Are most men rapists in wartime? Historical wars and rape

[GIGObuster]

@Tamerlane

Cornelius Ryan narrates a first-hand anecdote of exactly that in The Last Battle. The all-business front-line commander praises his disciplined crack troops as “good boys,” while warning the woman he was talking to that the men following behind were “pigs.”

I decided to check that book, I was not aware that Berlin was one of the places that did not vote for Hitler and the Nazis in one of the last elections before the Reight, no wonder Hitler reportedly wanted to see all Berliners die.

A good read so far and by the same writer that also made “The Longest Day” and “A Bridge Too Far”. This book also was supposed to had been turned into a big epic WWII movie but it was harder to get a project going that would had virtually no American or western allied heroes. (I would think that following prisoners of war and American airmen missions over Berlin would had made more than just token parts and killing that bastard high ranking Nazi judge in a bombing raid would had been a satisfying bit to see on the big screen.)

Roland Freisler

On 3 February 1945, Freisler was conducting a Saturday session of the People’s Court, when American bombers attacked Berlin. Government and Nazi Party buildings were hit, including the Reich Chancellery, the Gestapo headquarters, the Party Chancellery, and the People’s Court.

According to one report, Freisler hastily adjourned court and had ordered that day’s prisoners to be taken to a shelter, but paused to gather that day’s files. Freisler was killed when an almost direct hit on the building caused him to be struck down by a beam in his own courtroom.[12] His body was reportedly found crushed beneath a fallen masonry column, clutching the files that he had tried to retrieve. Among those files was that of Fabian von Schlabrendorff, a 20 July Plot member [Against Hitler] who was on trial that day and was facing execution.[13]

[MandaJo]

@coffeecat

I don’t think I could rape; I think coffeewang would lie down on the job when faced with a sobbing woman screaming, “No, no.” Am i unusual?

And bozuit, men have a different sex drive than women-- women are less likely to want casual sex–but I’m not convinced it’s any greater. A woman in love can leave her man drained and gasping for breath.

But that’s the dehumanization. In war, the enemy aren’t people any more. . . .they are zombies. No meaningful consciousness, and jus because this zombie right here hasn’t tried to kill you is pretty meaningless. . .they all wnt to eat the brains of the living, if given a chance.

I mean, I couldn’t shoot someone in anything but immediate self defense, either, but armies know how to teach tat.

[Bridget_Burke]

Lots of generalizations here. Of course there are recent instances most of us know. What about history?

In David Hackett Fischer’s *Washington’s Crossing * we learn of conditions on Staten Island, just before the campaign that drove Washington from New York.

Young American women were at high risk near British camps, and one officer made a joke of it. Francis Lord Rawdon, a captain in Percy’s Fifth Foot, wrote home from Staten Island in an infamous letter, “The fair nymphs of this isle are in wonderful tribulation, as the fresh meat our men have got here has made them as riotous as satyrs. A girl cannot step into the bushes to pluck a rose without running the most imminent risk of being ravished, and they are so little accustomed to these vigorous methods that they don’t bear them with the proper resignation, and of consequence we have the most entertaining courts-martial every day.”

Lord Rawdon’s remarks are often quoted in histories of the Revolutionary War as evidence of what the Americans were fighting against. They also tell us that courts martial met every day on Staten Island, in a sustained effort to enforce the rule of law, and to establish some measure of due process for soldiers and civilians.

Later, the British (& Germans) occupied New Jersey; their victories in New York encouraged Loyalists to come out & other Jerseyites to swear loyalty. But some of the occupying troops did some serious looting–and British soldiers & even officers apparently committed rape; local women & girls swore complaints to magistrates. The locals turned hostile to the occupiers. (Note: British, German & Continental armies contained few conscripts. Not all the men were teenagers. And women traveled with the armies–generally soldiers’ wives, they also cooked, did laundry & nursing.)

I’m stuck in the Revolution & Early Republic, but the Civil War books loom. Haven’t read Kennet’s Marching Through Georgia yet, but I found this:

Whatever the rumors that circulated in the last weeks of 1864, whatever stories were told afterward, it is significant that widespread rape was not to be among the charges Georgians so often leveled against the men of Sherman’s army after the war, though it would have been a telling one, had they been able to justify it. It was not out of a spirit of forbearance that the people of Georgia looked back on their enemies of 1864 as only brutes, ruffians, thieves, incendiaries, and vandals.

Even in fricking Gone With the Wind, the Yankee soldier who threatens Scarlett is obviously a straggler–probably a deserter.

I know there are some serious history buffs here. Anybody else?

[dropzone]

Sherman kept a lid on such things. He was there to do a job and mass rape wasn’t part of it. Basically, in Georgia it was nothing personal, and I understand that when they got to South Carolina, the birthplace of the rebellion, they made their trip through Georgia look like a stroll through the park. But still not much rape. We are a prudish people like that, and you could swing for rape.

@you_with_the_face

Raping and pillaging will become their norm in the absence of leadership that makes these punishable offenses.

Now, let’s leave pillaging out of this. Historically looting was how the soldiers got paid. They signed up for the booty, not the, er, booty.

[Hector_St_Clare]

@dropzone

Sherman kept a lid on such things. He was there to do a job and mass rape wasn’t part of it. Basically, in Georgia it was nothing personal, and I understand that when they got to South Carolina, the birthplace of the rebellion, they made their trip through Georgia look like a stroll through the park. But still not much rape. We are a prudish people like that, and you could swing for rape.Now, let’s leave pillaging out of this. Historically looting was how the soldiers got paid. They signed up for the booty, not the, er, booty.

IIRC during the Cuban civil war in the 1950s, Castro and Guevara imposed harsh punishments on any of their men who committed rapes or robberies against the civilian population, which was one of the things that endeared them go the populace and built up good will for their cause.

[MrDibble]

grude, please step into the parlour…

[Mijin]

@Der_Trihs

Warfare is often driven by humans’ genocidal instincts, which we share with chimps.

I would say violent instincts rather than genocidal. We have to stretch the definition of genocide a lot to say both species clearly have genocidal instincts.

The goal (sometimes conscious, sometimes not) is to spread one side’s genes at the expense of the other side’s genes.

I think a couple of misconceptions here.

Firstly the objective is simply to spread one’s genes; that may involve competing against other individuals, or it may involve cooperating. If it involves competition, that competition is not necessarily between different “sides”.

Secondly the goal does not need to exist as a thought at all. e.g. the behaviour of males taking every opportunity to mate with fertile females can be selected for, without having to select a behaviour of having a subconscious thought about trying to spread genes.

And no, that doesn’t mean all or even most men are rapists; it just means that the kind of men who go to war have generally been rapists.

So, not most men, just most soldiers :smack:

[Monty]

@Bridget_Burke

Even in fricking Gone With the Wind, the Yankee soldier who threatens Scarlett is obviously a straggler–probably a deserter.

I know there are some serious history buffs here. Anybody else?

Well, a serious history buff would probably just piss on Gone With the Wind.

[grude]

@MandaJo

Dehumanizing the other side is also a pretty standard thing: the ither side isn’t made up of people, it’s made up of [slurs]. Once you dehumanized the men in order to be able to kill them (and, I’d argue, cope emotionally with the fact that they are trying to kill you), the leap to dehumanizing the women isn’t far. Thus is closely related to the other kind of baffling war tradition-how often, historically, children, even very young children, were killed. That’s not rage, that’s nit gratifying, that’s just total dehumanization.

This is probably most of it, but something else occurred to me which is that I wonder if dehumanization by leaders and to cope emotionally was more extreme before firearms and aerial bombs. When you had to actually hack or bludgeon the enemy to death personally(and having them trying to do it to you) that takes more psychological distance then firing a gun from hundreds of feet away or calling in an airstrike.

When people were asking what culture I meant, I meant most modern culture where rape is seen as a serious disgusting crime and most of the world’s armies don’t condone it(I’m probably going to be called out on this but it is a guess, I’m sure there are other armies besides ISIS that are cool with it). The awkward phrasing was due to the fact that it is hard to avoid the pedantry here, basically no matter how I phrase it I get tripped up.

This thread should probably shouldn’t have gone in GD.

[AK84]

From what I have read, I think we can make some generalisations

1. Rape occurred with distressing frequency.
2. Most Armies paid at least some lip service to stopping it
3. When Armies were moving between areas, sexual relationships between soldiers and local women were common and such a relationship might get tge lady in question in deep trouble once another army showed up.

[Lemmytheseal2]

@Der_Trihs

Warfare is often driven by humans’ genocidal instincts, which we share with chimps. The goal (sometimes conscious, sometimes not) is to spread one side’s genes at the expense of the other side’s genes. Therefore there’s a common pattern to such warfare; kill or castrate* the males, kill the children and older women, rape and impregnate the young women. Chimps do it, humans do it; we just do it on a larger scale and sometimes try to manufacture excuses for it.

In my view the people who talk about how “rape is about power” or “rape is about violence” have it turned around; more often it’s power & violence that’s about rape. Power and violence have for many people and groups throughout history have been about accomplishing rape; as said, men were encouraged to go to war with the promise of rape.

And no, that doesn’t mean all or even most men are rapists; it just means that the kind of men who go to war have generally been rapists. Even in a modern force like the US military rape is described as an “epidemic”; it can be expected to have been far worse in previous eras.

*There were mass castrations along with the famous rape camps in the wars by the Serbs against their neighbors during the breakup of Yugoslavia; it just didn’t get nearly the same coverage. I recall one of the gang rape victims being quoted about how she felt sorrier for the men than for herself, though.

It wasn’t just the Serbs, by the way. As historian David N. Gibbs has pointed out, the Serb crimes were bigger, but that’s not because their morals were worse. They just had greater opportunities.

[Lust4Life]

Rape is not a natural consequence of war .Wellingtons Army for example executed Rapists to deter the others .
It depends on the individual morals of the troops, the regulations and how strictly they were enforced .

When the Soviets invaded Germany , rape was the norm and there were no penalties for committing it , or even any stigma attached to it .

[robert_columbia]

@Monty

Well, a serious history buff would probably just piss on Gone With the Wind.

Frankly, my dear, I would just let it go.

[madsircool]

German postwar studies have claimed that 1 in 3 of all German females were raped. This issue should have been dealt with at the Nuremberg Trials.

[sisu]

@Tamerlane

Violent, drunken, brutalized and desensitized teenagers in particular can be scary fucking people.

Truer words have never been spoken.

The dehumanization of war combined with the testosterone and the imminent fear of death drives young men wild and in some cases temporarily (& permanently) insane.

Its a scary scary mix.

[Hector_St_Clare]

@madsircool

German postwar studies have claimed that 1 in 3 of all German females were raped. This issue should have been dealt with at the Nuremberg Trials.

Unfairly, but entirely understandably (more than understandably, I guess), no one was particularly sympathetic to Germans in 1946. Even German civilian women.

I do wonder how the mass trauma among German women (that I’d expect) affected the subsequent history of East Germany. (I assume most of the rapes happened in what became the Soviet zone).