The attitude of the Germans towards women during the war. Brutal torture of women by fascists

It's just a nightmare! The maintenance of Soviet prisoners of war by the Nazis was extremely terrible. But it became even worse when a female Red Army soldier was captured.

Order of the fascist command

In his memoirs, officer Bruno Schneider told what kind of instruction German soldiers received before being sent to the Russian front. Regarding the female Red Army soldiers, the order said one thing: “Shoot!”

This is what many German units did. Among those killed in battle and encirclement, a huge number of bodies of women in Red Army uniform were found. Among them are many nurses and female paramedics. Traces on their bodies indicated that many were brutally tortured and then shot.

Residents of Smagleevka (Voronezh region) said after their liberation in 1943 that at the beginning of the war, a young Red Army girl died a terrible death in their village. She was seriously injured. Despite this, the Nazis stripped her naked, dragged her onto the road and shot her.

Horrifying traces of torture remained on the unfortunate woman's body. Before her death, her breasts were cut off and her entire face and arms were completely mangled. The woman's body was a complete bloody mess. They did the same with Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Before the show execution, the Nazis kept her half naked in the cold for hours.

Women in captivity

Captured Soviet soldiers—and women too—were supposed to be “sorted.” The weakest, wounded and exhausted were subject to destruction. The rest were used for the most difficult jobs in concentration camps.

In addition to these atrocities, female Red Army soldiers were constantly subjected to rape. The highest military ranks of the Wehrmacht were forbidden to enter into intimate relationships with Slavic women, so they did it in secret. The rank and file had a certain freedom here. Having found one female Red Army soldier or nurse, she could be raped by a whole company of soldiers. If the girl did not die after that, she was shot.

In concentration camps, the leadership often selected the most attractive girls from among the prisoners and took them to “serve.” This is what the camp doctor Orlyand did in Shpalaga (prisoner of war camp) No. 346 near the city of Kremenchug. The guards themselves regularly raped prisoners in the women's block of the concentration camp.

This was the case in Shpalaga No. 337 (Baranovichi), about which the head of this camp, Yarosh, testified during a tribunal meeting in 1967.

Shpalag No. 337 was distinguished by particularly cruel, inhuman conditions of detention. Both women and men Red Army soldiers were kept half naked in the cold for hours. Hundreds of them were stuffed into lice-infested barracks. Anyone who could not stand it and fell was immediately shot by the guards. Every day, over 700 captured military personnel were destroyed in Shpalaga No. 337.

Women prisoners of war were subjected to torture, the cruelty of which medieval inquisitors could only envy: they were impaled, their insides were stuffed with hot red pepper, etc. They were often mocked by German commandants, many of whom were distinguished by obvious sadistic inclinations. Commandant Shpalag No. 337 was called a “cannibal” behind her back, which spoke eloquently about her character.

In development of the topic and in addition to the article Elena Senyavskaya, posted on the website on May 10, 2012, we bring to the attention of readers a new article by the same author, published in the magazine

At the final stage of the Great Patriotic War, having liberated Soviet territory occupied by the Germans and their satellites and pursuing the retreating enemy, the Red Army crossed the state border of the USSR. From that moment on, her victorious path began across the countries of Europe - both those that languished under fascist occupation for six years, and those who acted as an ally of the Third Reich in this war, and across the territory of Hitler’s Germany itself. During this advance to the West and the inevitable various contacts with the local population, Soviet military personnel, who had never been outside their own country before, received many new, very contradictory impressions about representatives of other peoples and cultures, which later formed the ethnopsychological stereotypes of their perception of Europeans . Among these impressions, the most important place was occupied by the image of European women. Mentions, and even detailed stories about them, are found in letters and diaries, on the pages of memoirs of many war participants, where lyrical and cynical assessments and intonations most often alternate.

The first European country to be entered by the Red Army in August 1944 was Romania. In “Notes on the War” by front-line poet Boris Slutsky we find very frank lines: “Suddenly, almost pushed into the sea, Constanta opens up. It almost coincides with the average dream of happiness and “after the war.” Restaurants. Bathrooms. Beds with clean linen. Stalls with reptilian sellers. And - women, smart city women - girls of Europe - the first tribute we took from the vanquished...” Then he describes his first impressions of “abroad”: “European hairdressing salons, where they soap their fingers and do not wash their brushes, the absence of a bathhouse, washing from the basin, “where first the dirt from your hands remains, and then you wash your face”, feather beds instead of blankets - out of disgust caused by everyday life, immediate generalizations were made... In Constance, we first encountered brothels... Our first delight at the fact of the existence of free love quickly passes. It’s not only the fear of infection and the high cost, but also contempt for the very possibility of buying a person... Many were proud of stories like: a Romanian husband complains to the commandant’s office that our officer did not pay his wife the agreed upon one and a half thousand lei. Everyone had a clear consciousness: “This is impossible here”... Probably, our soldiers will remember Romania as a country of syphilitics...” And he concludes that it was in Romania, this European backwater, that “our soldier most of all felt his elevation above Europe.”

Another Soviet officer, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Fyodor Smolnikov, wrote down his impressions of Bucharest on September 17, 1944 in his diary: “Ambassador Hotel, restaurant, ground floor. I see the idle public walking around, they have nothing to do, they are biding their time. They look at me like I'm a rarity. “Russian officer!!!” I am dressed very modestly, more than modestly. Let it be. We will still be in Budapest. This is as true as the fact that I am in Bucharest. First class restaurant. The audience is dressed up, the most beautiful Romanian women stare provocatively (Hereinafter, it is emphasized by the author of the article). We spend the night in a first-class hotel. The capital's street is seething. There is no music, the audience is waiting. The capital, damn it! I will not give in to advertising..."

In Hungary, the Soviet army faced not only armed resistance, but also insidious stabs in the back from the population, when they “killed drunks and lone stragglers in the villages” and drowned them in silos. However, “women, not as depraved as the Romanians, gave in with shameful ease... A little love, a little dissipation, and most of all, of course, fear helped.” Quoting the words of one Hungarian lawyer: “It’s very good that Russians love children so much. It’s too bad that they love women so much,” Boris Slutsky comments: “He did not take into account that Hungarian women also loved Russians, that along with the dark fear that parted the knees of matrons and mothers of families, there was the tenderness of the girls and the desperate tenderness of the soldiers who gave themselves up to the murderers their husbands."

Grigory Chukhrai in his memoirs described such a case in Hungary. His part was stationed in one place. The owners of the house where he and the fighters were located, during the feast, “under the influence of Russian vodka, they relaxed and admitted that they were hiding their daughter in the attic.” The Soviet officers were indignant: “Who do you take us for? We are not fascists! “The owners were ashamed, and soon a lean girl named Mariyka appeared at the table and greedily began to eat. Then, having gotten used to it, she began to flirt and even ask us questions... By the end of dinner, everyone was in a friendly mood and drank to “borotshaz” (friendship). Mariyka understood this toast too straightforwardly. When we went to bed, she appeared in my room wearing only her undershirt. As a Soviet officer, I immediately realized: a provocation was being prepared. “They hope that I will be seduced by the charms of Mariyka, and they will make a fuss. But I won’t give in to provocation,” I thought. And Mariyka’s charms did not attract me - I showed her the door.

The next morning, the hostess, putting food on the table, rattled the dishes. “He’s nervous. The provocation failed!” - I thought. I shared this thought with our Hungarian translator. He burst out laughing.

This is not a provocation! They expressed friendship to you, but you neglected it. Now you are not considered a person in this house. You need to move to another apartment!

Why did they hide their daughter in the attic?

They were afraid of violence. It is customary in our country that a girl, with the approval of her parents, can experience intimacy with many men before getting married. They say here: you don’t buy a cat in a tied bag...”

Young, physically healthy men had a natural attraction to women. But the ease of European morals corrupted some of the Soviet fighters, and convinced others, on the contrary, that relationships should not be reduced to simple physiology. Sergeant Alexander Rodin wrote down his impressions of the visit - out of curiosity! - a brothel in Budapest, where part of it stood for some time after the end of the war: “...After leaving, a disgusting, shameful feeling of lies and falsehood arose, the picture of the woman’s obvious, blatant pretense could not escape my mind... It is interesting that such an unpleasant aftertaste from visiting a brothel remained not only with me, a young man who was also brought up on principles like “not to give a kiss without love, but also with most of our soldiers with whom I had to talk... Around the same days I had to talk with one a beautiful Magyar woman (she somehow knew Russian). When she asked if I liked it in Budapest, I replied that I liked it, but the brothels were embarrassing. "But why?" - asked the girl. Because it’s unnatural, wild,” I explained: “the woman takes the money and after that, immediately begins to “love!” The girl thought for a while, then nodded in agreement and said: “You’re right: it’s not nice to take money in advance...”

Poland left a different impression. According to the poet David Samoilov, “...in Poland they kept us strict. It was difficult to escape from the location. And pranks were severely punished.” And he gives impressions from this country, where the only positive aspect was the beauty of Polish women. “I can’t say that we liked Poland very much,” he wrote. “Then I didn’t see anything noble or knightly in her.” On the contrary, everything was petty-bourgeois, peasant - both concepts and interests. Yes, and in eastern Poland they looked at us warily and semi-hostilely, trying to rip off what they could from the liberators. However, the women were comfortingly beautiful and flirtatious, they captivated us with their mannerisms, cooing speech, where everything suddenly became clear, and they themselves were sometimes captivated by the rough male strength or the soldier’s uniform. And their pale, emaciated former admirers, gritting their teeth, went into the shadows for the time being...”

But not all assessments of Polish women looked so romantic. On October 22, 1944, junior lieutenant Vladimir Gelfand wrote in his diary: “The city I left with the Polish name [Vladov] loomed in the distance. with beautiful Polish girls, proud to the point of disgust . ... They told me about Polish women: they lured our soldiers and officers into their arms, and when it came to bed, they cut off their penises with a razor, strangled them by the throat with their hands, and scratched their eyes. Crazy, wild, ugly females! You need to be careful with them and not get carried away by their beauty. And the Polish women are beautiful, they are scoundrels.” However, there are other moods in his records. On October 24, he records the following meeting: “Today my companions to one of the villages turned out to be beautiful Polish girls. They complained about the lack of guys in Poland. They also called me “sir”, but they were inviolable. I patted one of them gently on the shoulder, in response to her remark about men, and consoled her with the thought of the road to Russia being open to her - there were a lot of men there. She hurried to step aside, and in response to my words she replied that there would be men for her here too. We said goodbye with a handshake. So we didn’t come to an agreement, but they’re nice girls, even though they’re Polish.” A month later, on November 22, he wrote down his impressions of the first large Polish city he met, Minsk-Mazowiecki, and among the descriptions of architectural beauty and the number of bicycles that amazed him among all categories of the population, he gave a special place to the townspeople: “A noisy idle crowd, women, as one, in white special hats, apparently worn by the wind, which make them look like forties and surprise them with their novelty. Men in triangular caps and hats are fat, neat, empty. How many of them! ... Painted lips, penciled eyebrows, affectation, excessive delicacy . How different this is from natural human life. It seems that people themselves live and move specifically just for the sake of being looked at by others, and everyone will disappear when the last viewer leaves the city...”

Not only Polish city women, but also village women left a strong, albeit contradictory, impression of themselves. “I was amazed by the love of life of the Poles who survived the horrors of war and the German occupation,” recalled Alexander Rodin. – Sunday afternoon in a Polish village. Beautiful, elegant, in silk dresses and stockings, Polish women, who on weekdays are ordinary peasant women, rake manure, barefoot, and work tirelessly around the house. Older women also look fresh and young. Although there are also black frames around the eyes...“He further quotes his diary entry dated November 5, 1944: “Sunday, the residents are all dressed up. They are going to visit each other. Men in felt hats, ties, jumpers. Women in silk dresses, bright, unworn stockings. Pink-cheeked girls are “panenkas.” Beautifully curled blonde hairstyles... The soldiers in the corner of the hut are also animated. But anyone who is sensitive will notice that this is a painful revival. Everyone laughs loudly to show that they don’t care, don’t even care at all, and aren’t envious at all. What are we, worse than them? The devil knows what happiness this is - a peaceful life! After all, I haven’t seen her at all in civilian life!” His fellow soldier, Sergeant Nikolai Nesterov, wrote in his diary that same day: “Today is a day off, the Poles, beautifully dressed, gather in one hut and sit in couples. It even makes you feel a bit uneasy. Wouldn’t I be able to sit like that?..”

Soldier Galina Yartseva is much more merciless in her assessment of “European morals,” reminiscent of a “feast during the plague.” On February 24, 1945, she wrote to a friend from the front: “...If it were possible, we could send wonderful parcels of their captured items. There is something. This would be our barefoot and undressed people. What cities I saw, what men and women. And looking at them, you are overcome by such evil, such hatred! They walk, they love, they live, and you go and free them. They laugh at the Russians - "Schwein!" Yes, yes! Bastards... I don’t like anyone except the USSR, except those peoples who live among us. I don’t believe in any friendships with Poles and other Lithuanians...”

In Austria, where Soviet troops invaded in the spring of 1945, they were faced with “general capitulation”: “Entire villages were ruled by white rags. Elderly women raised their hands when meeting a man in a Red Army uniform.” It was here, according to B. Slutsky, that the soldiers “got their hands on the fair-haired women.” At the same time, “the Austrians did not turn out to be overly intractable. The vast majority of peasant girls married “spoiled.” The vacationing soldiers felt like they had Christ in their bosom. In Vienna, our guide, a bank official, was amazed at the persistence and impatience of the Russians. He believed that gallantry was enough to get everything he wanted from Vienna.” That is, it was not only a matter of fear, but also certain features of the national mentality and traditional behavior.

And finally, Germany. And the women of the enemy - mothers, wives, daughters, sisters of those who, from 1941 to 1944, mocked the civilian population in the occupied territory of the USSR. How did Soviet soldiers see them? The appearance of German women walking in a crowd of refugees is described in the diary of Vladimir Bogomolov: “Women - old and young - in hats, scarves with a turban and just a canopy, like our women, in smart coats with fur collars and in tattered, incomprehensible cut clothes . Many women wear sunglasses to avoid squinting from the bright May sun and thereby protect their faces from wrinkles...." Lev Kopelev recalled a meeting in Allenstein with evacuated Berliners: "There are two women on the sidewalk. Intricate hats, one even with a veil. Good-quality coats, and they themselves are smooth and well-groomed.” And he quoted soldiers’ comments about them: “chickens”, “turkeys”, “if only they were so smooth...”

How did the German women behave when meeting with Soviet troops? In the report of the deputy. Head of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army Shikin in the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks G.F. Alexandrov dated April 30, 1945 about the attitude of the civilian population of Berlin to the personnel of the Red Army troops said: “As soon as our units occupy one or another area of ​​the city, the residents They gradually begin to take to the streets, almost all of them have white bands on their sleeves. When meeting our military personnel, many women raise their hands up, cry and shake with fear, but as soon as they are convinced that the soldiers and officers of the Red Army are not at all what their fascist propaganda portrayed them to be, this fear quickly passes, more and more the population takes to the streets and offers their services, trying in every possible way to emphasize their loyal attitude to the Red Army.”

The winners were most impressed by the humility and prudence of the German women. In this regard, it is worth citing the story of mortarman N.A. Orlov, who was shocked by the behavior of German women in 1945: “No one in the Minbat killed German civilians. Our special officer was a “Germanophile.” If this happened, then the reaction of the punitive authorities to such an excess would be quick. Regarding violence against German women. It seems to me that when talking about this phenomenon, some people “exaggerate things” a little. I remember an example of a different kind. We went to some German city and settled in houses. “Frau,” about 45 years old, appears and asks for “Ger Commandant.” They brought her to Marchenko. She declares that she is in charge of the quarter, and has gathered 20 German women for sexual (!!!) service of Russian soldiers. Marchenko understood German, and to the political officer Dolgoborodov standing next to me, I translated the meaning of what the German woman said. The reaction of our officers was angry and abusive. The German woman was driven away, along with her “squad” ready for service. In general, the German submission stunned us. They expected partisan warfare and sabotage from the Germans. But for this nation, order - "Ordnung" - is above all. If you are a winner, then they are “on their hind legs”, and consciously and not under duress. This is the psychology..."

David Samoilov cites a similar incident in his military notes: “In Arendsfeld, where we had just settled down, a small crowd of women with children appeared. They were led by a huge mustachioed German woman of about fifty - Frau Friedrich. She stated that she was a representative of the civilian population and asked to register the remaining residents. We replied that this could be done as soon as the commandant’s office appeared.

This is impossible,” said Frau Friedrich. - There are women and children here. They need to be registered.

The civilian population confirmed her words with screams and tears.

Not knowing what to do, I invited them to take the basement of the house where we were located. And they, reassured, went down to the basement and began to settle down there, waiting for the authorities.

“Herr Commissar,” Frau Friedrich told me complacently (I was wearing a leather jacket). “We understand that soldiers have small needs. “They are ready,” continued Frau Friedrich, “to give them several younger women for...

I did not continue the conversation with Frau Friedrich.”

After communicating with residents of Berlin on May 2, 1945, Vladimir Bogomolov wrote in his diary: “We are entering one of the surviving houses. Everything is quiet, dead. We knock and ask you to open it. You can hear whispering, muffled and excited conversations in the corridor. Finally the door opens. The ageless women, huddled in a tight group, bow fearfully, low and obsequiously. German women are afraid of us, they were told that Soviet soldiers, especially Asians, would rape and kill them... Fear and hatred are on their faces. But sometimes it seems that they like to be defeated - their behavior is so helpful, their smiles and words are so touching. These days there are stories in circulation about how our soldier entered a German apartment, asked for a drink, and the German woman, as soon as she saw him, lay down on the sofa and took off her tights.”

“All German women are depraved. They have nothing against being slept with." , - this opinion existed in the Soviet troops and was supported not only by many illustrative examples, but also by their unpleasant consequences, which military doctors soon discovered.

Directive of the Military Council of the 1st Belorussian Front No. 00343/Ш dated April 15, 1945 stated: “During the presence of troops on enemy territory, cases of venereal diseases among military personnel increased sharply. A study of the reasons for this situation shows that sexually transmitted diseases are widespread among Germans. The Germans, before the retreat, and also now, in the territory we occupied, took the path of artificially infecting German women with syphilis and gonorrhoea in order to create large centers for the spread of sexually transmitted diseases among Red Army soldiers».

The Military Council of the 47th Army reported on April 26, 1945 that “...In March, the number of venereal diseases among military personnel increased compared to February of this year. four times. ... The female part of the German population in the surveyed areas is affected by 8-15%. There are cases when the enemy deliberately leaves German women with venereal diseases behind to infect military personnel.”

To implement the Resolution of the Military Council of the 1st Belorussian Front No. 056 of April 18, 1945 on the prevention of venereal diseases in the troops of the 33rd Army, the following leaflet was issued:

“Comrade military personnel!

You are being seduced by German women whose husbands visited all the brothels in Europe, became infected themselves and infected their German women.

Before you are those German women who were specially left by the enemy to spread venereal diseases and thereby incapacitate the Red Army soldiers.

We must understand that our victory over the enemy is close and that soon you will have the opportunity to return to your families.

With what eyes will someone who brings a contagious disease look into the eyes of their loved ones?

Can we, warriors of the heroic Red Army, be the source of infectious diseases in our country? NO! For the moral image of a Red Army soldier must be as pure as the image of his Motherland and family!”

Even in the memoirs of Lev Kopelev, who angrily describes the facts of violence and looting by Soviet military personnel in East Prussia, there are lines that reflect the other side of the “relationships” with the local population: “They talked about the obedience, servility, ingratiation of the Germans: that’s what they are like, for they sell a loaf of bread and their wives and daughters.” The disgusting tone in which Kopelev conveys these “stories” implies their unreliability. However, they are confirmed by many sources.

Vladimir Gelfand described in his diary his courtship of a German girl (the entry was made six months after the end of the war, on October 26, 1945, but still very typical): “I wanted to thoroughly enjoy the caresses of pretty Margot - kisses and hugs alone were not enough. I expected more, but did not dare to demand and insist. The girl's mother was pleased with me. Of course! At the altar of trust and favor from my relatives, I brought sweets and butter, sausage, and expensive German cigarettes. Already half of these products are enough to have complete grounds and the right to do anything with your daughter in front of the mother, and she will not say anything against. For food today is more valuable than even life, and even such a young and sweet sensual woman as the gentle beauty Margot.”

Interesting diary entries were left by the 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. This is what he wrote down in Berlin in May 1945, literally a few days after the end of the assault: “I walked through the night cabarets, starting with Femina near Potsdammerplatz. It was a warm and humid evening. The smell of sewage and rotting corpses filled the air. The façade of Femina was covered with futuristic nudes and advertisements in four languages. The dance hall and restaurant were filled with Russian, British and American officers escorting (or hunting for) the women. A bottle of wine cost $25, a horse meat and potato hamburger cost $10, and a pack of American cigarettes cost a staggering $20. The women of Berlin had their cheeks rouged and their lips painted so that it seemed as if Hitler had won the war. Many women wore silk stockings. The lady hostess of the evening opened the concert in German, Russian, English and French. This provoked a barb from the Russian artillery captain who was sitting next to me. He leaned towards me and said in decent English: “Such a quick transition from national to international! RAF bombs are great professors, aren't they?"

The general impression of European women that Soviet military personnel had was sleek and elegant (in comparison with their war-weary compatriots in the half-starved rear, on lands liberated from occupation, and even with front-line friends dressed in washed out tunics), approachable, selfish, promiscuous or cowardly. submissive. The exceptions were Yugoslav and Bulgarian women. The stern and ascetic Yugoslav partisans were perceived as comrades and were considered inviolable. And given the strict morals in the Yugoslav army, “the partisan girls probably looked at the PPZH [field wives] as beings of a special, nasty kind.” Boris Slutsky recalled about Bulgarian women this way: “...After Ukrainian complacency, after Romanian debauchery, the severe inaccessibility of Bulgarian women struck our people. Almost no one boasted of victories. This was the only country where officers were often accompanied on walks by men, and almost never by women. Later, the Bulgarians were proud when they were told that the Russians were going to return to Bulgaria for brides - the only ones in the world who remained pure and untouched.”

The Czech beauties who joyfully greeted the Soviet soldiers-liberators left a pleasant impression. Confused tank crews from combat vehicles covered with oil and dust, decorated with wreaths and flowers, said to each other: “...Something is a tank bride, to clean it up. And the girls, you know, are hooking them. Good people. I haven’t seen such sincere people for a long time...” The friendliness and cordiality of the Czechs was sincere. “...- If it were possible, I would kiss all the soldiers and officers of the Red Army because they liberated my Prague,” said ... a Prague tram worker to the general friendly and approving laughter,” - this is how he described the atmosphere in the liberated Czech capital and the mood of local residents May 11, 1945 Boris Polevoy.

But in other countries through which the winning army passed, the female part of the population did not command respect. “In Europe, women gave up, changed before anyone else... - wrote B. Slutsky. - I have always been shocked, confused, disoriented by the ease, the shameful ease of love relationships. Decent women, certainly unselfish, were like prostitutes - hasty availability, desire to avoid intermediate stages, disinterest in the motives that push a man to get closer to them. Like people who recognized three obscene words from the entire lexicon of love poetry, they reduced the whole matter to a few body movements, causing resentment and contempt among the most yellow-faced of our officers... The restraining motives were not ethics at all, but the fear of getting infected, the fear of publicity, of pregnancy.” , - and added that under the conditions of conquest, “general depravity covered and hid the special female depravity, made it invisible and unashamed.”

However, among the motives that contributed to the spread of “international love”, despite all the prohibitions and harsh orders of the Soviet command, there were several more: women’s curiosity for “exotic” lovers and the unprecedented generosity of Russians towards the object of their affection, which distinguished them favorably from stingy European men.

Junior Lieutenant Daniil Zlatkin ended up in Denmark, on the island of Bornholm, at the very end of the war. In his interview, he said that the interest of Russian men and European women in each other was mutual: “We didn’t see women, but we had to... And when we arrived in Denmark... it’s free, please. They wanted to check, test, try the Russian people, what it is, how it is, and it seemed to work out better than the Danes. Why? We were selfless and kind... I gave a box of chocolates for half a table, I gave 100 roses to a stranger... for her birthday..."

At the same time, few people thought about a serious relationship or marriage, due to the fact that the Soviet leadership clearly outlined its position on this issue. The Resolution of the Military Council of the 4th Ukrainian Front dated April 12, 1945 stated: “1. Explain to all officers and all personnel of the front troops that marriage with foreign women is illegal and is strictly prohibited. 2. All cases of military personnel marrying foreign women, as well as connections between our people and hostile elements of foreign states, must be reported immediately upon command to bring the perpetrators to justice for loss of vigilance and violation of Soviet laws.” The directive from the head of the Political Directorate of the 1st Belorussian Front dated April 14, 1945 read: “According to the head of the Main Personnel Directorate of NGOs, the Center continues to receive applications from officers of the active army with a request to sanction marriages with women of foreign countries (Poles, Bulgarians, Czechs) etc.). Such facts should be considered as a dulling of vigilance and dulling of patriotic feelings. Therefore, it is necessary in political and educational work to pay attention to a deep explanation of the inadmissibility of such acts on the part of Red Army officers. Explain to all officers who do not understand the futility of such marriages, the inadvisability of marrying foreign women, even to the point of outright prohibition, and not allow a single case.”

And the women had no illusions about the intentions of their gentlemen. “At the beginning of 1945, even the stupidest Hungarian peasant women did not believe our promises. European women were already aware that we were forbidden to marry foreigners, and they suspected that there was a similar order also about appearing together in a restaurant, cinema, etc. This did not prevent them from loving our ladies’ men, but it gave this love a purely “out-of-the-way” [carnal] character,” wrote B. Slutsky.

In general, it should be recognized that the image of European women formed by the soldiers of the Red Army in 1944-1945, with rare exceptions, turned out to be very far from the suffering figure with hands chained, looking with hope from the Soviet poster “Europe will be free!” .

Notes
Slutsky B. Notes about the war. Poems and ballads. St. Petersburg, 2000. P. 174.
Right there. pp. 46-48.
Right there. pp. 46-48.
Smolnikov F.M. Let's fight! Diary of a front-line soldier. Letters from the front. M., 2000. pp. 228-229.
Slutsky B. Decree. Op. pp. 110, 107.
Right there. P. 177.
Chukhrai G. My war. M.: Algorithm, 2001. pp. 258-259.
Rodin A. Three thousand kilometers in the saddle. Diaries. M., 2000. P. 127.
Samoilov D. People of one option. From military notes // Aurora. 1990. No. 2. P. 67.
Right there. pp. 70-71.
Gelfand V.N. Diaries 1941-1946. http://militera.lib.ru/db/gelfand_vn/05.html
Right there.
Right there.
Rodin A. Three thousand kilometers in the saddle. Diaries. M., 2000. P. 110.
Right there. pp. 122-123.
Right there. P. 123.
Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. F. 372. Op. 6570. D; 76. L. 86.
Slutsky B. Decree. Op. P. 125.
Right there. pp. 127-128.
Bogomolov V.O. Germany, Berlin. Spring 1945 // Bogomolov V.O. My life, or did I dream about you?.. M.: Magazine “Our Contemporary”, No. 10-12, 2005, No. 1, 2006. http://militera.lib.ru/prose/russian/bogomolov_vo/03. html
Kopelev L. Keep forever. In 2 books. Book 1: Parts 1-4. M.: Terra, 2004. Ch. 11. http://lib.rus.ec/b/137774/read#t15
Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (hereinafter referred to as RGASPI). F. 17. Op. 125. D. 321. L. 10-12.
From an interview with N.A. Orlov on the “I Remember” website. http://www.iremember.ru/minometchiki/orlov-naum-aronovich/stranitsa-6.html
Samoilov D. Decree. Op. P. 88.
Bogomolov V.O. My life, or did I dream about you?.. // Our contemporary. 2005. No. 10-12; 2006. No. 1. http://militera.lib.ru/prose/russian/bogomolov_vo/03.html
From the Political Report on communicating to the personnel the directive of Comrade. Stalin No. 11072 dated April 20, 1945 in the 185th Infantry Division. April 26, 1945 Quote. by: Bogomolov V.O. Decree. Op. http://militera.lib.ru/prose/russian/bogomolov_vo/02.html
Quote By: Bogomolov V.O. Decree. Op. http://militera.lib.ru/prose/russian/bogomolov_vo/02.html
Right there.
Right there.
State Archives of the Russian Federation. F. r-9401. Op. 2. D. 96. L.203.
Kopelev L. Decree. Op. Ch. 12. http://lib.rus.ec/b/137774/read#t15
Gelfand V.N. Decree. Op.
White Osmar. Conquerors" Road: An Eyewitness Account of Germany 1945. Cambridge University Press, 2003. XVII, 221 pp. http://www.argo.net.au/andre/osmarwhite.html
Slutsky B. Decree. Op. P. 99.
Right there. P. 71.
Polevoy B. Liberation of Prague // From the Soviet Information Bureau... Journalism and essays of the war years. 1941-1945. T. 2. 1943-1945. M.: APN Publishing House, 1982. P. 439.
Right there. pp. 177-178.
Right there. P. 180.
From an interview with D.F. Zlatkin dated June 16, 1997 // Personal archive.
Quote By: Bogomolov V.O. Decree. Op. http://militera.lib.ru/prose/russian/bogomolov_vo/04.html
Right there.
Slutsky B. Decree. Op. pp. 180-181.

The article was prepared with the financial support of the Russian Humanitarian Research Foundation, project No. 11-01-00363a.

The design uses a Soviet poster from 1944 “Europe will be free!” Artist V. Koretsky

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The story contains scenes of torture, violence, sex. If this offends your tender soul, don’t read, but get the fuck out of here!

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The plot takes place during the Great Patriotic War. A partisan detachment operates in the territory occupied by the Nazis. The fascists know that there are many women among the partisans, just how to identify them. Finally they managed to catch the girl Katya when she was trying to sketch a diagram of the location of German firing points...

The captured girl was led into a small room in the school, where the Gestapo department was now located. A young officer interrogated Katya. Besides him, there were several policemen and two vulgar-looking women in the room. Katya knew them, they served the Germans. I just didn’t fully know how.

The officer instructed the guards holding the girl to release her, which they did. He motioned for her to sit down. The girl sat down. The officer ordered one of the girls to bring tea. But Katya refused. The officer took a sip, then lit a cigarette. He offered it to Katya, but she refused. The officer started a conversation, and he spoke Russian quite well.

What's your name?

Katerina.

I know that you were engaged in intelligence work for the communists. This is true?

But you are so young, so beautiful. You probably ended up in their service by accident?

No! I am a Komsomol member and want to become a communist, like my father, Hero of the Soviet Union, who died at the front.

I regret that such a young beautiful girl fell for the bait of the red asses. At one time, my father served in the Russian army during the First World War. He commanded a company. He has many glorious victories and awards to his name. But when the communists came to power, for all his services to his homeland he was accused of being an enemy of the people and shot. My mother and I faced starvation, like the children of enemies of the people, but one of the Germans (who was a prisoner of war and whose father did not allow us to be shot) helped us escape to Germany and even enlist. I always wanted to be a hero like my father. And now I have arrived to save my homeland from the communists.

You are a fascist bitch, an invader, a killer of innocent people...

We never kill innocent people. On the contrary, we are returning to them what the red-assed people took from them. Yes, we recently hanged two women who set fire to houses where our soldiers temporarily settled. But the soldiers managed to run out, and the owners lost the last thing that the war did not take away from them.

They fought against...

Your people!

Not true!

Okay, let us be invaders. You are now required to answer several questions. After that, we will determine your punishment.

I won't answer your questions!

Okay, then name with whom you are organizing terrorist attacks against German soldiers.

Not true. We've been watching you.

Then why should I answer?

So that innocent people don't get hurt.

I won't tell you anyone...

Then I will invite the boys to untie your stubborn tongue.

Nothing will work out for you!

We'll see about that later. So far there has not been a single case out of 15 and nothing has worked out for us... Let's get to work, boys!

Many Soviet women who served in the Red Army were ready to commit suicide to avoid being captured. Violence, bullying, painful executions - this was the fate that awaited most of the captured nurses, signalmen, and intelligence officers. Only a few ended up in prisoner of war camps, but even there their situation was often even worse than that of the male Red Army soldiers.

Women soldiers in the camps

Those women who managed to avoid execution were sent to camps. Almost constant violence awaited them there. Particularly cruel were the police and those male prisoners of war who agreed to work for the Nazis and became camp guards. Women were often given to them as a “reward” for their service.
The camps often lacked basic living conditions. The prisoners of the Ravensbrück concentration camp tried to make their existence as easy as possible: they washed their hair with the ersatz coffee provided for breakfast, and secretly sharpened their own combs.
According to international law, prisoners of war could not be recruited to work in military factories. But this was not applied to women. In 1943, Elizaveta Klemm, who was captured, tried on behalf of a group of prisoners to protest the Germans’ decision to send Soviet women to the factory. In response to this, the authorities first beat everyone, and then drove them into a cramped room where it was impossible to even move.

After captivity

Some women managed to escape from captivity and even return to the unit. But being in captivity irreversibly changed them. Valentina Kostromitina, who served as a medical instructor, recalled her friend Musa, who was captured. She was “terribly afraid to go on the landing because she was in captivity.” She never managed to “cross the bridge on the pier and board the boat.” The friend’s stories made such an impression that Kostromitina was afraid of captivity even more than of bombing.