By Matija Šerić
“I was in a hostel for SS members. In one room, I saw an SS member lying on a bed, without a uniform jacket but still in his trousers. Next to him, on the edge of the bed, sat a young, very beautiful girl who was caressing the SS member’s chin. I also heard the girl say, ‘Franz, you won’t shoot me, will you?’ The girl was still very young and spoke German without any accent. I asked that SS member if they were really going to shoot the girl. He told me that all Jews would be shot, with no exceptions. The same SS member said something about how wretched it was. Sometimes they could at least assign these girls to another unit for execution, but often there wasn’t enough time, so they had to do it themselves.”
This quoted text is an excerpt from a post-war Allied interrogation of German POWs, showcasing one example of the sexual terror carried out by SS and Wehrmacht members during World War II. Sexual violence during conflicts is not an exception in human history; rather, it is an accompanying element of almost every major war. However, the scale of sexual violence by institutions of the Third Reich during World War II represents an especially dark chapter. Sexual violence as a weapon of war in Nazi Germany was not just an anomaly born out of extreme wartime circumstances but an expected consequence of radical Nazi ideology. Alongside ubiquitous rapes that were not legally sanctioned by the Nazi regime but were tolerated in practice, the most common forms of state-sponsored sexual violence included various forms of sexual humiliation, forced prostitution, imposed sterilization, forced abortions, eugenic experiments, deportations, and dehumanization in every sense.
Ideological Background
Nazi ideology, shaped by the speeches and actions of Adolf Hitler, such as in Mein Kampf, as well as pseudoscientific racial theories, aimed to create a “pure” Aryan race and eliminate those deemed inferior and/or a threat to Aryan society. Nazi ideology fervently embraced racist doctrine promoting Aryan superiority. According to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, sexual relations between Germans and Jews, labeled as “racial defilement” (German: Rassenschande), were strictly forbidden and punishable. These racial laws were part of a broader system of racial segregation and dehumanization targeting Jews but also extended to all whom the Nazis deemed “inferior races.” Nazi policy embraced eugenics and racial hygiene to “improve” the genetics of the Aryan race. Through media, films, posters, and the educational system, the Nazi regime spread ideas about racial superiority and the necessity of preserving Aryan purity. Violence against enemies was depicted as a necessary and righteous act to defend the German people and the Aryan race. Propaganda enabled the creation of a social climate in which brutal crimes became socially acceptable.
Rape
Despite racial laws, the reality on the ground during World War II was complex and contradictory. Although Nazi laws prohibited “racial mixing,” and the penalty for rape was death, thousands of Wehrmacht and SS soldiers (alongside Italian, Hungarian, Romanian, and other local collaborators) committed brutal rapes against women in occupied territories. Rapes were rarely punished, especially in Eastern Europe. Rape was only penalized if it occurred in public and damaged the reputation of the Wehrmacht. Although German soldiers committed rapes across Europe, these acts were most prevalent in Eastern Europe, where ideologically motivated brutality was most pronounced. The dehumanization of the enemy and the perception of Jews, Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, and other Slavs as Untermenschen (subhumans) contributed to high levels of violence, including sexual violence.
Mostly young soldiers, separated from their usual circumstances and given substantial power in occupied territories, which they would not have had in normal conditions, often viewed rape as an integral part of the German invasion of the Soviet Union. They considered the fight against Judeo-Bolshevism as justification for such methods. The rapes began as early as 1939 with the German invasion of Poland. Members of the German minority in Poland, especially in the Volksdeutscher units, were prominent in committing sexual crimes. Victims were often murdered after the assault. During anti-partisan operations in occupied western USSR, German soldiers frequently raped captured female partisans, then killed them. Slogans of degradation were often written on their corpses. Such horrific, inhumane acts were intended to subjugate Jews, Poles, and Russians. Nazis used rape as a tool of terror. In Lviv, in a public city park, German soldiers raped and murdered 32 textile factory workers. A local priest who tried to stop the crime was also killed. In contrast to Eastern Europe, rapes in Western Europe, though present, were not widespread until the end of the war in 1944 when they became more common.
Sexual Violence in the Camps
In Nazi Germany’s concentration camps, sexual violence was a daily occurrence, systematically used to humiliate, control, and dehumanize prisoners. Camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ravensbrück, and others became places of horror where women and girls were subjected to constant abuse. Upon arrival at the camp, women were often stripped of their clothing and forced to remain naked in unhygienic conditions. Female prisoners were abused during forced labor (often conducted while naked) in barracks or isolated parts of the camp. Rape was a means of terror that further degraded the victims and destroyed their dignity. The inhumane conditions under which prisoners lived were carefully designed to humiliate Jews. The Nazis controlled Jewish women’s bodily functions by not allowing them to relieve themselves normally. Women were often forced to urinate in front of guards and other prisoners. While working, they were often denied the right to urinate. Most women in the camps lost their ability to menstruate due to malnutrition or attempts at sterilization. When they did menstruate, due to a lack of hygiene products and clothing, they bled visibly.
Jewish women were deceived into believing that intercourse with German soldiers would save them from execution, which was a lie. A common practice was to shoot the women after intercourse to avoid the risk of being accused of “racial defilement.” Gang rapes were also common. SS officers of the special Sk 10a units sometimes raped detained Jewish women until they passed out. Women were raped during interrogations in front of camp commissions. “Theater groups” were formed, “mainly consisting of attractive Russian women and girls who thus improved their food rations. After the performance, there was dancing and drinking, and the girls would then negotiate a price with the SS members.” Many of the raped victims were still children, which is a double crime. Although little researched, men were also sexually abused in the camps. Types of abuse for boys and men included rape, sterilization, forced genital examinations, sexual mockery, etc.
