Anette Warring
associate professor, ph.d.
Building 03.2.2
Roskilde Universitetscenter
Postboks 260
4000 Roskilde
English Summaries
'German-Girls during Occupation and Post War Purge' (Tyskerpiger - under besættelse og retsopgør, 1994 og 1998, s. 1-260). ISBN: 87-00-18184-6 og 87-00-36446-0
During the occupation tens of thousands of
Danish women had an affair with Wehrmacht soldiers resulting in more than five
thousand war children. The dissertation makes research into and describes the
placing and role of the 'tyskerpiger' (Danish girls fraternizing with German
occupation soldiers) during the occupation and in the post-war purge. The
investigation analyses how the girls' sexuality was a national and
international matter which expressed itself as a conflict between the policies
of collaboration and the resistance and between the Nazi occupying power and
the Danish society. A central topic is an exploration of relations between
nationality, gender, and sexuality.
The investigation is based on an extensive source material: 1) interviews with
former 'tyskerpiger', 2) policemen's reports and judicial material concerning
spitefulness and punishments of 'tyskerpiger', 3) interrogation material in
connection with the resistance movement's internments of 'tyskerpiger' in the
Liberation days, 4) negotiation accounts and records regarding Danish and
German authorities' fight against immorality, in the question about
Danish-German marriages as well as in relation to the German soldiers' children
in Denmark, 5) the illegal propaganda against the 'tyskerpigers' fraternization
and 6) female informer cases.
During the occupation and in the post-war period the 'tyskerpiger' were
considered as a group of stupid, ugly and half-prostitutes at the bottom of
society. In chapter II myth and reality are discussed in this posthumous
reputation. The angle approached is first sociological and takes a critcal
takeoff in a contemporary, social-medical investigation. Later af typologyzing
is made with starting point in the character of the fraternization. Five
different types of 'tyskerpiger' are employed: 1) the prositutes, 2) the women
who had an affair with only one German soldier, often had met him accidentally,
and typically had kept the affair secret, 3) the women as part of a friendgroup
came to know several German soldiers and associated openly with them, 4) the
women whose communication with German soldiers had an effect on all their
spheres of life, e.g. by virtue of civil work for the Wehrmacht, and 5) the
women for whom the connection with the Wehrmacht soldiers was a natural
prolongation of pro-German attitudes or political sympathy for the Nazism. The
chapter contains a portrayal of five 'tyskerpiger' as well as an interpretation
of motives, subjective interpretation patterns and conflicts if any between
inclination of heart and political reality. The investigation concludes that
the 'tyskerpiger' formed a complex group sociologically, however with a certain
amount of natural predominance of socially badly situated young women out of
the direct control of the family.
Finally examination has been made as to the security risk for the resistance
movement, and it is significant that only a few 'tyskerpiger' were informers,
but that among the 400 female informers sentenced during the purge there were
some 'tyskerpiger'. The 'tyskerpiger's' informing had typically accidental and
unintentional character and was often pointing out or information of persons
who had bothered or annoyed them. The 'tyskerpiger's' collaboration was of an
intimate and sexual character. While it intensified the reactions of the
surroundings it often impelled the women themselves to regard their actions as
unpolitical. Some women experienced an inner conflict, and others became more
or less consciously political actors. It is the estimate of the dissertation
that the 'tyskerpiger', irrespective of motive, with their fraternization
signalled an acceptance of the Wehrmacht's presence in the country and thus placed
themselves on the side of the collaboration.
The theme of charpter III is the purge with the 'tyskerpiger' during the
occupation. As particularly visible symbols of the collaboration policy, the
'tyskerpiger' from the first days of the occupation were met with anger and
contempt. The reactions ranged from the cold shoulder to direct malice and
seriously physical molestration. The dissertation analyses the motive
background and function of the purge in the conflict between collaboration and
resistance on a concrete actionlevel. Further the same aspects of the conflict
are analysed mentally and symbolically. A general characterization of the
extent, tempory development, character and forms of the purge is dealt with by
way of introduction. It is stated that while the support to the resistance line
increased the number of 'tyskerpiger' did not go dowm signigicantly, and there
was a clear parallel to the extent and character of the purge with the
'tyskerpiger.
After this there is an analysis and an interpretation of the offenders'
individual motives on one hand and the general illegal propaganda on the other.
The investigation describes how the reactions were a mixture of indignation at
the 'tyskerpigers' breach of the prevailing morals by showing an unconcealed
sexuality, an anger at the failure of their national obligation as well as an
indignation at the women's refusal of Danish men and preference to German
soldiers as partners. This mixture expressed itself in many ways: in the terms
of abuse used and in the illegal propaganda, in the hair-cutters' motive
explanations and in the judicial inquiry of the hair-cutter cases as well as in
the character of the ways of punishment.
Further, the chapter contains a local historical examination of the function of
the 'tyskerpige' purge for the revolutionary movement in august 1943. In
several cases the campaigns of the underground press stimulated and accelarated
the resistance will and demands for sackings and removals of 'tyskerpiger' from
jobs and public places became the releasing factor for the strike and the
revolutionary movement in august 1943. In the cases where the pursuit of
'tyskerpiger' was due to lacking courage, strength or opportunity for a
confrontation with the Wehrmacht, the purge was in the nature of diversion by
chasing scapegoats. That was one of the reasons why the resistance movement was
divided in its attitude to the hair-cutting actions and the propaganda against
the 'tyskerpiger'. On one hand the Restance was not blind to the mobilizing effect
of the pursuits, but on the other hand some found that the punishments got out
of control resulting in sadism, and that the anger and the rebel will should be
directed to the real traitors.
Chapter IV reviews the Danish and German authorities' regulation of the
coummunication between Danish women and German soldiers. Danish authorities
realized certain common interests with the Wehrmacht in this regulation. The
cooperation was extensive in the fight aganist veneral diseases and immorality
as well as in finding civil law solutions in paternity cases and in marriages.
But the German authorities were usually on the alert whether behind the Danish
authorities' regulation of the coummunication and the morality control there
were anti-German motives. The Germans regarded spite and molestation of
'tyskerpiger' as an insult to the Wehrmacht and demanded that the offenders
should be punished harder than according to normal Danish law.
The Wehrmacht's policy to the communication between German soldiers and Danish
women wars determined by the race and occupation policy. The German occupying
power was caught in a dilemma. On one hand it was central for the maintenance
of the fiction of Denmark's sovereignty that Danish law was observed, and that
German soldiers could freely associale with the Danish civilian population. As
far as race policy was concerned, the populations of Denmark, Norway and
Holland were considered Aryan and part of the German nation, and therefore it
was legal to have sexual contact with the women in these occupied countries. On
the other hand German soldiers' free contact with Danish women involved the
risk that because of their intimate relations to the potential enemy they
became bad soldiers. The dilemma was reflected in the Nazi attitude to marriage
between German soldiers and Danish women. This attitude was based on the Nazi
race policy but was in the same time fluctuating and restrained. It was not for
race political reasons, but because of Denmark's special occupation
arrangementt that no Nazi organizations, contrary to e.g. Norway, got to handle
the social care for the more than 5.5000 children who have been registered born
with German soldiers as fathers. Racial argumentation was, however, used in
connection with the so-called 'tyskerbørn' (children with German soldiers as
fathers) in the illegal and legal public. The feeling of having been 'born
guilty' had welfare consequences for many of these war children.
Chapter V deals with the purge with the 'tyskerpiger' in the days of the Liberation.
The traitor law like the purgelaws in other countries such as France and Norway
did not get to comprise sexual assistance to the enemy and thus did not comply
with a wide spread demand in the population that somehow the 'tyskerpiger'
should suffer for their actions during the occupation. In the chapter the order
in the streets is analysed which particularly affected the 'tyskerpiger'
severely. All over the country they were attacked and cut with great violence
and brutality. To meet such a self-help and to protect a possible fighting
front, the resistance movement interned about 21.700 persons in the days from
the 5.th to the 13.th. May when the police entered upon their duties again.
Internments of 'tyskerpiger' are analysed, and the conclusion is that several
thousand 'tyskerpiger' were kept in the resistance movement's internment camps
for a shorter or longer period and that the internments on account of the
spaciousness of the protection criterion were carried out with considerable
local variation. The relation between the self-help and the internments is
dicussed in the chapter, and it is substantiated how they worked mutually
acceleratingly, and the conclusion is that both terror and protection took
place. The management of the resistance movement wanted to avoid the night of
the long knives, but the resistance movement itself was part of the public
feeling, and there was fear that lynch law would be carried out.
A close investigation of cutting action and a special interment camp for
'tyskerpiger' in Bornholm elaborates theses problems and analyses besides the
resistance movement's, different authorities' and actors' as well as the
general population's attitude to the purge with the 'tyskerpiger'. The
haircutters got off considerably cheaper after the Liberation than during the
war. Legal usage was adapted to the political circumstances and the public
feeling. The different authorities' attitude to the questions of legal
proceedings of the offenders was influenced by the closeness of the conflict, especially
in the cases in which people from the resistance movement were charged. Many of
them found that it was deeply unjust that those who had sacrificed themselves
in the struggle for Denmark's freedom should be punished because they had
overstepped the mark a little in the hot summer of the Liberation whereas those
who had made life comfortable for the occupying power were let off. Others
thought that it was quite central for the re-establishment of Denmark as a
constitutional State that such self-help actions were punished. The conflict
led to a fluctuating legal usage, but the many acquittals and very mild
sentences show that the Danish society to a great extent accepted the haircuts.
In the final and concluding chapter VI of the dissertation the nature of the
'tyskerpige' purge in relation to the role women and women's sexuality play in
national processes is discussed. The conclusion is that the sexuality of the
'tyskerpiger' was considered as a political and national matter which developed
to af question of property and honour in the national conflict between
collaboration and resistance and in the relations between the Wehrmacht and the
Danish society. Finally it is concluded that the purge with the 'tyskerpiger'
was an intergrated part of the struggle against the Nazi occupying power, but
in the purge there was a reproduction of undemocratic, inhuman, halfracial and
especially sexdiscriminating attitudes and methods, which in many ways were
closer to the Nazism that was fought against than to the ideals of freedom the
resistance movement stood for. During the occupation the purge with the
'tyskerpiger' had particularly the function of increasing the conflict between
collaboration and resistance. After the liberation it entered as a link in
coping with the conflicts of the occupation through the construction of the
national consensus view on the years of the occupation. The stereotype idea of
the 'tyskerpiger', the methods of punishment and their motivation as well as
the view on women made up the continuity.
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