Did the German troops engage in rape crime during WW2?

Question

I haven't come across these so far but the Japanese were atrocious wherever they go, such as the infamous the Rape of Nanking.

Answer 1

Yes, they raped many Russian women among other nationalities. But so did the Russians when took over Berlin. What the Japanese did however, was particularly brutal.

War is a horrible thing and horrible things happen in war to soldiers and civilians alike.

javypeds,
Florida
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Answer 2

You are quite mistaken in one of your premises. There were extensive war crimes trials in Japan after World War Two, leading to a number of executions. Indeed, the war crimes trials of Japanese officers and political officials were more extensive than the trials at Nuremberg. At Nuremberg, there were a relatively small number of defendants. In the Far East, more than 5,000 Japanese officers and officials were tried for various war crimes, and well over 100 were executed, and more than 500 sentenced to prison for life. You are correct in one detail. The one figure who was spared was the Emperor, Hirohito. There were several reasons for this. First, Hirohito was not an active political leader. Just as Churchill was the leader of Great Britain during the war, men like Hideki Tojo were the active political leaders. There is serious doubt that the Emperor was away of many of the things that the Japanese military did throughout the war. A second reason was that the United States wanted to minimize the difficulty of establishing a peaceful, stable post-war government in Japan. Sparing the imperial family kept a profoundly powerful tradition of stability in Japan. Emperor Hirohito actually cooperated in this effort to a degree. When the military finally agreed to surrender, they went to the Emperor, and Hirohito agreed to help arrange the surrender. He went into a recording studio and recorded an address to the Japanese people in which he instructed them to cease fighting and accept the American occupation. This recording was then broadcast throughout Japan, and the Japanese people did as the Emperor told them. The post-war occupation of Japan was remarkable for what it was not. There was astoundingly little resistance to the occupation. One true measure of this is that in June 1950, when war broke out in Korea, General Douglas MacArthur was able to strip every occupying unit out of Japan and rush them to Korea to make the critical stand at the Pusan perimeter, and there was no violence from the Japanese at all. The third reason is that sparing the Emperor from public humiliation was part of the deal that ended the war. During the closing months of the war, there were meetings between American and Japanese officials looking to end the war. These meetings took place in Switzerland. In the closing weeks of the war, in carefully worded diplomatic notes, the Japanese indicated that they would surrender if the political and military officials were required to lay down their arms and accept whatever punishment that the allies might mete out, if the Emperor was spared public humiliation. For the Americans, a negotiated settlement without an invasion of the home islands had tremendous advantages. American planners estimated that if they had to invade the home islands of Japan, the war would drag on for fully another year, and the cost to the Americans would have reached 2,000,000 casualties, killed or wounded. If these casualties could be avoided, not humiliating the Emperor seemed a reasonable price to pay. And the American were good to their word, not prosecuting the Emperor. So while the Emperor was spared, the men who were actually in the field and responsible for the war crimes that Japan committed were in many cases brought to justice, in trials much more elaborate and wide-ranging than those held in Germany.

Answer 3

They did not rape Jewish women because this would have been "racial defilement" in their ideology. So what saved Jewish women from this was only the extend of contempt that Nazis had for Jews. You know that except for this they did every possible crime to Jews. I know that there are cases that they did rape non-Jewish women, but there is not a lot of documentation about this, I think because the victims were often ashamed to speak about it. You can be sure that there weren't any moral limits for Nazis, they considered their victims as subhuman.

Answer 4

Yes, and you had better believe it. The Nazis were notorious for raping Polish and Russian women, and even though they would never admit it, many did find Jewish women attractive and raped them as a result. If you ever run across a Jew with German features, such as blonde hair and blue eyes, you'll know why they look the way they do.

Answer 5

The "Master Race" camps were basically enforced sex areas. Any forcible sex act is rape. Soldiers, in all wars, have been known to rape and pillage. It is a way of being dominant in a conquered area.

Answer 6

In ANY war, has there NOT been rape? Since war is a violent act of dominance, rape must be considered a sidedish in any conflict.

Answer 7

They were not supposed to as a child born out of a rape of a jew would tarnish the race - however, if they did it on the quiet - i don't know

Answer 8

Yes. If you do a little research on the concentration camps you'll probably come across many stories.

-BD

Answer 9

Im sure they did... Everyone does it, since back in the Mexican American war American soldiers raped women and children.

Answer 10

Of course, it happens in every war.