Allied rapes and misconduct in Normandy 1944-1946

[anondragon2012]

Hello everyone,
I would like to inquire on a very controversial topic.
I have found numerous articles stating that after the Americans invaded Normandy and kicked out the Germans,
When the Americans "occupied" France from 1944-1946, particularely in Le Havre, there have been numerous crimes committed against the French civilians. Particularely rape but also outright murder when civilians didn't cooperate.

Contrary to the popular myth of French cooperation and all these pictures of smiling French girls hugging GIs on tanks,
When you do some research you find that it was the opposite. There was huge climate of tension and post-1945 GIs often said they preferred enemy Germany to France.

Some sources even say "bands of GIs roamed the French countryside raping and killing"


Pro French Pamphlets such as the "112 Gripes about the French" were released to "educate" Americans about France and calm their frustrations. http://www.112gripes.com/

Sources:
- This life issue of 1944: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ukgE ... &q&f=false
Go on page 19 and read entire article. It sounds a bit left wing to me and generally biased. But I could be wrong.
- Here is a wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_durin ... _of_France
- Some articles...Again dubious newspapers...But still a source
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ating.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... laims.html

My main question is: Is this myth or is this reality?
- Did rapes and murders occur in Normandy after occupation?
- What was the general athmosphere in France 1944-1946? Were GIs really disliked or loved? What is true? I would love to hear accurate testimony from GI who witnessed these events

My question is really not to attack US Army, but to clear up these facts. As its a pretty big accusation with mostly French sources.
And I dont want to sound biased, but French have tendency to exagerate facts for political reasons, but maybe they are right?

I am also not sure if this is "war crime" so please let me know if it needs to be moved. French civilians in peacetime I think might not qualify as "war" but just the same as a tourist commiting a crime.

[David Thompson]

anondragon2012 -- You wrote:

I would like to inquire on a very controversial topic.

I've read your post several times, and I can't figure out what the topic is supposed to be. Is it rapes by US Army personnel in Normandy, rapes by US military personnel in France during WWII, Prof. Roberts' book What Soldiers Do (presumably rapes), whether the French people liked or disliked GIs during WWII, or what?

[Rob - wssob2]

The general thrust of anondragon2012's thread seems to be "The Allies Were Bad People Too,"

anondragon2012 -

1. Yes the French civilian experience of 1944 Liberation was incredibly varied and not all of it was positive. The post-war climate was difficult politically, economically and socially. There are plenty of books on the subject, and it's not that controversial.

2. The Americans liberated France, not occupied it.

3. Yes when you move millions of 18-25 year old military men to a new country you are bound to get incidents of larceny, rape, homicide, etc.

5. Are you somehow equivocating the random rape or homicide by an American GIs with Oradour, the compulsory forced labor decrees, and the fact that Hitler charged Vichy Franch charged the Vichy government twenty million Reichmarks per day to subsidize the cost of German occupation?

6. BTW when I was travelling through France during one of my college years, I was in line at the Nice train stations and what chit-chatting with an older gentlemen (say in his seventies) and two teenage French girls behind me. (not surprisingly, I was paying more attention to the girls) I'll never forget it - the older gentlemen gently raised a finger at the two girls as if to have them note that he was making an important point and said (in French of course) "You two should thank this gentleman. The Americans liberated us during World War II." It was a bit of a non-sequitur for the girls and I, but I never forgot it and was amazed that the guy could be truly grateful and say something like that to a complete stranger in a public place, 50 years after the war ended.

[anondragon2012]

anondragon2012 -- You wrote:

I would like to inquire on a very controversial topic.

I've read your post several times, and I can't figure out what the topic is supposed to be. Is it rapes by US Army personnel in Normandy, rapes by US military personnel in France during WWII, Prof. Roberts' book What Soldiers Do (presumably rapes), whether the French people liked or disliked GIs during WWII, or what?

Thank you for your reply!
My question is particularly about the occupation of Normandy area by the American military in 1944-1946.
I have found articles showing a general climate of crime and disorder, rape and looting.
My question is to ask exactly about what is truth and what is untruth. Essentially: Was Normandy 1944-1946 this massive debauchery or were US troops ordered and did not commit many crimes?

The years 1944-1946 when Americans were stationed in France are rarely mentioned in history books that I read.
I would love to hear more about this!

[anondragon2012]

The general thrust of anondragon2012's thread seems to be "The Allies Were Bad People Too,"

anondragon2012 -

1. Yes the French civilian experience of 1944 Liberation was incredibly varied and not all of it was positive. The post-war climate was difficult politically, economically and socially. There are plenty of books on the subject, and it's not that controversial.

2. The Americans liberated France, not occupied it.

3. Yes when you move millions of 18-25 year old military men to a new country you are bound to get incidents of larceny, rape, homicide, etc.

5. Are you somehow equivocating the random rape or homicide by an American GIs with Oradour, the compulsory forced labor decrees, and the fact that Hitler charged Vichy Franch charged the Vichy government twenty million Reichmarks per day to subsidize the cost of German occupation?

6. BTW when I was travelling through France during one of my college years, I was in line at the Nice train stations and what chit-chatting with an older gentlemen (say in his seventies) and two teenage French girls behind me. (not surprisingly, I was paying more attention to the girls) I'll never forget it - the older gentlemen gently raised a finger at the two girls as if to have them note that he was making an important point and said (in French of course) "You two should thank this gentleman. The Americans liberated us during World War II." It was a bit of a non-sequitur for the girls and I, but I never forgot it and was amazed that the guy could be truly grateful and say something like that to a complete stranger in a public place, 50 years after the war ended.

Thank you for your post Sir.
However I am looking for some serious evidence, not politically motivated comment and "Oradour" and other such unrelated things.

I am just someone who wants to establish if US military was ordered in Normandy 1944-1946 or if there was climate of tension as is portrayed in this life article I attached!

Not hearsay or other stories which may come from anyone post-war

[Rob - wssob2]

It sounds like the book at the heart of your thread is What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France by American professor Mary Louise Roberts.

http://www.amazon.com/What-Soldiers-Do- ... roduct_top

There is a very good New York Times review of the book titled "The Dark Side of Liberation" at
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/books ... .html?_r=0

It sounds like an interesting book - touching on the complicated American attitudes towards the French in general and highlighting a perception - perhaps based in cultural bias and encouraged by wartime propaganda and senior American commanders - that French women were libertine - as the article states " The liberation of France was “sold” to soldiers not as a battle for freedom but as an erotic adventure among oversexed Frenchwomen, stirring up a “tsunami of male lust” that a battered and mistrustful population often saw as a second assault on its sovereignty and dignity." The book apparently also touches on the US Army's essentially racist response to the sexual assaults and mayhem, disproportionately punishing black American troops for the alleged crimes.

There is also an interview with the author on the NPR website at
http://www.npr.org/2013/05/31/187350487 ... ii-history

And of course there is a wiki article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_durin ... _of_France

However I am looking for some serious evidence,

I think you can probably find it in Robert's book. Another book that touches on the subject - and also gets into the topic of American deserters stealing supplies and committing murders in liberated France is Charles Glass's The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II

A third book specific to Normandy which touches on the horrors of war and the ambivalence of being liberated ins Alexander McKee's Caen: Anvil of Victory. It covers in some detail the experience of Norman civilians during the conflict (the Caen campaign came under much criticism by postwar historians for its disastrous effect on the local population) but does not get into the postwar situation.

not politically motivated comment and "Oradour" and other such unrelated things

My point is not political but statistical - that German occupation policies such as the forced labor campaign, the economic exploitation and the counterinsurgency operations as exemplified by Oradour, Ascq, and Maillé (among other unfortunate villages) were far more devastating and make the transgressions by wayward GI's in postwar France - admittedly terrible in their own right- pale in comparison.

or if there was climate of tension as is portrayed in this life article I attached!

I think the short answer is yes. The liberation was traumatizing to the French - politically, economically, socially and frequently personally. The presence of millions of American servicemen - most probably fairly well-behaved, many others not - complicated the situation. As author of the tour-de-force book The Guns at Last Light commented, war "It makes good soldiers do bad things, and it makes bad soldiers do terrible things." - see http://www.cbsnews.com/news/when-some-l ... criminals/

What is clear is that when SHAEF commander Eisenhower heard of the misbehavior, he ordered a stop put to it. If you want to see an allegation of a senior Allied commander permitting his troops to commit sexual assault during the Italian campaign, read the "Allied Rapists" thread at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=30923

[anondragon2012]

Thank you Rob for the great answer,
And sorry for the late reply.

I will try to find more detail about this and read those books.
My initial interests comes from the fact that I find sexual crimes and general military disorder to be pretty shocking, and especially in an "Allied" country like France it seemed quite incredible.

I can surely imagine that Allied servicemen were mostly behaving correctly and that this is the work of a minority.
But it all interests me, because by opening this chapter of the war, I realized that there is an entire side of WW2 that is pretty much unknown and hasn't been touched on by historians. It seems that in the post-war period, it just wasn't proper to talk about things that would harm the myth of the "greatest generation".

I was also looking for first hand accounts which I always find interesting.
For example my great grandfather served on the opposite side in the German Army, in Africa and France.
He had alot of things to say about both campaigns and the "emotional" athmosphere in those countries.
It's funny because when you hear from first time accounts, you often hear things which might completely dispel what official history now says about a topic.

I have the feeling that GIs who went home to America after WW2, rarely talked about the bad side of the war (similar to how German didn't discuss the misconduct they sometimes did on the eastern front). They probably said stuff like "We fought the Germans and we won" and don't go into all the reality of what really happened outside of battle and so on. And WW2 movies often portray WW2 from the American side as just being a non-stop war from Normandy/Africa to Berlin, which it certainly wasn't (there were lulls and so on).
And the French probably conveniently forget about these events as it doesn't make sense with the official history they learn at school.

In any case, thank you for your response.

[snpol]

I would like to ask about examples of villages or small towns in Germany where significant number of raped were reported. I mean examples of this sort
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_duri ... nch_troops

Perry Biddiscombe quotes the original survey estimates that the French for instance committed "385 rapes in the Constance area; 600 in Bruchsal; and 500 in Freudenstadt."

Biddiscombe, Perry (2001). "Dangerous Liaisons: The Anti-Fraternization Movement in the U.S. Occupation Zones of Germany and Austria, 1945–1948". Journal of Social History. 34 (3): 635. doi:10.1353
Let's look at population of Freudenstadt during WW2
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freudenstadt

Einwohnerentwicklung von Freudenstadt; oben von 1603 bis 2016, unten ein Ausschnitt ab 1871

According to the chart in the article the population of the town at the end of WW2 was about 10 thousands. So there were about 5000 females. Thus 10% of them were raped by French soldiers.
Are there any other examples of villages or small towns where about 10% of women were raped?

Edited to add. Apparently it is a wrong thread as Freudenstadt is in Germany (not in Normandy).