Belarus, May 2013
But the majority of Soviet soldiers valued everyday clothes, accordions, watches, cameras, radios, crystal, porcelain, with which the shelves of Soviet thrift stores were littered for many years after the war.
Many of those things have survived to this day, and do not rush to accuse their old owners of looting - no one will know the true circumstances of their acquisition, but most likely they were simply and simply bought from the Germans by the winners.
On the question of one historical falsification, or about the photograph “A Soviet soldier takes away a bicycle.”
This well-known photograph is traditionally used to illustrate articles about the atrocities of Soviet soldiers in Berlin. This topic comes up with amazing consistency year after year on Victory Day.
The photo itself is published, as a rule, with a caption "A Soviet soldier takes a bicycle from a Berlin resident". There are also signatures from the cycle "Looting flourished in Berlin in 1945" etc.
There is heated debate about the photograph itself and what is captured on it. The arguments of opponents of the version of “looting and violence” that I have come across on the Internet, unfortunately, do not sound convincing. Of these, we can highlight, firstly, calls not to make judgments based on one photograph. Secondly, an indication of the poses of the German woman, the soldier and other persons in the frame. In particular, from the calmness of the supporting characters it follows that this is not about violence, but about an attempt to straighten some bicycle part.
Finally, doubts are being raised that it is a Soviet soldier who is captured in the photograph: the roll over the right shoulder, the roll itself is of a very strange shape, the cap on the head is too large, etc. In addition, in the background, right behind the soldier, if you look closely, you can see a military man in a clearly non-Soviet uniform.
But, let me emphasize once again, all these versions do not seem convincing enough to me.
In general, I decided to look into this story. The photograph, I reasoned, clearly must have an author, must have a primary source, the first publication, and - most likely - an original signature. Which may shed light on what is shown in the photograph.
If we take literature, as far as I remember, I came across this photograph in the catalog of the Documentary Exhibition for the 50th anniversary of the German attack on the Soviet Union. The exhibition itself was opened in 1991 in Berlin in the “Topography of Terror” hall, then, as far as I know, it was exhibited in St. Petersburg. Its catalog in Russian, “Germany’s War against the Soviet Union 1941-1945,” was published in 1994.
I don’t have this catalogue, but luckily my colleague did. Indeed, the photograph you are looking for is published on page 257. Traditional signature: "A Soviet soldier takes a bicycle from a Berlin resident, 1945."
Apparently, this catalog, published in 1994, became the Russian primary source of the photography we needed. At least on a number of old resources, dating back to the early 2000s, I came across this picture with a link to “Germany’s war against the Soviet Union..” and with a signature familiar to us. It looks like that's where the photo is wandering around the internet.
The catalog lists the Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz as the source of the photo - the Photo Archive of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. The archive has a website, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not find the photo I needed on it.
But in the process of searching, I came across the same photograph in the archives of Life magazine. In the Life version it is called "Bike Fight".
Please note that the photo here is not cropped at the edges, as in the exhibition catalogue. New interesting details emerge, for example, on the left behind you you can see an officer, and, moreover, not a German officer:
But the main thing is the signature!
A Russian soldier involved in a misunderstanding with a German woman in Berlin, over a bicycle he wished to buy from her.
“There was a misunderstanding between a Russian soldier and a German woman in Berlin over a bicycle that he wanted to buy from her.”
In general, I will not bore the reader with the nuances of further searching using the keywords “misunderstanding”, “German woman”, “Berlin”, “Soviet soldier”, “Russian soldier”, etc. I found the original photo and the original signature underneath it. The photo belongs to the American company Corbis. Here he is:
As it is not difficult to notice, here the photo is complete, on the right and left there are details cut off in the “Russian version” and even in the Life version. These details are very important, as they give the picture a completely different mood.
And finally, the original signature:
Russian Soldier Tries to Buy Bicycle from Woman in Berlin, 1945
A misunderstanding ensues after a Russian soldier tries to buy a bike from a German woman in Berlin. After giving her money for the bike, the soldier assumes the deal has been struck. However the woman doesn't seem convinced.
A Russian soldier tries to buy a bicycle from a woman in Berlin, 1945
The misunderstanding happened after a Russian soldier tried to buy a bicycle from a German woman in Berlin. Having given her the money for the bicycle, he believes that the deal has been completed. However, the woman thinks differently.
That's how things are, dear friends.
All around, wherever you look, lies, lies, lies...
So who raped all the German women?
From an article by Sergei Manukov.
Criminology professor Robert Lilly from the United States checked American military archives and concluded that by November 1945, the tribunals had examined 11,040 cases of serious sexual offenses committed by American military personnel in Germany. Other historians from Great Britain, France and America agree that the Western allies were also “giving up.”
For a long time, Western historians have been trying to place blame on Soviet soldiers using evidence that no court will accept.
The most vivid idea of them is given by one of the main arguments of the British historian and writer Antony Beevor, one of the most famous specialists in the West on the history of the Second World War.
He believed that Western soldiers, especially the American military, did not need to rape German women, because they had plenty of the most popular goods with which it was possible to obtain the Fraulein's consent to sex: canned food, coffee, cigarettes, nylon stockings, etc. .
Western historians believe that the overwhelming majority of sexual contacts between the victors and German women were voluntary, i.e. that it was the most common prostitution.
It is no coincidence that a popular joke was popular in those days: “It took the Americans six years to cope with the German armies, but a day and a bar of chocolate were enough to conquer German women.”
However, the picture was not nearly as rosy as Antony Beevor and his supporters try to imagine. Post-war society was unable to differentiate between voluntary and forced sexual contacts between women who gave themselves up because they were starving and those who were victims of rape at gunpoint or machine gun.
That this is an overly idealized picture was loudly stated by Miriam Gebhardt, a history professor at the University of Konstanz, in southwest Germany.
Of course, when writing a new book, she was least of all driven by the desire to protect and whitewash Soviet soldiers. The main motive is the establishment of truth and historical justice.
Miriam Gebhardt found several victims of the "exploits" of American, British and French soldiers and interviewed them.
Here is the story of one of the women who suffered from the Americans:
Six American soldiers arrived in the village when it was already getting dark and entered the house where Katerina V. lived with her 18-year-old daughter Charlotte. The women managed to escape just before the uninvited guests appeared, but they did not think of giving up. Obviously, this was not the first time they had done this.
The Americans began to search all the houses one after another and finally, almost at midnight, they found the fugitives in a neighbor’s closet. They pulled them out, threw them on the bed and raped them. Instead of chocolates and nylon stockings, the uniformed rapists took out pistols and machine guns.
This gang rape took place in March 1945, a month and a half before the end of the war. Charlotte, in horror, called her mother for help, but Katerina could do nothing to help her.
The book contains many similar cases. All of them occurred in the south of Germany, in the zone of occupation of American troops, whose number was 1.6 million people.
In the spring of 1945, the Archbishop of Munich and Freising ordered the priests under him to document all events related to the occupation of Bavaria. Several years ago, part of the archives from 1945 was published.
The priest Michael Merxmüller from the village of Ramsau, which is located near Berchtesgaden, wrote on July 20, 1945: “Eight girls and women were raped, some right in front of their parents.”
Father Andreas Weingand from Haag an der Ampere, a tiny village located on what is now Munich Airport, wrote on July 25, 1945:
“The saddest event during the American offensive was three rapes. Drunk soldiers raped one married woman, one unmarried woman and a girl of 16 and a half years old.
“By order of the military authorities,” wrote priest Alois Schiml from Moosburg on August 1, 1945, “a list of all residents with an indication of age should hang on the door of every house. 17 raped girls and women were admitted to the hospital. Among them are those whom American soldiers raped many times."
From the priests' reports it followed: the youngest Yankee victim was 7 years old, and the oldest was 69.
The book "When the Soldiers Came" appeared on bookstore shelves in early March and immediately caused heated debate. There is nothing surprising in this, because Frau Gebhardt dared to make attempts, and at a time of strong aggravation of relations between the West and Russia, to try to equate those who started the war with those who suffered the most from it.
Despite the fact that Gebhardt’s book focuses on the exploits of the Yankees, the rest of the Western allies, of course, also performed “feats.” Although, compared to the Americans, they caused much less mischief.
The Americans raped 190 thousand German women.
According to the author of the book, British soldiers behaved best in Germany in 1945, but not because of any innate nobility or, say, a gentleman’s code of conduct.
British officers turned out to be more decent than their colleagues from other armies, who not only strictly forbade their subordinates to molest German women, but also watched them very closely.
As for the French, their situation, just like in the case of our soldiers, is somewhat different. France was occupied by the Germans, although, of course, the occupation of France and Russia, as they say, are two big differences.
In addition, most of the rapists in the French army were Africans, i.e., people from French colonies on the Dark Continent. By and large, they didn’t care who to take revenge on - the main thing was that the women were white.
The French especially “distinguished themselves” in Stuttgart. They herded the residents of Stuttgart onto the subway and staged a three-day orgy of violence. According to various sources, during this time from 2 to 4 thousand German women were raped.
Just like the eastern allies they met on the Elbe, American soldiers were horrified by the crimes the Germans had committed and embittered by their stubbornness and desire to defend their homeland to the end.
American propaganda also played a role, instilling in them that German women were crazy about liberators from overseas. This further fueled the erotic fantasies of the warriors deprived of female affection.
Miriam Gebhardt's seeds fell into the prepared soil. Following the crimes committed by American troops several years ago in Afghanistan and Iraq, and especially in the notorious Iraqi prison Abu Ghraib, many Western historians have become more critical of the behavior of the Yankees before and after the end of the war.
Researchers are increasingly finding documents in the archives, for example, about the looting of churches in Italy by Americans, the murders of civilians and German prisoners, as well as the rape of Italian women.
However, attitudes towards the American military are changing extremely slowly. The Germans continue to treat them as disciplined and decent (especially compared to the Allies) soldiers who gave chewing gum to children and stockings to women.
Of course, the evidence presented by Miriam Gebhardt in the book “When the Military Came” did not convince everyone. It is not surprising, given that no one kept any statistics and all calculations and figures are approximate and speculative.
Anthony Beevor and his supporters ridiculed Professor Gebhardt’s calculations: “It is almost impossible to get accurate and reliable figures, but I think that hundreds of thousands are a clear exaggeration.
Even if we take the number of children born to German women from Americans as a basis for calculations, we should remember that many of them were conceived as a result of voluntary sex, and not rape. Don’t forget that at the gates of American military camps and bases in those years, German women crowded from morning to night.”
Miriam Gebhardt’s conclusions, and especially her numbers, can, of course, be doubted, but even the most ardent defenders of American soldiers are unlikely to argue with the assertion that they were not as “fluffy” and kind as most Western historians try to make them out to be.
If only because they left a “sexual” mark not only in hostile Germany, but also in allied France. American soldiers raped thousands of French women whom they liberated from the Germans.
If in the book “When the Soldiers Came” a history professor from Germany accuses the Yankees, then in the book “What the Soldiers Did” this is done by the American Mary Roberts, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin.
"My book debunks the old myth about American soldiers, who by all accounts always behaved well," she says. "Americans had sex everywhere and with everyone who was wearing a skirt."
It is more difficult to argue with Professor Roberts than with Gebhardt, because she did not present conclusions and calculations, but exclusively facts. The main one is archival documents according to which 152 American soldiers were convicted of rape in France, and 29 of them were hanged.
The numbers are, of course, minuscule compared to neighboring Germany, even if we consider that behind each case lies a human fate, but it must be remembered that these are only official statistics and that they represent only the tip of the iceberg.
Without much risk of error, we can assume that only a few victims filed complaints against the liberators to the police. Most often, shame prevented them from going to the police, because in those days rape was a stigma of shame for a woman.
In France, rapists from overseas had other motives. To many of them, the rape of French women seemed like something of an amorous adventure.
Many American soldiers had fathers who fought in France in World War I. Their stories probably inspired many military men from General Eisenhower’s army to have romantic adventures with attractive French women. Many Americans considered France to be something of a huge brothel.
Military magazines such as Stars and Stripes also contributed. They printed photographs of laughing French women kissing their liberators. They also printed phrases in French that might be useful when communicating with French women: “I’m not married,” “You have beautiful eyes,” “You are very beautiful,” etc.
Journalists almost directly advised the soldiers to take what they liked. It is not surprising that after the Allied landings in Normandy in the summer of 1944, northern France was overwhelmed by a “tsunami of male lust and lust.”
The liberators from overseas especially distinguished themselves in Le Havre. The city archive contains letters from Havre residents to the mayor with complaints about “a wide variety of crimes that are committed day and night.”
Most often, residents of Le Havre complained of rape, often in front of others, although there were, of course, robberies and thefts.
The Americans behaved in France as if they were a conquered country. It is clear that the attitude of the French towards them was corresponding. Many French residents considered the liberation a “second occupation.” And often more cruel than the first, German one.
They say that French prostitutes often remembered German clients with kind words, because Americans were often interested in more than just sex. With the Yankees, girls also had to watch their wallets. The liberators did not disdain banal theft and robbery.
Meetings with the Americans were life-threatening. 29 American soldiers were sentenced to death for the murders of French prostitutes.
In order to cool down the heated soldiers, the command distributed leaflets among the personnel condemning rape. The military prosecutor's office was not particularly strict. They judged only those who were simply impossible not to judge. The racist sentiments that reigned in America at that time are also clearly visible: of the 152 soldiers and officers who were court-martialed, 139 were blacks.
What was life like in occupied Germany?
After World War II, Germany was divided into occupation zones. Today you can read and hear different opinions about how life was lived in them. Often the exact opposite.
Denazification and re-education
The first task that the Allies set for themselves after the defeat of Germany was the denazification of the German population. The entire adult population of the country completed a survey prepared by the Control Council for Germany. The questionnaire "Erhebungsformular MG/PS/G/9a" had 131 questions. The survey was voluntary-compulsory.
Refuseniks were deprived of food cards.
Based on the survey, all Germans are divided into “not involved,” “acquitted,” “fellow travelers,” “guilty,” and “highly guilty.” Citizens from the last three groups were brought before the court, which determined the extent of guilt and punishment. The “guilty” and “highly guilty” were sent to internment camps; “fellow travelers” could atone for their guilt with a fine or property.
It is clear that this technique was imperfect. Mutual responsibility, corruption and insincerity of the respondents made denazification ineffective. Hundreds of thousands of Nazis managed to avoid trial using forged documents along the so-called “rat trails.”
The Allies also carried out a large-scale campaign in Germany to re-educate the Germans. Movies about Nazi atrocities were continuously shown in cinemas. Residents of Germany were also required to attend sessions. Otherwise, they could lose the same food cards. The Germans were also taken on excursions to former concentration camps and involved in the work carried out there. For most of the civilian population, the information received was shocking. Goebbels's propaganda during the war years told them about a completely different Nazism.
Demilitarization
According to the decision of the Potsdam Conference, Germany was to undergo demilitarization, which included the dismantling of military factories.
The Western allies adopted the principles of demilitarization in their own way: in their occupation zones they were not only in no hurry to dismantle factories, but also actively restored them, while trying to increase the metal smelting quota and wanting to preserve the military potential of Western Germany.
By 1947, in the British and American zones alone, more than 450 military factories were hidden from accounting.
The Soviet Union was more honest in this regard. According to historian Mikhail Semiryagi, in one year after March 1945, the highest authorities of the Soviet Union made about a thousand decisions related to the dismantling of 4,389 enterprises from Germany, Austria, Hungary and other European countries. However, this number cannot be compared with the number of facilities destroyed by the war in the USSR.
The number of German enterprises dismantled by the USSR was less than 14% of the pre-war number of factories. According to Nikolai Voznesensky, then chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee, supplies of captured equipment from Germany covered only 0.6% of direct damage to the USSR
Marauding
The topic of looting and violence against civilians in post-war Germany is still controversial.
A lot of documents have been preserved indicating that the Western allies exported property from defeated Germany literally by ship.
Marshal Zhukov also “distinguished himself” in collecting trophies.
When he fell out of favor in 1948, investigators began to “dekulakize” him. The confiscation resulted in 194 pieces of furniture, 44 carpets and tapestries, 7 boxes of crystal, 55 museum paintings and much more. All this was exported from Germany.
As for the soldiers and officers of the Red Army, according to the available documents, not many cases of looting were registered. The victorious Soviet soldiers were more likely to engage in applied “junk,” that is, they were engaged in collecting ownerless property. When the Soviet command allowed parcels to be sent home, boxes with sewing needles, fabric scraps, and working tools went to the Union. At the same time, our soldiers had a rather disgusting attitude towards all these things. In letters to their relatives, they made excuses for all this “junk.”
Strange calculations
The most problematic topic is the topic of violence against civilians, especially German women. Up until perestroika, the number of German women subjected to violence was small: from 20 to 150 thousand throughout Germany.
In 1992, a book by two feminists, Helke Sander and Barbara Yohr, “Liberators and the Liberated,” was published in Germany, where a different figure appeared: 2 million.
These figures were “exaggerated” and were based on statistical data from only one German clinic, multiplied by a hypothetical number of women. In 2002, Anthony Beevor's book “The Fall of Berlin” was published, where this figure also appeared. In 2004, this book was published in Russia, giving rise to the myth of the cruelty of Soviet soldiers in occupied Germany.
In fact, according to the documents, such facts were considered “extraordinary incidents and immoral phenomena.” Violence against the civilian population of Germany was fought at all levels, and looters and rapists were put on trial. There are still no exact figures on this issue, not all documents have yet been declassified, but the report of the military prosecutor of the 1st Belorussian Front on illegal actions against the civilian population for the period from April 22 to May 5, 1945 contains the following figures: for seven armies front, for 908.5 thousand people, 124 crimes were recorded, of which 72 were rapes. 72 cases per 908.5 thousand. What two million are we talking about?
There was also looting and violence against civilians in the western occupation zones. Mortarman Naum Orlov wrote in his memoirs: “The British guarding us rolled chewing gum between their teeth - which was new to us - and boasted to each other about their trophies, raising their hands high, covered in wristwatches...”.
Osmar Wyatt, an Australian war correspondent who could hardly be suspected of partiality towards Soviet soldiers, wrote in 1945: “Severe discipline reigns in the Red Army. There are no more robberies, rapes and abuses here than in any other zone of occupation. Wild stories of atrocities emerge from the exaggerations and distortions of individual cases, influenced by nervousness caused by the excess of manners of Russian soldiers and their love of vodka. One woman who told me most of the hair-raising tales of Russian atrocities was finally forced to admit that the only evidence she had seen with her own eyes was drunken Russian officers firing pistols into the air and at bottles..."
Soviet soldiers exported a huge number of trophies from occupied Germany: from tapestries and sets to cars and armored vehicles. Among them were those who were imprinted in history for a long time...
Mercedes for the marshal
Marshal Zhukov knew a lot about trophies. When in 1948 he fell out of favor with the leader, investigators began to “dekulakize” him. The confiscation resulted in 194 pieces of furniture, 44 carpets and tapestries, 7 boxes of crystal, 55 museum paintings and much more.
But during the war, the marshal acquired a much more valuable “gift” - an armored Mercedes, designed by order of Hitler “for the people needed by the Reich.” 
Zhukov did not like Willis, and the shortened Mercedes-Benz 770k sedan came in handy. The marshal used this fast and safe car with a 400-horsepower engine almost everywhere - he only refused to ride in it when accepting surrender.
The car came to the marshal in mid-1944, but no one knows how. Perhaps according to one of the proven schemes. It is known that our commanders loved to show off in front of each other, driving up to meetings in the most exquisite captured cars. 
While the cars were waiting for their owners, senior officers sent their subordinates to find out the ownership of the car: if the owner turned out to be a junior in rank, an order followed to drive the car to a specific headquarters.
In "German armor"
It is known that the Red Army fought with captured armored vehicles, but few people know that they did this already in the first days of the war. 
Thus, the “combat log of the 34th Panzer Division” speaks of the capture of 12 destroyed German tanks on June 28-29, 1941, which were used “for firing from the spot at enemy artillery.” During one of the counterattacks of the Western Front on July 7, military technician Ryazanov broke through into the German rear on his T-26 tank and fought with the enemy for 24 hours. He returned to his family in a captured Pz. III".
Along with tanks, the Soviet military often used German self-propelled guns. For example, in August 1941, during the defense of Kyiv, two fully operational StuG IIIs were captured. Junior Lieutenant Klimov fought very successfully with self-propelled guns: in one of the battles, while in StuG III, in one day of battle he destroyed two German tanks, an armored personnel carrier and two trucks, for which he was awarded the Order of the Red Star. 
Captured tank Pz.Kpfw. IV German production as part of a tank company of the Red Army
In general, during the war years, domestic repair plants brought back to life at least 800 German tanks and self-propelled guns. The Wehrmacht's armored vehicles were adopted and were used even after the war.
The sad fate of the U-250
On July 30, 1944, the German submarine U-250 was sunk by Soviet boats in the Gulf of Finland. The decision to raise it was made almost immediately, but the rocky shoal at a depth of 33 meters and German bombs greatly delayed the process. Only on September 14, the submarine was raised and towed to Kronstadt.
During the inspection of the compartments, valuable documents, an Enigma-M encryption machine, and T-5 homing acoustic torpedoes were discovered. However, the Soviet command was more interested in the boat itself - as an example of German shipbuilding. The German experience was going to be adopted in the USSR. 
On April 20, 1945, the U-250 joined the USSR Navy under the name TS-14 (captured medium), but it could not be used due to the lack of necessary spare parts. After 4 months, the submarine was removed from the lists and sent for scrap.
The fate of "Dora"
When Soviet troops reached the German training ground in Hilbersleben, many valuable finds awaited them, but the attention of the military and Stalin personally was especially drawn to the super-heavy 800-mm artillery gun "Dora", developed by the Krupp company. 
This gun, the fruit of many years of research, cost the German treasury 10 million Reichsmarks. The gun owes its name to the wife of chief designer Erich Müller. The project was prepared in 1937, but only in 1941 the first prototype was released.
The characteristics of the giant are still amazing: “Dora” fired 7.1-ton concrete-piercing and 4.8-ton high-explosive shells, its barrel length was 32.5 m, its weight was 400 tons, its vertical guidance angle was 65°, its range was 45 km. The lethality was also impressive: armor 1 m thick, concrete – 7 m, hard ground – 30 m. 
The speed of the projectile was such that first an explosion was heard, then the whistle of a flying warhead, and only then the sound of a shot was heard.
The history of "Dora" ended in 1960: the gun was cut into pieces and melted down in the open-hearth furnace of the Barrikady plant. The shells were detonated at the Prudboya training ground.
Dresden Gallery: round trip
The search for paintings from the Dresden Gallery was similar to a detective story, but it ended successfully, and ultimately the paintings of European masters arrived safely in Moscow. The Berlin newspaper Tagesspiel then wrote: “These things were taken as compensation for the destroyed Russian museums of Leningrad, Novgorod and Kyiv. Of course, the Russians will never give up their spoils." 
Almost all the paintings arrived damaged, but the task of the Soviet restorers was made easier by the notes attached to them about the damaged areas. The most complex works were produced by the artist of the State Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin Pavel Korin. We owe him the preservation of the masterpieces of Titian and Rubens.
From May 2 to August 20, 1955, an exhibition of paintings from the Dresden Art Gallery was held in Moscow, which was visited by 1,200,000 people. On the day of the closing ceremony of the exhibition, the act of transferring the first painting to the GDR was signed - it turned out to be Dürer’s “Portrait of a Young Man”.
A total of 1,240 paintings were returned to East Germany. To transport paintings and other property, 300 railway cars were needed.
Unreturned gold
Most researchers believe that the most valuable Soviet trophy of World War II was the “Gold of Troy.” “Priam’s Treasure” (as the “Gold of Troy” was originally called) found by Heinrich Schliemann consisted of almost 9 thousand items - gold tiaras, silver clasps, buttons, chains, copper axes and other items made of precious metals. 
The Germans carefully hid the “Trojan treasures” in one of the air defense towers on the territory of the Berlin Zoo. Continuous bombing and shelling destroyed almost the entire zoo, but the tower remained undamaged. On July 12, 1945, the entire collection arrived in Moscow. Some of the exhibits remained in the capital, while others were transferred to the Hermitage.
For a long time, the “Trojan gold” was hidden from prying eyes, and only in 1996 the Pushkin Museum organized an exhibition of rare treasures. The “Gold of Troy” has not yet been returned to Germany. Oddly enough, Russia has no less rights to him, since Schliemann, having married the daughter of a Moscow merchant, became a Russian subject.
Color cinema
A very useful trophy turned out to be the German AGFA color film, on which, in particular, the “Victory Parade” was shot. And in 1947, the average Soviet viewer saw color cinema for the first time. These were films from the USA, Germany and other European countries brought from the Soviet occupation zone. Stalin watched most of the films with translations specially made for him. 
Still from the color documentary "Victory Parade". 1945
Of course, showing some films, such as “Triumph of the Will” by Leni Riefenstahl, was out of the question, but entertaining and educational films were shown with pleasure. The adventure films “The Indian Tomb” and “Rubber Hunters”, biographical films about Rembrandt, Schiller, Mozart, as well as numerous opera films were popular.
Georg Jacobi’s film “The Girl of My Dreams” (1944) became a cult film in the USSR. Interestingly, the film was originally called “The Woman of My Dreams,” but the party leadership considered that “dreaming about a woman is indecent” and renamed the film.
Taras Repin
