The Germans Treatment Of The Captured Soviet Female Soldiers
The German hierarchy did not believe that women are supposed to be in actual combat. As a result, they used them only for secondary duties like guarding prison camps, drivers, and other jobs.
In contrast, many snipers in the Red Army were women and women pilots of the Russian Air Force took actual part in combat. The Russians threw in almost 1,000,000 women into battle.
This was hard for German army to reconcile. On the 29th of June 194i, Field Marshall Gunther von Kluge, commander of the 4th army issued an order that captured women soldiers were to be summarily shot dead.
This order, of course was illegal and was rescinded but individual commanders continued passing orders and women taken as POWs were shot. However, this was not the end. In October 1941, when many women were captured from behind German lines indulging in partisan activities, Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau issued specific orders that women along with captured Russian soldiers were to be immediately shot dead. Further down the line, the commander of the 75th division General Earnst Hammer issued another order stating roughly the same thing.
The end result of these orders is that the woman soldiers taken as POW’s were summarily shot. However, a few were captured and suffered sexual abuse. The sad part is that these orders were not issued by the Gestapo or the SS but by the so-called professional German army for which there was no excuse.
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