Humanities and Social Sciences Colloquium - Anne-Laure Briatte

„The behaviour of the maidens and the women is partially undignified“*

The war reports of the catholic priests of the Diocese of Freiburg after 1945

In April and May 1945 the Allied troops – made up of the Red Army, the US, the British and the French armies – entered the „Third Reich“ and forced it to the unconditional capitulation of May 8, 1945. Before the regular Allied military occupation of the whole German territory officially began in August 1945, the military occupation started immediately after the surrender a long time before most of the aspects of the occupation were ruled. I my FRIAS-project I work on the “children of the occupation” – children born to a German mother and a soldier of Allied troops – and on their mothers to figure out how rapes and sexual violence in war times were considered in post-war (West-)Germany. In my presentation I will first give a brief outline of my research project as a whole and present the historical records I plan to explore. In a next step I will present the first results of my analysis of the “war reports” of the catholic priests of the Diocese of Freiburg, written between 1945 and 1947. I will especially pay attention to the way they reported on rapes committed during and immediately after the victory over nazi Germany and, more generally, on the behaviour of the German women with the Allied troops. This will help to figure out which kind of social stigmatisation affected the mothers of children of the occupation and the women which had sexual relationships with occupation soldiers.