Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Parsely]

I'm could use help with some historical research. I wanted to know as much as I can learn about the American-occupied portion of West Berlin in the year 1947.

Some specific questions for which I'm seeking answers:
- What military units were stationed there and who were their commandants? What were the responsibilities of these units?
- What was the stance of the Allies with regard to the neighboring Russian-occupied East Berlin?
- What was it like for people living there? What kind of shape was the city in at the time?
- What was the attitude of the population towards their occupiers?
- If there was a minor military emergency (the presence of a hostile militant force) in the American sector of West Berlin, how would the occupying force react? Would it be left up to American forces to solve the problem or would the other Allied groups leap into action as well? If the problem got out of hand and the American troops needed reinforcing, where would they be sent from?
- Same as above question, but replace "minor military emergency" with "major civil disaster". For example if an earthquake destroyed a small neighborhood in the city.
- How much administration was left up to the Allies? How much self-governance were the Berliners allowed?

[FearfulJesuit]

Try asking on r/AskHistorians. They'll be able to point to much better sources and give you a better overview than we can.

[Parsely]

Try asking on r/AskHistorians. They'll be able to point to much better sources and give you a better overview than we can.

* GUNINANRUNIN waves.

Thanks for the tip! I'll give that a shot.

[Flying Dice]

FJ's got good advice there.

Additionally, here are a few things that have some tangential relationships with the subject.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/487970
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2638793

That said, you're unlikely to find a lot of scholarly work that addresses something that specific in any meaningful detail. As above, FJ's advice is good, but you aren't going to be able to cite "some dude on reddit"; ask for links to sources. As always, Wikipedia is good for generalities, and you can mine their sources for your own use. Depending on what sort of access you have to databases, it might be worth looking for a collection of relevant primary source documents. If you have access to a dedicated department research librarian, talk to her, she's there to help you and will be able to point you in the right direction.

[Parsely]

If you have access to a dedicated department research librarian, talk to her, she's there to help you and will be able to point you in the right direction.

I actually work at a library but it's nearly the weekend, so I was just hoping to pick up some quick facts, rather than stuff I could cite. But thanks a lot for the advice! These documents you linked seem useful.

[Flying Dice]

Eeeh. They're both the sort of thing you'll only be able to use for a little bit, but sometimes that's all it takes. And, to be fair, I only spent a couple minutes running the obvious searches through public-access databases, since I don't know what sort of paywalls you can get behind (and frankly because I'm not going to help you do in-depth research unless you actually ask + it's a skill that you'll need to learn on your own  ). If nothing else the Encyclopedia Britannica is usually good for basic facts.

[scrdest]

As for shape the city was in... a common joke went that Berlin in 1945 was a city of warehouses - there were houses here, there were houses over there...

[LordBucket]

West Berlin in the year 1947.

Bad time and place to be german and female.

American-occupied portion

Oh, not quite as bad then. The american military had mostly stopped their gang rapes by 1946.

[Parsely]

West Berlin in the year 1947.

Bad time and place to be german and female.

American-occupied portion

Oh, not quite as bad then. The american military had mostly stopped their gang rapes by 1946.

How much of that was happening in Berlin?

[LordBucket]

How much of that was happening in Berlin?

Google "the rape of Berlin"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany

"At least 100,000 women are believed to have been raped in Berlin, based on surging abortion rates in the following months and contemporary hospital reports,[10] with an estimated 10,000 women dying in the aftermath."

http://library.flawlesslogic.com/massrape.htm

"As the Red Army advanced toward her in 1945, the city of Berlin had become a city virtually without men. Out of a civilian population of 2,700,000, 2,000,000 were women. It is small wonder that the fear of sexual attack raced through the city like a plague. Doctors were besieged by patients seeking information on the quickest way to commit suicide, and poison was in great demand.

In Berlin stood a charity institution, the Haus Dehlem, an orphanage, maternity hospital, and foundling home. Soviet soldiers entered the home, and repeatedly raped pregnant women and women who had just given birth. This was not an isolated incident. No one will ever know how many women were raped, but doctors' estimates run as high as 100,000 for the city of Berlin alone, their ages ranging from 10 to 70."

[Parsely]

I meant in 1947, I'm aware that there was a lot of scumbaggery going on immediately after Germany's defeat in 1945.

[LordBucket]

I meant in 1947, I'm aware that there was a lot of scumbaggery going on immediately after Germany's defeat in 1945.

Read the links I'm giving you. This was not single event. It continued for years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany

"the rapes continued until the winter of 1947–48"

http://www.holocaustianity.com/human-loot.html

A June, 1947 Newsweek magazine cover about GIs sowing “wild oats.”

http://historyimages.blogspot.com/2011/10/mass-rape-german-women-red-army.html

"Rape was part of daily life until 1947 and many women were riddled with VD and had no means of curing it."

If you wants specifically the american angle, they were less "beat and rape" and more "starve them until they submit."

http://library.flawlesslogic.com/massrape.htm

"...for most of our boys, having that "wonderful time" depended a great deal on the "cooperation" of the German and Austrian women. From the starving and the homeless, of course, sexual "cooperation" could be bought for a few pennies or a mouthful of food. I don't think we ought to dignify this arrangement with any other than its true name of sexual slavery."


They kept it this way for years, well into your 1947 range:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_in_occupied_Germany

The German food situation became worst during the very cold winter of 1946–47, when German calorie intake ranged from 1,000 to 1,500 calories per day, a situation made worse by severe lack of fuel for heating"

[Vector]

-snip-

[Parsely]

"the rapes continued until the winter of 1947–48"

"Historian Norman Naimark writes that after the summer of 1945, Soviet soldiers caught raping civilians were usually punished to some degree, ranging from arrest to execution.[22] However, the rapes continued until the winter of 1947–48, when Soviet occupation authorities finally confined Soviet troops to strictly guarded posts and camps,[23] separating them from the residential population in the Soviet zone of Germany.

That's a bit misleading since the quote is about Soviet soldiers and not Americans, so it doesn't tell me much.

http://www.holocaustianity.com/human-loot.html

A June, 1947 Newsweek magazine cover about GIs sowing “wild oats.”

http://historyimages.blogspot.com/2011/10/mass-rape-german-women-red-army.html

This doesn't appear to be a credible source. There are no primary or secondary sources on the website, only a recommended reading list. The portion talking about the Allies conducting gang rapes only mentions incidents in 1945 and '46, nothing in '47, and again nothing is cited. A tagline on the cover of a Newsweek magazine is bad evidence as well.

http://historyimages.blogspot.com/2011/10/mass-rape-german-women-red-army.html

"Rape was part of daily life until 1947 and many women were riddled with VD and had no means of curing it."

If you wants specifically the american angle, they were less "beat and rape" and more "starve them until they submit."

Your quote even says "until 1947". This doesn't tell me anything about the range I'm looking for. I already told you I knew that this sort of thing was going on after the Reich fell and Berlin was occupied, I think you're trying to provide evidence that it was still going on into 1947 but there isn't any offered in these blogs and articles.

http://library.flawlesslogic.com/massrape.htm

"...for most of our boys, having that "wonderful time" depended a great deal on the "cooperation" of the German and Austrian women. From the starving and the homeless, of course, sexual "cooperation" could be bought for a few pennies or a mouthful of food. I don't think we ought to dignify this arrangement with any other than its true name of sexual slavery."

That article was written by this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Alfred_Strom
He's never gone to university and has no credentials, there are no citations in his article, I don't believe this is a very good source of information.

They kept it this way for years, well into your 1947 range:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_in_occupied_Germany

The German food situation became worst during the very cold winter of 1946–47, when German calorie intake ranged from 1,000 to 1,500 calories per day, a situation made worse by severe lack of fuel for heating"

The man who said that "holds a B.A. in History and Journalism from Carleton University, an M.A. in History and International Relations from the University of Ottawa, and a Ph.D. in History and International Law from Georgetown University. He has worked as a Senior Historian with the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Section of the Canadian Department of Justice (1987-93) and as a research consultant on native lands claims (1993-94). Since 2001 he has been employed as a Senior Policy Analyst coordinating university policy for the New Brunswick Department of Education, and he continues to teach university courses on World War II and Popular Memory, Modern War Crimes, and U.S. Foreign Policy." That is a good source. Thanks much, his dissertation is useful.

I don't know about Berlin in specific, but I can confirm that the Black Forest in general was very, very, very hungry in that time period. Probably something like 1945-1955? At least?

Source: My step grandmother was in the Hitler Youth and I'm currently doing some work putting together the memoirs of a German chemist.

That's really cool, I'd love to see those when you're finished if you end up getting them published.