Talk:Rape during the occupation of Germany

Memoirs quotes
I noticed many quotes from memoirs describe behaviour of Soviet military is details. I am not sure that is encyclopedic. However, if we believe that is ok, I found several books and articles that were published only recently, but that contain similar storied about American GIs and other Allied troops. I am going to add them per NPOV. Paul Siebert (talk) 05:27, 2 May 2023 (UTC)


 * If those books and articles "published only recently" are as reliable as sources used in the article, then yes, you can add them. If they're far-right or far-left propaganda aimed to whitewash either Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, then no. Pizzigs (talk) 15:16, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
 * None of these sources seem to be a propaganda or whitewash of anything. However, #1 is a personal memoir; it is reliably published, but author does not seem to be notable, hence arguably undue on the page. Same applies to all other personal memoirs by non-notable authors/participants of the events. A research summarizing and citing eyewitnesses would be fine. By contrast, #10 (history of urban warfare), for example, is a scholarly book and a good source. My very best wishes (talk) 04:09, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

240,000 dead?
This is a claim that is being echoed elsewhere on the Internet, with this page as its apparent source. However, what is given as the source of this claim here is two entire books (one of them Befreiter und Befreite), without page numbers. Can we at least get page numbers, so that we can check the claim?

(In general, while rape is typically greatly underreported, corpses don't just disappear.) Feketekave (talk) 13:01, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Beevor
This article extensively uses Beevor. However, according to Ericsson, Kjersti, and Eva Simonsen, (Children of World War II: The Hidden Enemy Legacy. New York: Berg. 2005 ISBN: 9781845202064, page 233) Beevor just takes the figures published by Sander&. Ericsson&Simonsen say:
 * "...Beevor presented ostensibly new research on mass rapes. His figures, however, had been published in 1992 by the German team of Helke Sander and Barbara Johr".

I am going to replace Beevor (and mass-media that cite him) with the original secondary source. Paul Siebert (talk) 02:32, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

The US rape section does not accurately describe the larger estimate.
Currently the page suggests that the estimate of 190,000 rapes by US troops is based on a known statistic that 5% of the births in the post-war period were the result of rapes by American troops. It also unnecessarily says that the figure is based on "extensive research" (all estimates are based on research of varying degrees of intensity), actively painting the other estimates as unreliable.

However, the source states that "Gebhardt said she arrived at that number of sexual assaults by estimating that of the so-called ‘war-children’ born to unmarried German women by the 1950s, five percent were products of rape. She also estimates that for each birth, there were 100 rapes"

As such "5% of the births in the post war era" should be changed, and replaced with "based on an estimate that 5% of post-war births resulted from rapes, and an assumption of 100 rapes per birth."

Given that the figure is nearly 20 times the size of previous estimates, it is especially important not to imply that this is a statistical fact that has been proven conclusively by research, which the page currently does. Crashbrennan (talk) 20:50, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Favorable comparison and apologetic language + bias is out of place and should be removed
The statement in the beginning of the "British troops" section trivializes the British crimes by comparing it to Soviet crimes, "while not on the scale of the Red Army in the Soviet Zone". Also the wording is apologetic, such as "some rapes were carried out by soldiers either suffering from post traumatic stress or who were drunk" (like other soldiers weren't suffering from stress, or being drunk provides an apology). "However, he adds that probably referred to attacks by former slave labourers (displaced persons) seeking revenge" is also out of place in the section, because it should deal with the British crimes only. The wording about "probably deserved it" is also not applied to Soviet or U.S. crimes. A clear bias in the section. 46.138.32.56 (talk) 21:03, 30 October 2023 (UTC)