Despite the vast historiography of the Second World War, scholars have
long overlooked sexual violence committed by the German military in the
occupied territories. Using a linguistic analysis of court documents,
this dissertation examines cases against German soldiers accused of
rape, attempted rape, child abuse, and violations of the law against
homosexuality, as well as cases against ethnic Germans and Poles in the
occupied territories, to determine how Nazi racial and gender ideology
affected the determination of punishment. The documents clearly
demonstrate the importance of gender ideology, particularly constructs
of heterosexual masculinity, in the sentencing proceedings. Men were
evaluated as men; as soldiers; and as Germans, as members of the Volk.
Ethnic Germans were also subject to the same evaluation, but Poles were
not offered mitigating circumstances because of the threat the judges
believed they posed to German women. Women too were evaluated, and the
degree to which the judges thought they acted in accordance with
normative gender roles affected the determination of punishment. What
had an unpredictable effect, however, was the alleged racial quality of
the woman assaulted by the German soldier; it mattered less what her
“racial quality” was than whether she conformed to gendered behavioral
expectations, and whether the German soldier did as well. Racial
ideology was most definitely a factor in sex crimes cases, but more so
in expectations placed upon soldiers as German men than in discussions
of the “racial inferiority” of women. What the court-martial documents
illustrate is that Nazi racial ideology was incoherent and unstable,
with high-ranking members of the Party and the military incapable of
establishing who should be considered racially inferior and what that
should mean in the sentencing of men accused of sex crimes. The
documents further illustrate the importance of gender ideology to the
determination of sentencing. Lastly, this dissertation argues that the
courts-martial functioned as the site of the discursive creation and
negotiation of the most important identity of the regime, the Nazi
German man.
http://etd.ohiolink.edu/send-pdf.cgi/Flaschka%20Monika%20J.pdf?kent1258726022
http://etd.ohiolink.edu/send-pdf.cgi/Flaschka%20Monika%20J.pdf?kent1258726022
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