Last week there were reports in the media about the investigated sex appeal of Wehrmacht soldiers. With their masculine appearance and pockets full of condoms, they would have brought modern sexual morality to the Netherlands. In search of the nuance, Kennislink decided to ask the researcher in question a few questions.
Men in uniforms:women have always found it interesting, so why not with German Wehrmacht soldiers? Especially giggly teenage girls looking for adventure would have their eye on these young men. What is the story behind this research?
Propaganda doesn't work
Laura Fahnenbruck will receive her PhD on 12 November at the University of Groningen on the everyday sexuality of Wehrmacht soldiers during the occupation years. In her research, Fahnenbruck looked at sexual escapades as well as serious relationships.
“I mainly wanted to find out whether the strategy devised by the army command was also implemented in wartime. The Netherlands was seen as a Germanic brother country, which had erroneously become detached from the German Empire. The Dutch were relatives and therefore excellent marriage material, in contrast to the French, for example. The policy was aimed at promoting a Dutch wife, but with the following caveat:beware of the depraved women from the city.”
As the war progressed, the propaganda only intensified and the portrayed image of the women more positive, according to Fahnenbruck. This is to advertise the eventual victory and to motivate soldiers to contribute to this also outside the battlefield. This policy of the Wehrmacht turned out to be at odds with the sexual behavior of the soldiers. “There are no reliable figures for the number of marriages concluded, but there are probably only a few thousand.”
Fahnenbruck suspects that the looser sexual intercourse of Dutch girls with German soldiers was much more common than we thought until now. “The sources show that mixed couples on the street were not accepted, but verbally abused. The soldiers also behaved superior:they had not only taken the Netherlands, but also the pub and the women. This regularly led to fights with Dutch men. It was a lot easier to have contact in a private circle, for example if a soldier was billeted."
That the promotion policy of the Wehrmacht did not really catch on is also apparent from the lawsuits for the recognition of children. It was difficult for pregnant women to prove who the father was. “Wehrmacht soldiers did everything they could to avoid recognizing the child. They said that the girl had had sex with other soldiers at the same time, had their comrades testify and staged their own family in Germany. Marrying two women was simply impossible and they themselves saw the relationship with the Dutch girl as periodic from the start.”
Motivation unknown
In addition to the court records, Fahnenbruck mainly examined archives of the German army and the Dutch police. Ego documents were much less discussed. She did not investigate the motives of the soldiers or the girls who hooked up with them.
“Indeed, more research needs to be done on this. In the police reports I mainly came across notes about underage women who had been arrested on the street. The police also found that there were condoms in the parks. I conclude from this that these are exceptional or new situations, otherwise it would not have made it into the reports. These girls were told by the police that they had no business with those soldiers, but they didn't care. Why not? Perhaps more bravado because they were standing next to a German soldier? I do not know. The fact is that there was more room for adventure during the occupation. Schools closed, giving the girls much more free time and at the same time a place to retreat unseen with a young soldier.”
It is also not certain how many soldiers are involved. “The Wehrmacht consisted of 1.8 million soldiers, but the fighting did not take place here. On average, only 100,000 soldiers a year were stationed in the Netherlands. The soldiers had quite a bit of free time and liked to spend it with girls. The photos they took of this were intended for the home front. Soldiers made memory books to show at home how beautiful the war was. Soldiers had the image of having a lot of sex, so that had to be reflected in the photos."
Sex Factory
The Wehrmacht wanted to keep its soldiers healthy when it came to fighting, but the men also had to be able to release their sexual energy. The army command saw sex with prostitutes as an addition to the soldier's wife at home. The army supplied soldiers with condoms. When it turned out that the venereal diseases were not decreasing, it set up brothels itself to monitor health. Fahnenbruck:“This policy was very modern for the time. In addition, it was not only about keeping the soldiers healthy for the battlefield, but also to allow them to go back to Germany 'clean'. These progressive views may have influenced sexual morality in the Netherlands.”
The brothels themselves were also very different from, for example, the Amsterdam Red Light District. “Not a Moulin Rouge-esque setting, but a clinical sex center outside the city center. These large-scale brothels were set up in the same way throughout the German Reich and were therefore recognizable and familiar to the soldiers. The prostitutes were given employment contracts. This was unprecedented in the Netherlands. In the Wehrmacht brothel, both the soldiers and prostitutes had to undergo health checks to ensure that venereal diseases did not spread. The Dutch police then collected the infected women and took them to hospital, where the municipality had to pay for the costs of the treatment.”
And what about the women in the Wehrmacht? “One in twenty Wehrmacht soldiers was female. They did not have an equal place in the army and initially performed mainly administrative tasks. During the war they also got bombers and carried weapons. There was no incentive policy for them to marry Dutch people. It is also unclear whether that was allowed at all. For example, I came across the story of a Dutch man who signed up for the Wehrmacht in order to marry a German soldier.”