HUMSS - Anne-Laure Briatte

Sexual violence committed by the French occupation forces in Germany (1945-1949)

The book I am currently writing bases on the research I conducted last year as a Junior fellow in FRIAS. It deals with sexual violence committed by the French occupation forces in Southwest Germany after 1945. I want to focus on the group of the women who were raped, whether this led to a pregnancy or not. I will point out how rape victims were perceived by their contemporaries, which is revealing in the way rapes were considered in a context of war, and in the norms of female sexual behavior. Secondly, I will shed light on the prospect for the raped women to receive a compensation from the West-German state.