Allied Rapists.....

[Ostuf Charlemagne]

1972.Marseille.France. I was 12 old. My grandma entered once my room.
I had my collection of Third Reich items...daggers,helmet,posters,medals.
Since my grandpa had to hidde during 1943/44 (The Gestapo had a warrant on him 'cause he denied to join the mandatory Work Service in Germany...) ,i was both preoccupied and interested to see the reaction of my grandma...She took a long look at my stuff,sat,remained silent for maybe 5 minutes and said :'' The german soldiers were corrects.When i was pregnant and aboarded a bus,they always stood up to let me the seat.The americans were a lot worse : they raped a lot of girls in this city .''
I was sorprised because if the rapings of the soviets troops were well known (and i won't talk about russians atrocities in this topic) i tought the western allied were correct with women...
Very recently,(August 9th 2003) i read this article (scanned) in the french press (Present diary) wich is nothing more then the resume of a book from an american historian,J.Robert Lilly (''La face cachee des GIs'' wich is the tittle of the french version of the book) where this universitarian states in his introduction :'' The image of american troops that i show in this book is a violent contrast with the one established in the USA ...all the representations that we have from them in England and France always showed them as generous,welcomed friends...''
From the article : -translation- '' J.Robert Lilly estimate for 3 countries only,(England,France and Germany) 17080 rapes committed by US soldiers between 1942 and 1945: 2420 rapes in England , 3620 rapes in France and more than 11040 rapes in Germany.....( no one US soldier was executed for those crimes in Germany but some were executed for rapes committed in England and France.) ... the very important number of black rapists ,without proportion with their small representation in the US army (10 % of the manpower).They were,too,punished more severely...''

I find interesting those hidden facts....(untill today...) From my personal sources,the most and worst sex offenders from the western allied,were :

- the italians partisans.
- the jewish brigade of the british army (which slaughtered the families of the anticommunist cossacks ,raping all the women,near Linz in June 1945)
- the french partisans and french colonial troops :

French colonial troops were (in) famous as sex offenders in italy.In one case ,near Napoli,moroccan soldiers aboarded a civilian train,and raped an italian woman in front of her baby....when it was done,they throwed both the woman and the baby by a window.Only one colonial soldier will be executed in Italy by french military justice ....
In fact, after the french colonial troops flanked Monte-Cassino at the Garigliano (wich displaced the axis of the battle and permitted the seizure of the place by the poles...just because Monte-Cassino had lost his importance for the germans...) general Juin (chief of french Expeditionnary Force) authorized officially ''50 hours of rape of europeans women'' to his moroccan,algerians,tunisians and senegalese soldiers...
This rape took place in Ciociaria village ,with murders of some of those poor women and an epidemy of venereal diseases appeared....

In Esperia village the moroccans raped even the priest,Alberto Terrilli,who died from the lacerations....

(general Juin,a rascal,had been staunchly Vichyst and then gaullist after 1942,when it became clear who was winning the war....in 1942 he had a meeting with Goering in Berlin,assuring him that the french army would provides with supplies and facilities the Afrika Korps if rommel had to retreat in Tunisia....In November 1942 he opened fire against the anglo-americans in North Africa,just to rally them 3 days alter....Died in 1966 as a Marshall and ''National Heroe'')

Comebacking with french colonial troops in Italy ,they raped 25000 italians women in the following places :

In Sicilia, Xitta and Capizzi villages....
Island of Elba....
In continental Italy : in the following cities and villages :
Esperia, Ciociaria,Ausonia,Pico,Pontecorvo,Campodimele,Santa Oliva,
Castro del Volsci,Polleca,Giuliano di Roma,Grottaferrata,Frosinone,Poggibonsi,Murlo,Strove,San Quirico d'Orcia,Colle Val d'Elsa,Abbadia San Salvatore and Radicofani....
(sources from the book ''La Ciociaria e le altre'' by Lucioli Sabatini,edition Tusculum)....

In Toscania province,they went so far as to rape some partisans women ,who were theorically their allies....
Obviously this is clearly a pattern ,not isolated cases.

By April 17th 1945, at Freudenstadt in Germany,moroccans troops entered
the city without resistance...colonel Castries authorized them to rape the women as a ''reward''... 500 rapes ,some even raped inside the churchs were they tried to refuge...
I don't know of such behaviors from the british and canadian army wich demostrated a better sense of discipline and military honour.
The german army (and the SS) were never know as such sex offenders
(rape was punished in every case by ''Todstreife '',death sentence.) and it was just not a part of the german behavior ...as my grandma confirmed !

Thompson,i wait you here .....

Pics : a- the french article i read .
b- from ''SS Panzergrenadier '' by Hans Schmidt,who as a POW witnessed american raping a german auxiliary .
c- always from ''SS Panzergrenadier'',the strong discipline of the german army.

[demonio]

I think France has a present day problem with morrocan nationals (or ex nationals) and other Northern African Nationals targeting European women for rapes. Often group rapes.
A similar trend appears to be taking places in Norway and Sweden.

Rape is a heinous crime, but even rapists look down upon group rapists.

Surely raping a priest is not nice either.


Your article was very interesting. I think France adopted a strange stance on the "war on terror" for her own good yes ??? , lest she be brought to her knees by many of the new citizens of France

[David Thompson]

Ostuf Charlemagne -- You gave a number of examples of rapes committed by allied soldiers and members of irregular forces, and then contrasted that with "the strong discipline of the german army" and a statement from "SS-Panzergrenadier": "In WWII German soldiers convicted of rape in any of the occupied countries usually received the death penalty, and as a rule the sentence was quickly meted out."

I'm unimpressed. Here's why:

(1) I have not read Prof. J. Robert Lilly's book " La Face cachée des GI's : Les viols commis par des soldats américains en France, en Angleterre et en Allemagne pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale." The book has only been published in French, and as of 30 Aug 2003, the work had no US or UK publisher, according to an article of that date in the British newspaper "The Guardian," at:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/stor ... 65,00.html

For those readers who are interested in the subject, two of Prof. Lilly's papers are available on-line:

"Dirty Details: Executing US Soldiers During WWII"
http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/dp/dp ... ty.details

and

"Executing U.S. Soldiers in England, WWII: The Power of Command Influence and Sexual Racism"
http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~critcrim/dp/dp ... xec.us.gis

Although I have not read the book, I note that in a Canadian review of Prof. Lilly's new book, appears the statement: "Officiellement, il y a eu 17 000 viols qui ont été commis par des soldats américains dans ces trois pays, entre 1942 et 1945. Pour chacun de ces viols, il y a eu procès."

In other words, in each of these cases involving American soldiers, there was a trial of the culprit or culprits -- hardly a sign of relaxed discipline, or a criminal command policy. The figures are not immediately available to me, but as I recall there were well over a million American servicemen stationed in Great Britain, France and Germany during and immediately after WWII. It would be interesting to see what the crime rate per capita for American troops actually was.

(2) "SS-Panzergrenadier" claimed that "In WWII German soldiers convicted of rape in any of the occupied countries usually received the death penalty, and as a rule the sentence was quickly meted out." This subject has been discussed on many occasions in this section of the forum. "SS-Panzergrenadier" omits to mention that the German high command suspended its court martial regulations in at least one entire theater of war (the eastern front), and consequently German soldiers there hardly ran the risk of being convicted of rape or anything else. See, for example, the thread

Discipline & War Crimes: Germany v. USSR
http://www.thirdreichforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=25450

The demoralizing effect this had on German troop discipline led to rapes and sexual excesses which were never punished. See, for example, the discussion in

A German soldier's guilt-filled diary
http://www.thirdreichforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=29905

SS Judge Konrad Morgen had similar stories to tell about Waffen-SS misconduct in the Dirlewanger penal brigade.

For that reason I believe that a statement like "The german army (and the SS) were never know as such sex offenders (rape was punished in every case by ''Todstreife '',death sentence.)" is little more than a "fairy tale."

(3) I am not in a position to comment on rapes committed by French African troops, Italian partisan formations, etc. I can't say I know a lot about rapes committed by German auxiliaries either, although I doubt that the culprits "usually received the death penalty, and as a rule the sentence was quickly meted out." If there is any proof of these crimes, beyond a mere allegation that it happened, I'd be happy to see it posted.

(4) From having served in the armed forces, you should be aware that there are criminals in every army. That's why almost all armed forces have military police and stockades. The real question is whether there is a policy (as there was in the German in the campaign against the USSR) which ignores or encourages these criminals. If you have evidence to show that this happened in the American armed forces during WWII, bring it forward. If you have proof that Marshal Juin and/or Colonel de Castries (wasn't he a commander at Dienbienphu in 1954?) were war criminals, let's see it.

[CHRISCHA]

In his series of books describing the conflict in Western Europe, Charles Messenger has made the point several times of the poor discipline and rape increase by allied troops.

The numbers may be exagerated or indeed underestimated, but I believe them to be based on fact.

[Rob - wssob2]

In his series of books describing the conflict in Western Europe, Charles Messenger has made the point several times of the poor discipline and rape increase by allied troops.

The numbers may be exagerated or indeed underestimated, but I believe them to be based on fact.

a) which books?

b) define "poor discipline"?

c) define "rape increase"?

d) define "Allied" (i.e. French, Polish, Canadian, British, American, etc.) Which specific units does Messenger mention? What are the incidents?

e) If the numbers are exaggerated or underestimated, then they are estimates. What are the facts that they are based on?

f) Does Charles Messenger define his sources?

Yes disciplinary measures in the German Army were renowned for their strictness. But the blanket statement "they had better discipline then the Allies" doesn't so much illuminate an aspect of history as illustrate the sentiments of the poster.

How did the war effect this discipline? Was the Heer as "disciplined" during the retreat from the Korsun pocket in 1945 as it was during the 1940 invasion of Denmark?

Was this discipline too lax, too severe, or just right?

Exactly what are the differences between Allied and Axis military codes of justice? What violations were often overlooked by each formation?

How did orders such as the Commisar or Barbarossa Order play into this discipline? (e.g. when Hitler tells his soldiers that they won't be subject to military discipline for actions against Soviet civilians, how did the order effect their discipline?)

Do ad hoc military security formations such as the feldjägerkorps (positioned behind the Germany line with the responsibility to shoot stragglers) reflect an efficient, disciplined army ruled by professionalism or one ruled by the whip?



BTW Hans Schmidt is a paleo-Nazi (meaning he was führertreue back when there was a Führer to be true to) and a Holocaust denier. His self-published autobiography "SS-Panzergrenadier" is a tedious read. Though it's an interesting book (because it shows that many W-SS men were not just "only soldiers" - they were, and remain, committed Nazis) it it's about as factually "accurate" as a Volkischer Beobachter broadsheet.

[Oleg Grigoryev]

In regards to German war-discipline at EF see scan form Bartov’s book posted on this thread http://www.thirdreichforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=25450 by me. On the subject of Allied attitude towards Germans see this http://www.argo.net.au/andre/osmarwhiteENFIN.htm

[David Thompson]

Thanks, Oleg.

Ostuf Charlemagne -- You said: "Thompson,i wait you here ....."

I like a challenge. I replied to you in less than 12 hours. Where are you? And where is your response to the Erich Muehsam and Ezra Pound thread? Why are you throwing down your gauntlet if you're going to be late to the duel -- or worse, never show up? Come on, comb your hair, take a deep breath, drink some coffee and give me a reply. (My apologies to the readers for this personal note, but Ostuf Charlemagne was sort of . . . well, feisty. And he does address me by my family name, which makes it personal).

[Ostuf Charlemagne]

Hi Krisha.....Demonio,you are right .....

Hi Thompson,nice to earch from you ..... as i told you once,i'm profesionnaly busy,i follow actually 10 topics in this forum ,and i'm in two others forums at the same time.....besides,we have more than 7 hours of difference between your place and mine....but do not think i fleed !
Ezra Pound ,etc.... well,i send a reply and it was erased,so i went out of the topic,thinking you used to erase when you are short of arguments....
a- I agree with you (for once !) about what you said about US army,this is why i mentionned others allied forces as ''worst sex offenders''....
b- To mentionn the Dirlewanger Brigade was a stroke ''down the belt'',since everybody knows it was a scumbags unit ! (and yes ,Castries was the commander at Dien-Bien-Phu,- not a so good commander by the way.... if he had listened to his subordinate major Bigeard maybe the issue would have been different,but this is another story....and as a former french para it is painful for me to have to mention him as a man who betrayed his military honor...but facts are stuborn,as used to says Lenin !)

Rob-wssob : The commissar order have nothing to do with rapes and rapes is what we are talking about..... Now about a rape free policy by the german command in the eastern front,you forgot obviously to mentionn the strong order of general Von Schenckendorff of 1942,when he was commander of german rear front in central Russia (Smolensk zone )...i have it and may scann it for you, if you want....
And since you asked for more facts on this topic,here we go :

Only two instance,among many,of french ''resistance'' deeds (between ''''
because most of them resisted in september 44....after the germans left...
obviously they were resisting to women .)

'' At Pouligny,a young maid,Mlle A... M... had her breasts cut and other one was executed for to be the mistress of a german,wich was not thrue.
At Mehun,Lady G... 43 years old,was suspended naked with two chairs at a door .She was shaved and then burned with a lighter ,then beated with iron bars.At night she was raped in public.''
(Testimony of a former resistant,published in ''La Gerbaude'',magazine of Berry province,trimonthly nr.2,1951)

And during the retreat of the Vichyst french militia in august 1944 (the militia was an anticommunist police force,most of them were drafted in the Charlemagne division in sept.44),some communist french partisans intercepted a train full with the families of militiamen,going to Germany,
mostly women and children...
They slaughtered the childrens first and raped the women before to kill them.... they even put some dogs to have sex with some women .
That happened in the woods of Troncais,Allier Province.
(source :''De Marseille a Novossibirsk'' by Andre Bayle,1991...but this is a well known story in France ,anyway...)

Question : when did the germans act in a same ''fashion'' ???

[David Thompson]

Ostuf Charlemagne -- You said: "Ezra Pound ,etc.... well,i send a reply and it was erased,so i went out of the topic,thinking you used to erase when you are short of arguments...."

I'm never short of arguments, and in nine months or so moderating here, you can probably count the number of posts I've deleted on the fingers of your hands and have change. The only post of yours I deleted was that off-topic art message. If you made reply to me on Erich Muehsam and Ezra Pound (other than what's still there), I didn't see it, and I've been looking for a response.

It's good to see you back here at the H&WC section again. I didn't think you fled, but I thought I'd give your "persona" a poke to see if you were still alive, and if so, to keep your interest up.

I'm glad that you agree with me about the American Army's record, and I appreciate your acknowledgement. I didn't think that mentioning the Dirlewanger penal brigade was "hitting below the belt," although we can both appreciate the qualities of that unit. That's what happens when you don't give criminal soldiery a court-martial, and that's also why I put in the reference to

A German soldier's guilt-filled diary
http://www.thirdreichforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=29905

to show that the misdeeds occurred in "normal" German Army formations as well. The other references by Oleg and myself show how general the problem was.

I'm aware of the acts of the French resistance and posted a thread on the subject which may interest you:

Postwar lynchings
http://www.thirdreichforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=18148

I'm looking forward to your return to the H&WC section, at your pleasure.

[CHRISCHA]

Rob-WSSOB, with reference to your queries regarding my post, the two books '44' and '45' by Charles Whitting should be of intrest.

Without sounding bombastic, I genuinly have neither the time or the inclination to answer the above in detail.

Please comment on the books if you feel I have taken the information within out of context.

[alsaco]

L'excés, en tout, est un défaut. Excess, in all cases, is a flaw.

I am not going to refute in detail the affirmations of Ofstuf Karl der Grosse. A trip through Google is sufficient to establish that savages can be found in all groups, even not military.

But I would call your attention on the fact that finally all these atrocities are directed first toward women. Since the Bible, through the mahomedan and Tartars conquest to nowadays, all advancing, russians or americans, or french marrocans includes, or retreating, germans, hindu or georgians, armies do recur to rapes and incivilities on women.

Does this not show that the basis of our wildness is this uncivilized temptation to force women ?. And that a polite and correct way of handling men-women relation is part of civilisation ?.

[Ostuf Charlemagne]

Rob-wssob : So you discovered some SS were Nazis ? Congratulations,my friend ! Try a bit harder and you will to discover the tedious water,also...
(In base of my sources,i can assure you that Hitler was a Nazi,too.)
Of courses they were nazis ( the SS was a NSDAP formation,even if it tended to become the foreign legion of the german army during the war)
...so what ? Others were communists,democrats,anarchists or whatever.
This have nothing to do with this topic which is about allied rapes...
By the way,you have a lot of stomach to comparate Hans Schmidt with Julius Streicher...Obviously an exageration.
''Anything exagerate is insignificant.'' ( Talleyrand )
Fact : Did H.Schmidt witnessed a rape by US soldiers,yes or not ??
I stated too that rapes in the eastern front were off-topic ,because there the war was really crude (the USSR never signed the Convention of Geneva) ,and with the millions of rapes committed by the Red Army ,i would have a field day for my arguments....

Can you tell me about same cruel rapes by the german army,SS, SD in the western Front ? And give names ?
Because i can give names ,as for the following rapes committed by italians partisans :

- April 27th 1945- Rosalia Paltrinieri,secretary of the Feminine Fascio of Medolla village saw her house invaded by partisans who raped her in front of her husband and children .Then they took her to the mountain where they made her digg her own grave ,where they buried her alive.

-July 30th 1944- Ferrara zone. The partisans kidnapped miss Clementina Ferreti,29 old.She belonged to a fascist family . What the partisans didn't know (altough it would have been easy too see) was that the woman was mentally dissabled...They ''interogated'' her and ,of course,Clementina could not gave a coherent answer .So they beat her .Wich made for no result.So they tortured her sexually before to kill her by a submachine gun burst.

-october 10th 1944- Ferrara zone. The partisans killed a civilian ,an apolitic one,no appearant motive.(just for the fun ?) and seized his wife ,Luigia Castellani Barattini,54 old,and took her to their camp.There they tortured her and raped her.Her body will be found somedays later in the brushes.

- Schoolteacher Elda Varotti,22,apolitic,kidnapped by partisans at the end of April 1945 for to serve as flesh in their orgies.Never found.

- April 45- Arsiero village. Vicenza zone. Mrs Maria Locarno was arrested by partisans.She had been the dactylographist of the local fascist house.
She was jailed for 5 days at the jail of Trenta where she was sexually tortured and raped repeatedly ... Then she was token back to Arsiero where she was ''judged'' by a kangooroo court composed by two medics (!) ,Dr Costalunga and Dr Dal Favero and Mario Pitarello,an ex-fascist funcionary who had became one of the chiefs of the local ''resistance''.
They sentenced her to death by lynch,and so she was lynched on the streets.

- Mrs Rosalia Bertacchini,secretary of Feminine Fascio of Modena city.Raped and buried alive by the men of Arrigo Boldrini ,aka ''Buelow'',
who will be after the war an ''honorable'' congressman from communist party ,stalinian untill the death of Stalin and then ''euro-communist'' of social-democrat tendance....

- Carmela Gualtieri,49, schoolteacher,member of fascist party,was arrested at Modena at the end of the war,with her husband.The husband was shot and Mrs Gualtieri was token to Bastiglia village where she was forced to go naked on the streets ,raped in public,and ,finally,shot.

-March 13th 1945. The partisans arrested Rosa Roversi,a beautiful woman of 37 old. They stole her.They raped her.They murdered her in Novi village.The motive was purely sexual.So in this case,in 1949,the ''carabinieri'' of Novi (a military force who serve as rural police )
arrested the guilties : Mario Allegretti and Gino Giarretti,both former communists ''resistants''.

- At Trieste city,in 1945,Danilo Pertot,right hand of Palmiro Togliatti (a famous italian war criminal,aka ''the killer number One'' - in english- who was after the war an ''honorable'' communist congressman.Died in the 90's.) and chief of the ''People's Guard'',an italian communist militia ounder yugoslav command during 40 days (the 40 days during wich Trieste was a yugoslavian city...) ,arrested his own cousin,Dora Ciok,one of the most beautiful women of Trieste from who he was in love (?).The woman had refused repeatedly his proposals... As a revenge,he ordered his men to rape her and then delivered the pooor women to the titist partisans who raped her-again- and throwed her alive in a natural well of the karst mountain...

more to follow....

[Ostuf Charlemagne]

- At Rio Saliceto,province of Reggio Emilia,March 10th 1945,the partisans arrested a civilian,Umberto Nicolini,as an ''enemy of classes'' and his 18 old daughter,Marisa.She was raped and cruelly murdered in front of her father....then the father was shot.The same day,same place,the same partisans raped and murdered Maria Domenica Ghidini,18.....

- The titist partisans seized Visinada,a small village of Istria,near Pola harbour in september 1943,taking vantage of the changing of side of the italian royal army.... 16 of them arrested Norma Cossetto,a 23 old student,just guilty to be an italian woman.They tied her to a three,tortured her sexually ,raped her repeatedly and then throwed her in a ''foiba'',a natural well in the mountains ,along with 26 italian civilians...
Those partisans were commanded by Antonio Paizan,a former italian soldier who joined the titists after the armistice of july 43.Somedays later the germans launched a counter offensive,liberated the village and an SD unit captured Paizan and the 15 ones who confessed their crimes against the italian population...This way, italian authorities were able to extract the 27 corpses and give them a decent burial.Paizan and the 15 partisans were shot by an SD firing squad. ( I think,Rob,that if you knew before of these executions,you had says '' poor patriots ,wasted by those nazis monsters '' right ? .... wich demostrate what i said too many times in this forum : most SD units were doing a normal police job in wartime,against non uniformed terrorists wo where definitely not angels !)

- Pierina Donadelli,15 old,was an orphan who was taken care by an old nunn and used to work part-time as a maid in Casola village.(North Center of Italy.) She was kidnapped by August 10th 1944 by reds partisans who,just for the ''fun'',took her to their camp in the mountain,raping her during 20 days untill the poor child refused to eat,not reacting to the ''game''.She had even no more energy to cry... Then they took her ,along with a schoolteacher they had captured too,for the same purpose, at the small church of Monte Santa Giulia where,in a last act of barbarity and profanation,they raped both inside the church and killed them with buttstrokes.
(Among those partisans was an escaped american POW who participated too... i have his name,but since he may always be alive in the US of A ,i don't want tosay it and give our ''moderators'' friends an erasing field day....)
Some days later,by the indiscretion of one of the partisans ,the old nunn was able to discover where Pierina was clandestinely buried,and with the help of a friend,she recovered the remains of the child and gave her a Christian burial in the cemetery of Casola,where she rest today....

Today,there is a monument at the top of Mount Santa Giulia,in middle of cypruses in half a circle... A monument to Pierina ? No.
A monument to those who ''fought against Nazifascism'' as it is carved in the rock. A monument to honour the coward rascals who tortured to death an 15 old orphan,who was virgin,who never earch about politics.

No more comments,guys.... i have more facts,but it's too disgusting.
But, yes, Thompson, we have a pattern there !

Pictures : They are not torture pics,those people were alive when pictured
,so here they are,i don't make-up facts.

a- Student Norma Cossetto.

b- The small church of Mount Santa Giulia today,where Pierina and a schoolteacher were raped and murdered inside...

c- Maria Domenica Ghidini.

[David Thompson]

Ostuf Charlemagne -- Can you post sources so that at least some of the readers can verify them (no offense to you personally -- everyone here gets asked for sources, which you usually provide).

[Ostuf Charlemagne]

Hi Thomson....

Both sources and pictures comes from my own book ...
I wrote a book ,in 1994,called ''Forgotten crimes of the Allies''.

This why i can give you a rough time about allied crimes !

Regards.