Article by WN.Com Correspondent Dallas Darling
The final battle for Berlin as well as the German surrender to the allies took place on May 7, 1945. While many can recall the Rape of Nanking, where 300,000 Chinese civilians and disarmed combatants were killed by the Japanese imperial army, and tens of thousands of women and young girls were brutally raped and enslaved, few remember the Rape of Berlin. In a last desperate stand against the advancing enemy, the Nazi regime threw every available German into the deadly war effort. This included young girls.
“If it has to be, then the enemies of Germany will drown in the blood of German youth,” said Adolf Hitler in 1945.
Children, as young as seven- and eight-years-old, were put into uniform and handed a weapon. The threat of summary execution meant that some went unwillingly to their deaths. Still, there was no shortage of eager recruits. But victory eluded Germany and the female “doves” and “angel snipers,” as they were called. What followed was the Rape of Berlin, where 130,000 women and girls were raped.
Werwolf Guerilla Units
By 1942, after the tragic defeat at Stalingrad, young girls were already serving as auxiliaries in the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe, with some manning anti-aircraft guns in defense of German cities. Others served in the SS and started to replace the countless fatalities. With the establishment of the “Werwolf” guerilla units in 1944, girls as young as seven and eight were drafted. They were given salvaged weapons from fallen members of the Volksstrum which consisted of old men-the regime’s last stand.
Since weapons and ammunition were severely depleted, the defenders had to improvise by making Molotov cocktails from empty bottles filled with rationed petrol with a rag for a fuse. This included setting booby traps primed with grenades and burying bullets which were triggered by stepping on a nail. Others were either trained to throw bricks and run to lure enemy soldiers into ambushes, or charge tanks with close-range rocket grenades of incendiary devices. This usually meant instant suicide.
Angel Snipers
Despite the threat of executions, there were plenty of eager recruits. Many came from rural areas where they had zealously embraced the core beliefs of Nazism and were taught to shoot more accurately than some soldiers. Helga Bassler, an angel sniper, demonstrated her superior marksmanship on the firing range and on the battlefront. She was known to have killed several Russian soldiers and given the title: “Angel of Death.” She was lauded for her divine duty to forget everything but the service to her homeland.
Some officers protested, however, more out of jealousy. Hitler is said to have told them that the girls had as much right to die for their Fuhrer as any man.
One directive declared that if Germany’s youth failed to defend the Fatherland, then they did not deserve to survive. They were to stand and fight or face death for desertion.
Germany’s “Brown Sisters” and those in the Lebensborn program which forcibly removed millions of Poles to be replaced with Aryan-looking children from Germany were also praised.
Girl Tank-Busters
Some girls did not possess very many skills. Others were not athletic and found carrying weapons too difficult a task. They were “volunteered” for an almost suicidal task: Tank-busting using a Panzerfaust, a light rocket launcher that did not require accuracy and had little impact. Unlike angel snipers, who took cover and fought from a distance, tank-busters had to put themselves in the path of a tank. They had to get within 30 yards to effectively disable the tank's turret.
This was usually a suicide mission, with their missiles either bouncing off the armor plating or them being easily machine gunned to death. Even then, most girls had little time to run for cover, so they would have to throw themselves between the tank tracks and risk being crushed. Those fortunate enough to be issued with long-range and heavy tank-busters were few, the intense trauma sometimes so overwhelming that some committed suicide.
Child Soldiers
Many girls were taken to morgues to prep them for battle. Since few would have seen a dead body in their young lives, they were forced to visit and tour morgues to condition them for sights they would face in battle.
German mortuaries were filled with dismembered corpses. As one girl soldier remembered, “like heaps of meat."
Just as bad were babies with their eyes open or an unexpected relative they suddenly stumbled upon. Worse horrors awaited them on the battlefield.
U.S. soldiers were surprised to encounter Germany’s girl soldiers. They were forewarned, but some found it difficult to kill them. This soon changed as they were reminded that their weapons were as deadly as those fired by adult enemy soldiers, some in the teens themselves. Another thing that changed was when the GIs witnessed the death of a fellow soldier. Filled with rage, the concept of “child” soon vanished. In a few isolated incidents, girl soldiers were captured and raped. Most became prisoners of war.
Girl Decoys
Some units suffered fatalities attributed to girl snipers. It was believed that one girl sniper was only thirteen. In another incident, a unit of soldiers destroyed a tank. After it had been knocked out, the GIs opened the hatch to find the dead crew were only boys and a single girl. On another occasion, after breaching some makeshift trenches, they found their opponent to be only about ten years-old. Some GIs felt guilty and demoralized at having “murdered” a child. They tried to reassure themselves that they had no choice.
At times, girl soldiers would resort to deadly games of tag, throwing bricks and stones at the Americans and then running away in the hope of luring the GIs into a boobytrap or ambush. One anti-personnel mine loaded with ball bearings could kill several soldiers at once. The Americans quickly learned that the Germans were using girls as decoys and decided that the only way to avoid being drawn into a trap was to use grenades or flamethrowers. This too was demoralizing, the smell of burnt flesh.
Female Nazi Zealots
Military historian Tim Heath interviewed many female veterans to discover that some girl soldiers were fanatics for Hitler and lusted for blood. Some young females wrote gleefully of slaughtering approaching Russian troops. Other battle-hardened doves stood their ground against the relentless assaults, refilling the magazines and loading them into the gun until they ran out of shells. In some cases, girl soldiers charged enemy soldiers knowing it was ritual suicide. Even then, they were happy to die for their Fuhrer.
In “Nazi Women of the Third Reich, Serving the Swastika,” Paul Roland writes that typically there were so many young Nazi zealots who believed fervently in their Fuhrer and their destiny, which was to subjugate and enslave the “inferior” races. They had vilified Slavs, Gypsies, the disabled, Poles, and Jews. They also took part in the deportation and death of millions.
Others participated in atrocities like mass executions or looked on approvingly from the sidelines. Some noted how “Everyone was everyone’s enemy.”
The Rape of Berlin
From March to May 7, 1945, when Hitler committed suicide and the guns finally fell silent in Europe, the Rape of Berlin and dozens of other German cities came with a vengeance. Thousands of women-young and old-and girls committed suicide because they could not live with the shame of being raped. Neither could they live with the death of their Fuhrer and his dream of a Third Reich. German women and girls were moreover violated by Soviet soldiers. In some instances, they were tortured to extract information.
But even while the fighting ended, some Werwolves fought to the death. Theresa Moelle, a tank-buster, leapt into action when several soldiers and men of the Voksstrum took shelter from a Russian tank. She cursed them and took aim with a Panzerfaust, hitting it between the turret and body. She recalled it exploding “like a roman candle” and felt a momentary sense of "total elation.” She was so euphoric that she jumped up and down waving her hands in the air, oblivious to the danger from Russian snipers.
The Cult of Hitler and Nazism
While some remain mystified over the loyalty and fanaticism of the Nazi girl soldiers, others acknowledge that the girls and women who took an active role in the Third Reich felt empowered. Since many received only a minimal level of education and shared a similar working-class background, as did Hitler, they viewed the possibility of joining the Nazi Party as a promotion and exciting opportunity. They were treated better than women in rival groups-be it religious, ethnic, or political-which were systematically purged.
As servants of a totalitarian state which had excluded itself from accepted standards of behavior, and members of a self-proclaimed master movement and race, the girl soldiers considered themselves above the laws under which their inferiors lived and to be exempt from personal responsibility for their actions.
They found themselves invested with unprecedented power over life and death, something that seemed to have vanquished their parent’s shame over losing World War I and having to endure “The War Guilt.”
A Stark Warning for All of Us
Above all, the young girl soldiers appeared to be nurtured by a false messiah and a national psychosis that exploited their suspicion and antagonism towards the “Other.”
This included an ideology of freedom and liberation, a freedom and liberation that only a God-given Fuhrer and savior like Adolf Hitler could establish. As similar language has been used to describe the current political climate in the United States, it serves as a stark warning for all of us to heed.
Dallas Darling (darling@wn.com)
(Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John’s Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.WN.com. You can read more of Dallas’ writings at www.beverlydarling.com and www.WN.com/dallasdarling.)
Photo:
German Federal Archive, Deutsches Bundesarchiv
