Many women across Europe embarked on such relationships with Germans during the war. They justified their actions by saying that "relationships" based on love' were 'not a crime', that 'matters of the heart' have nothing to do with 'politics', or that "love is blind'. But in the eyes of their communities, this was no excuse. Sex, if it was with a German, was political. It came to represent the subjugation of the continent as a whole: a female France, Denmark or Holland being ravished by a male Germany. just as importantly, as I have already mentioned in Chapter 4, it also came to represent the emasculation of European men. These men, who had already shown themselves impotent against the military might of Germany, now found themselves communally cuckolded by their own womenfolk.
The number of sexual relationships that took place between European women and Germans during the war is quite staggering. In Norway as many as 10 per cent of women aged between fifteen and thirty had German boyfriends during the war. If the statistics on the number of children born to German soldiers are anything to go by, this was by no means unusual: the numbers of women who slept with German men across western Europe can easily be numbered in the hundreds of thousands sands.
Resistance movements in occupied countries came up with all kinds of excuses for the behaviour of their women and girls. They characterised women who slept with Germans as ignorant, poor, even mentally defective. They claimed that women were raped, or that they only slept with Germans out of economic necessity. While this was undoubtedly the case for some, recent surveys show that women who slept with German soldiers came from all classes and all walks of life.
On the whole European women slept with Germans not because they were forced to, or because their own men were absent or because they needed money or food - but simply because they found the strong, 'knightly' image of the German soldiers intensely attractive, especially compared to the weakened impression they had of their own menfolk. In Denmark, for example, wartime pollsters were shocked to discover that 51 per cent of Danish women openly admitted to finding German men more attractive than their own compatriots.
Nowhere was this need more keenly felt than in France. In a nation where the huge, almost entirely male German presence was matched by a corresponding absence of French men - 2 million of whom were prisoners or workers in Germany - it is unsurprising that the occupation itself was often seen in sexual terms. France had become a 'slut', giving herself up to Germany with the Vichy government acting as her pimp. As jean-Paul Sartre noted after the war, even the collaborationist press tended to represent the relationship between France and Germany as a union 'in which France was always playing the part of the 'woman'.
There are several interesting facets to this passage. Firstly, fraternisation will occur wherever young people meet, however this was not normal fraterniation. The women were fraternising with men who had just subjugated their country and shipped off their men to prisoner of war camps. Secondly, it's interesting to see how the traditional explanations were, even then, being used to justify the behaviour of women. No one, it seems, could bear the thought that the reason why so many women slept with the men was because the Germans were hot whilst their menfolk were not.
Just to put this into perspective, the wiki site on war children estimates the number of babies born to German fathers (i.e occupiers) in France at between 75,000-200,000. Between 10,000-50,000 in Holland. Whereas a full ten years of occupation in Germany by the allied forces produced 66000 war babies. I know the figures are very rough but it would appear that the Germans had the overwhelming advantage in more than just armor when they invaded France.
One of the factors which may be correlated to the preference of Danish women for Germans may reside in the fact that the Germans had far more martial spirit. The Danish Army lost 16 killed trying to defend Denmark. Guess their women didn't really find them that sexy after that performance.
20 comments:
This is relevant:
http://therationalmale.com/2011/10/03/war-brides/
deti
Important to keep in mind when women are pushing to undermine military effectiveness, dissolve the national borders, or weaken internal defenses against government aggression. Losing the war doesn't apply to them, since they can always be with the winners.
This is normal and to be expected. In early history, when one tribe would conquer another, the women would be captured by the conquerors, and it was therefore adaptive for women to accept this with some degree of enthusiasm. The way that manifests is by attraction. Women are always attracted to the men who are dominant over other men, the winners, the dominators. It just is so, and men need to accept that -- it isn't new.
One contemporary manifestation of this which is somewhat odd but in the same general vein is the preference women have for viewing gay sex, when it comes to pornography (the use of which is growing among women). In part this is an anologue of men enjoying porn's portrayal of lesbian sex, but in part it's also because it portrays one man dominating another man in the most basic of ways -- and the women who are viewing find that hot, in the sense of being attracted to the "top" man while perhaps identifying with the man who is being dominated (who isn't really viewed as a man). This is the same as preferring to sleep with the Germans who just kicked your men in their asses -- dominance is sexy, every time, every place, everywhere, and always. This is why men compete, and why if you lose, you are a "loser" -- the inherent sexual meaning flows from being a loser in general, in other areas, vis-a-vis men. To the victors go the spoils -- it has always been so, and is so today as well.
I have wondered if there is such a thing as collective "Alpha-ization" or "Beta-ization"....does the success or failure of a large group of men *as a group* redound on the attractiveness or lack of same of *individual men* in that group to a degree that can (to some degree) override their own individual merits or demerits?
For example, did being a member of the American army that defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan have a positive effect on the attractivenss of Private Schmoe, whose only contribution to the victory was doing KP in Kansas?
This seems to be one of the themes Koestler develops in The Age of Longing, in which Hydie's inability to be attracted to American and European men is linked to the loss of societal self-confidence in the West...and contrariwise, her strong attraction to the Russian Communist Fedya (great orgasms! foreplay not required!) is linked to the self-confidence of the society he represents, as well as his own,
I think I linked my review of Koestler's book here previously, but will take the liberty of doing so again:
SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/11799.html
Perhaps not terribly relevant to the main point of the post, but it should be noted that France put up much more of a fight in 1940 than is generally credited in the Anglosphere. The total French casualties KILLED in this brief campaign were about 100,000, out of a population much smaller than America's. While the quality of courage varied greatly from unit to unit, the main problem was that the French General Staff failed to understand the *speed* at which modern warfare would take place. As the historian Marc Bloch (decorated in WWI, volunteered for WWII, later shot as a Resistance member) put it, the metronomes at GHQ were set at too slow a speed. But this was not an army of cowards.
One more note on France. In 2001, I spent some time with Francis Cammaerts, a British officer who had been a primary organizer of WWII resistance activities in southern France. (SOE code name "ROGER")
Cammaerts told me that the French housewives in his area had shown incredible courage in providing shelter and support for Resistance people, in full knowledge that such support could easily lead to their deaths. He was very strong on the point that this contribution needed to be recognized.
Perhaps...probably...less common than the kind of behavior described in the post, but did exist, and apparently not totally rare.
The tendency to belittle French martial prowess in Anglophone writing is a bit odd, since all the memoirs of German soldiers I've read credit them as capable and brave opponents.
The difference in war baby births between German and Allied occupation is interesting. I wonder if there are any comparable figures for the Russian occupation of East Germany.
Regarding that last paragraph I have to defend the Danes though. Germany at the time had over 50 divisions on the west front alone (not counting reserves). Denmark couldn't even put together a full army group. Any attempt at trying to repel the invaders would have been pointless.
Then again, it's not like such logic would have worked with the women anyway.
Wow, those are some pretty harsh words Lowe is dishing out there, especially concerning France in the last paragraph you cited (For instance, he’s too easily conflating the usual nonsense of intellectuals like Sartre with the mental inclinations of ordinary French women, which I think is a mistake). I think a little more respect and caution is in order: lots of French men, for example, weren’t exactly exemplary during the Dark Years (especially collaborating French businessmen, who for whatever reason basically got a pass when the war was over, unlike women and intellectuals; De Gaulle’s remark to a group of industrialists post-war: “I did not see very many of you in London” was an anomaly). War, more than anything else, brings out human weakness, so I don’t think it’s charitable to be too condemnatory towards women who after all were simply giving in to temptation during a very tough time. And certainly a lot of these French ladies paid a price after the war, having their heads shaved and being paradaded naked down the streets and the like.
To be sure though, a lot of French womens’ rationalization hamsters did go into overdrive in efforts to justify their fraternization. I’ve always liked that line by one collaborator (although she probably wasn’t really serious): “My ass is international, but my heart is French!”
Some relevant thoughts from David Yeagley, a Comanche and former academic:
http://www.badeagle.com/html/white_women.html
@Brendan
I think you're are right. Dominance is sexy, to a degree. Apparently, the Germans, off duty, conducted themselves in a civilised manner through most of France. So the personal day to day interactions with Germans were not offensive as compared to the Russians, even though they were the occupier.
There were other factors as well. Germany manipulated the French/German exchange rate to their advantage meaning that the Germans were effectively richer than the French men. Their uniforms were better as well.
@David.
Yes, I think there can be a collective sexual categorization of a group by their success. I think it is part of the logic of human beings to engage is "attribute transference". i.e all Frenchmen are lovers, Germans boring, Italians excitable and so on.
France did put up a fight, and you're quite correct the generalship was bad, but the what's important is what happened after the fight was finished. Unlike, Poland, Greece and Yugoslavia where the partisans kept fighting, France just basically settled down. I don't think it was hyperbole when Churchill wrote of DeGaulle's flight to England "in that little plane he carried the honour of France." Most of the other French gave up. De Gaulle had an enormous amount of trouble in getting French to join him.
Cammaerts told me that the French housewives in his area had shown incredible courage in providing shelter and support for Resistance people
It's interesting how he remembers the housewives and not the men. But perhaps he meant them as well.
@Neutrino
I think the American's belittle the French more than the British, and the French are brave soldiers, but the their performance during WW2 was not their finest hour (with the exception of De Gaulle who in no way can be considered in the same boat.) Even in France, the topic is considered "sensitive".
One of the ironies during the War in the former Yugoslavia, was watching Francois Mitterand (a minor Vichy goverment Employee) lecture Croatian Franjo Tudjman ( A partisan actually fighting the fascists) on the evils of Fascism!
You really can't make this sort of stuff up.
@Vicious
The Danes should have put up more of a fight. See previous comments.
@Jason
My point wasn't so much to criticise the women as point out the attraction of German men. It appeared to be greater even than the attraction felt towards American men who were their liberators.
My point was to reinforce the link between Fascism and masculinity. For all their undeniable faults, they (the fascists) were more manly, and hence more sexy, than the Allies. Once again, in case anyone mistakes my intention, I regard Fascism is vile.
I still maintain that fascism was a type of socialism that appealed to "manly" types of men. The dividing line between it and the traditional socialists is more with regard to temperament rather than ideology.
@David
The link is broken.
"It's interesting how he remembers the housewives and not the men. But perhaps he meant them as well."
I think Mr Cammaerts emphasized this point because he felt the contributions of these women had not been sufficiently covered in the various histories.
Also, his operations took place in rural areas and towns far from Paris, which may be significant here.
"One contemporary manifestation of this which is somewhat odd but in the same general vein is the preference women have for viewing gay sex, when it comes to pornography (the use of which is growing among women). In part this is an anologue of men enjoying porn's portrayal of lesbian sex, but in part it's also because it portrays one man dominating another man in the most basic of ways -- and the women who are viewing find that hot, in the sense of being attracted to the "top" man while perhaps identifying with the man who is being dominated (who isn't really viewed as a man)."
That makes no sense. Heterosexual porn also provides more than enough examples of domination in the most basic ways. It'd be much easier for women starved of dominance to identify with the women in hetero porn movies.
If you look at the invasion of Denmark in 1940 in the context of the Feminine Imperative, there was absolutely no point on men's part in trying to put up a defensive fight. German supremacy was overwhelming and the country is geographically unsuited for defense. The war's outcome was certain before the first shot was even fired.
And what's the point in getting yourself killed for a pointless cause? To establish your post-mortem alpha cred? To prove your "honor"? "Your" women don't give a damn about honor and won't appreciate your sacrifice anyway - they always side with the winners. As far as they're concerned, if you die, you lose and that's it. If you get yourself killed, you just play into women's hands. Being undesired by them sexually is still better then, you know, being dead.
@Hollenhund.
I think it was Juvenal who said "for life's sake do not lose your reason to live."
Honor is the creed of a man.
I'm in the process of reading savage continent and there is an interesting section on the Lithuanian resistance against the Soviet occupation. Those guys were doomed, but their deaths gave the Lithuanian people a sense of hounor, and provided an example for their young men to aspire to.
The Easter Uprising in Dublin was doomed from the outset but the "blood sacrifice" united the Irish against the British.
The Greeks were in a far more hopeless position than the Danes, yet they didn't give up.
@David.
I didn't mean to imply the French women were cowards, simply that they were attracted to German men. The women of the Resistance had a great record.
These examples are different issues and they aren't good examples to begin with. Guerrilla warfare didn't end Soviet (read: Russian) rule in Lithuania or anywhere else for that matter. It didn't even contribute to it because it just gave the Russians the kind of threat they were prepared to fight - the KGB and the Soviet Internal Troops were masters of counter-guerrilla ops. The blood sacrifice of the IRA never facilitated the unification of Ireland. In fact, this attitude never facilitates anything anywhere (look at non-existent independent Palestine). And how exactly were the Greeks in a far more hopeless situation? Isn't Greece a bit more geographically suited for guerrilla reistance? Please explain.
Again, the question is what Danish soldiers were supposed to do in 1940? If they put up resistance, they all get killed, maybe they get some memorial somewhere and nevertheless become the laughingstock of the Western world, just like the Polish cavalry in 1939. If they resort to guerrilla war, they all get killed anyway. If they surrender after minimal resistance, as they did, they're betaized, at least in their own country.
When their men are destroyed or proven to be weaker than the invader, women lay claim only to their children, and that's on a good day.
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If they put up resistance, they all get killed, maybe they get some memorial somewhere and nevertheless become the laughingstock of the Western world, just like the Polish cavalry in 1939.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_cavalry#Cavalry_charges_and_propaganda
Thanks Anon
I knew that there were a couple of successful charges but not that many.
The Poles had balls of steel.
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