The Hell German Women Lived Through After the Fall of Berlin in World War II

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When Germany fell at the end of World War II, people thought the horror was finally over…

But for millions of German women, the real nightmare was just beginning.

In those days, German cities were in ruins. Most of the men were either dead or prisoners of war. The ones left in the homes were women, children, and the elderly…

And that was when the Allied armies entered.

What happened next became one of the darkest chapters in the history of war.

Historians estimate that around **two million German women** were raped after the war ended.

Not a few isolated incidents… it was a daily nightmare.

Many women who refused to submit to soldiers were killed immediately.

Some of their bodies were left lying in the streets.

The result?

After the war, nearly **half a million children were born with unknown fathers**… children conceived from those assaults.

Hospitals at the time were overwhelmed.

In the months immediately following the war, thousands of women went to hospitals every day seeking abortions.

Doctors later said the procedures had become almost a daily routine.

By the mid-1950s, the German government had officially registered **37,000 children under their mothers’ names only**…

while many of the others were adopted, or lived their entire lives never knowing who their fathers were.

The numbers themselves are shocking.

Historical estimates suggest that:

* **Soviet soldiers** committed more than **one million assaults**.

* **American soldiers** were responsible for about **190,000 cases**.

* **British soldiers** for around **45,000 cases**.

* **French soldiers** for approximately **50,000 cases**.

And these assaults took place across many cities in terrifying ways.

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In **Vienna**, the capital of Austria, more than **100,000 women** were raped…

and many of them not just once, but repeatedly.

In the German city of **Stuttgart**, it was said that French soldiers took women into subway tunnels…

assaulted them multiple times…

and then killed them.

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The greatest fear spread when the Soviet army approached Berlin.

At the time, the city had about **2.7 million people**…

nearly **two million of them women**.

When news arrived about what had happened in cities already occupied by Soviet troops, panic spread.

Many women went to doctors asking about the fastest way to commit suicide.

Poison even became a rare commodity in the city.

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In the city of **Danzig** in 1945, a horrifying incident took place.

The Red Army gathered the women of the city inside a cathedral…

and then mass assaults followed.

Some survivors later said they had been raped **more than thirty times**.

In the German city of **Neisse**, **182 Catholic nuns** were assaulted…

and about **66 of them later became pregnant**.

When some of the nuns tried to defend themselves…

they were shot.

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The catastrophe wasn’t limited to Germany.

In the Italian city of **Naples**, for example, around **60,000 rape cases** were recorded after the troops entered.

Even years after the war, there was an entire generation of children whose features were different…

because their fathers were soldiers who had passed through and disappeared forever.

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The strange irony is that many of the same countries under whose flags these crimes happened

are the ones that stand today speaking about human rights and women’s rights…

presenting themselves as guardians of morality and humanity.

But history…

doesn’t forget.

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**Source:**

*“When the Soldiers Came”* by German historian Miriam Gebhardt.