About Me

1964 at the reception for Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova on Lenin Square in the garrison town of 'Little Moscow' in Hillersleben (left, facing the camera)

At the end of the Second World War and in the post-war period an estimated two million German women and girls were raped by Allied soldiers and occupation troops . The vast majority of mass rapes occurred in the Soviet occupation zone. There, the myth that a warrior is entitled to savour his military triumph with a sexual conquest was tragically fulfilled. The 'liberators' were officially honoured as heroes, while their defenceless victims had to show gratitude towards them. The violence of members of the Soviet armed forces against Germanic women was not considered a crime by the military command, and perpetrators need not fear a judge. Women and even young girls were considered the rightful prey of the 'liberators'. Women who wanted to have an abortion after being raped by Allied soldiers were distrusted. They had to provide evidence, name witnesses and were often insulted and humiliated as 'soldiers' whores'. Those affected are not officially considered war victims and have no significant places of remembrance. They have received no public recognition, let alone an apology. The only ritual of remembrance often left for them was to remain silent about their fate.

Even after the war ended, many women carried cyanide capsules and razor blades with them. Even devout Christians were convinced at the time that suicide was preferable to 'violation' by a Red Army soldier. Eva Braun, Magda Goebbels and others had set the example. But those who did not flee into suicide, either to forestall the feared rapes or afterwards, out of shame at having fallen victim to the foreign soldier; those who carried their rape child, did not give it up for adoption or simply left it in the hospital after birth, bore the burden of pain and shame for a lifetime. 

Mother

I carry you like a wound

on my forehead that will not close.

It does not always hurt. 

And the heart does not bleed to death from it.

Only sometimes suddenly I am blind

and feel blood in my mouth.

(Gottfried Benn, 1912)

In February 1979, I completed my vocational training as a BMSR mechanic at the Lubmin nuclear power plant near Greifswald. The plan was to then return to my home district of Magdeburg and work at the Stendal nuclear power plant, where working people were entitled to an apartment in Stendal-Stadtsee or -Süd, but the plant was not completed as planned. In August 1978, I had taken part in the Central Poets' Seminar of the FDJ at Schwerin Castle and completed further Marxist-Leninist training at the district and regional party school. As the youngest candidate of the GDR Writers' Union and a candidate for a career in the SED party apparatus, I had accepted the offer of the management of the nuclear power plant to swap my job in production for the position of head of a radio station, in order to better prepare myself for my studies at the "Karl Marx" Party University. But it was not to be.

With a light-coloured work suit on the cover of the book published in 2018 by the historian Sebastian Stude. (Photo 1978)