Tyskertøs

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Tyskertøs (plural: tyskertøser ; German as: "Deutschenflittchen"), the Norwegian also tyskerjente ( "German Girls") called, was a pejorative term, in particular in Norway was used for Norwegians that a love affair with German soldiers during the German occupation in Had World War II. In a broader sense, the term in Norway refers not only to women from their own country, but also from other countries that were occupied by German soldiers during the war. Children from these relationships were pejoratively referred to as tyskerbarna ("German children ") or tyskerunger , the expression krigsbarna ("war children") was a little less pejorative . The women were accused of collaborating with the enemy, which is why they were often referred to as collaborators . After the war, part of the so-called Tyskertøser fell victim to extensive and gross acts of revenge and attacks. Women who were married to German men largely lost their Norwegian citizenship, were interned and sent to Germany.

In Oslo , on a German initiative, a file was set up on women who were infected with sexually transmitted diseases . In the capital, six women and two men dealt exclusively with "violations of morality, decency and an honest lifestyle" (sedelighetssaker) during the war. The Germans assisted the Norwegian police in raids, after which individual women were forcibly examined. The actions were not directed against prostitution . They were intended as part of the fight against sexually transmitted diseases. After the end of the war, Norwegian authorities used the file to track down people who had lived with Germans.

In October 2018, the Norwegian government officially apologized for the discrimination against these women.

Background of women

Relations between Norwegian women and German soldiers varied from pure love affairs to opportunistic relationships in which the women wanted to achieve power and prestige, also because they then feared no surveillance by members or sympathizers of the Norwegian Nasjonal Samling . From the archives of the internment camp Hovedøya it is known that many of the women came from poor backgrounds and rural areas and often had only a poor education and training. Over half of the women on Hovedøya were between 15 and 24 years old, another 23% under 30.

Researcher Kari Helgesen researched the Molde police archives from the summer of 1945 and concluded that the average Molde Tyskertøs was born around 1921, came from a rural commune near Molde and came from a family with a modest economy. The father was mostly fishermen or farmers, they themselves enjoyed besides the elementary school no education and worked as a maid in a city or suburb in his native Fylke . The accompanying photographs showed that the women were of average appearance.

Setting of the Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht could not get used to these conditions, and when non-German women asked about their missing German lover and fiancé, the military authorities regularly replied that the man was missing, even if, for example, he was actually married at home. The German marriage ordinance of May 7, 1940, which was in force in the Wehrmacht, forbade marriage to foreign women during the war. After the occupation of Denmark , Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium , the regulation was changed after a " driver's decree ". Thereafter, German soldiers were allowed to marry “racially related” people in the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and Sweden . Marriages with Sami women were excluded. From 1942, the marriage ordinance was tightened. After that, marriage and procreation were only desired within the German people, since, according to German ideas, "hundreds of thousands of fresh German women and unfortunately also numerous young soldier widows were waiting."

SS and the Lebensborn children

According to Heinrich Himmler , Norwegian women were welcome “mothers of good blood”, but “even with the best will not able to follow the German train of thought”, which is why they should be retrained for a possible marriage to a German. As early as May 1940, an SS doctor said that genetic material could be upgraded for the "racially older" southern German regions by resettling Norwegian women there on a large scale. Himmler wanted to offer the so-called “Aryan” women who were expecting a child from a German an alternative to abortion (which was punishable by the death penalty in the Third Reich from 1943), and in 1935 he launched the Lebensborn program was established in Norway in 1941. About 1200 of the 8000 children in the Norwegian Lebensborn register were born in Norwegian maternity homes of the Lebensborn Association. This is around a tenth of the total of 12,000 so-called war children on record in Norway.

Reprisals

Branding of a tondue (“shorn”) by shaving the hair in Montélimar, France in August 1944

As early as September 1940, the Danish police registered that women had their hair shaved off because they had entered into a relationship with a German, which can be regarded as one of the first acts of resistance against the occupation. In France , where the phenomenon was more widespread than in the Nordic countries , these women were called les tondues ("the shorn"). Gertrude Stein wrote in her book Wars, which I have seen : “Today the village is upside down because they will cut the hair of the girls who were with Germans during the occupation, they call that the 1944 cut, and that has of course been cruel since the haircut was done publicly, that is where it happens today. " In France, some of these women were shot dead.

Norway and Denmark were the only countries that interned women in camps for this. Some have had their hair cut, exposed to public ridicule, and their names published in illegal newspapers. A quote from the Norwegian newspaper Dagsavisen Arbeiderbladet states:

«There is a håret av en tyskerhore er for mildly firm, de shall have and plages on all måter, både manlige and kvinnelige landssvikere."

"Cutting off the hair of a German whore is too mild a punishment, they should be hated and harassed in every way, both male and female traitors."

- Dagsavisen Arbeiderbladet

An affected woman from Denmark said: "We women were actually treated worse than the Germans themselves."

internment

Having a relationship with a German man was not enough to be reported under Norwegian treason legislation. Nevertheless, between May 1945 and the following winter, between 3,000 and 5,000 women were interned without a court order, legal counsel or opportunity to appeal. In some camps, discipline was so strict that brushing one's hair was a criminal offense. It was also warned that the guards would open fire if necessary. As a punishment for their collaboration, Norwegian women were also used to clear mass graves. The “provisional order” of June 12, 1945, which was devoted to the defense against venereal diseases, was used as the legal basis. The largest of the 40 or so camps was on the island of Hovedøya in the Oslofjord . Here only a third of the 1,100 inmates were infected with syphilis or gonorrhea . In 2010 the Norwegian Reich archivist refused to allow access to the material about the inmates on Hovedøya in the “Reichsarchiv” (Riksarkivet) , as this is subject to the confidentiality of personal information. A lawsuit at the Norwegian cultural department did not lead to success. The requested material was to be used for a documentary film about the state internment camps for tyskerjenter in the years 1945 to 1946.

Official order

All publicly employed Tyskertøser were fired, justified by a provisional order of the Norwegian government-in-exile in London on February 26, 1943. This "official order" (Tjenestemannsanordningen) ruled that so-called "unnational behavior" led to the termination of the position at the state or the municipality . No consideration was given to whether the “unnational behavior” took place before the introduction of the order in 1943, nor whether it could only be documented by rumors about the person. Others were expelled from families or social circles.

deportation

It is estimated that between 50,000 and 100,000 Norwegian women had relationships with German soldiers or officers. In 1945 there was a German groom at every seventh wedding in Norway. Over 3,000 Norwegian women married a German without realizing that they would be jeopardizing their citizenship. The Norwegian Citizenship Act of 1924 provided that a Norwegian woman who married a foreigner would remain a Norwegian citizen as long as she resided in Norway. But with the provisional order of August 17, 1945, which was introduced by Storting a year later , that changed. In application No. 136 of the Norwegian Storting Committee Odelsting , represented by State Councilor Jens Christian Hauge , it was stated:

“Størsteparten of these poisons may have been omgang with registration cases of the soldier and other times opptrådt on the høyste may need. I og med at the inngår ekteskap med tyskere, bør deres politiske tilknytning til Norge være gross. And he may be dangerous at the forlater vårt land så snart som mulig. »

“The majority of these married women behaved in a most unworthy manner in their dealings with the soldiers and officials of the occupying power. Because they are married to Germans, their political ties to Norway should have broken off. And it is very desirable that you leave our country as soon as possible. "

- Jens Christian Hauge : Odelsting application no.136

This would have made the women German citizens, even if they lived in their home country. And as Germans, they would have been expelled from Norway.

The professor Johannes Bratt Andenæs, known as Johs. Andenæs, protested in the Norwegian weekly Verdens Gang :

“You have to use the landssvikere, ikke tyskertøser and their barn, bare accurate because of the category that is required to be legalized by ekteskap, and their barn. Hvis man sier at det å poisons seg med en tysker er et så uverdig forhold for en norsk kvinne at hun bør miste sitt norske statsborgerskap and utvises, må det være like uverdig for en norsk man å poisons seg med en tysk kvinne. »

“You don't expel traitors, Tyskertøser and their child, just accurately that category that legalized their relationship at marriage, and their child. If you say that marrying a German is such an unworthy relationship for a Norwegian woman that she should lose her Norwegian citizenship and be expelled, it must be just as unworthy for a Norwegian man to marry a German woman. "

- Johannes Bratt Andenæs : Verdens Gang

28 Norwegian men married a German woman during the war. This group was never threatened with deportation.

In 1950 the Citizenship Act was changed. Norwegian women who were married to a foreigner could keep their Norwegian citizenship even if they settled abroad. The wives could write home and regain their Norwegian citizenship. A new passport was sent in the mail as long as that was requested by 1955. However, there was an exception in section 13 of this law: they had to resettle in Norway if they wanted a Norwegian passport. A remarkable number of these wives were in Norway until 1955 and asked the police to restore their citizenship. But since nobody knew the new regulations, the married couples were expelled from Norway again.

Those who ended up in the GDR were particularly badly off . German men with a woman from the West had problems getting a job in the post-war years. These married couples were just as undesirable in the GDR as in Norway. Many of them have been stateless for over ten years. With the GDR passport, the wife was only allowed to visit Norway in the event of a death in the family, and only on the condition that the family paid for the trip. The Norwegian radio ( Norsk rikskringkasting , short NRK) dealt in two programs from 1998 with the fate of the wives from the war. The Storting took on the matter and removed Section 13 from Norwegian law. Since 1989 women have been able to become Norwegian citizens again, but only if they moved back to Norway. In the meantime they escaped the requirement that one had to live in Norway for two years, as was usual, before one again consented to Norwegian citizenship. Since May 1989, the wives from the war could choose whether they wanted to stay in Germany or settle in Norway and get their citizenship back. For most of them this was not very attractive, and those who lived in the GDR hardly ever crossed the border before November 1989. The women concerned felt that they should have the same choice as the Norwegian women were entitled to between 1950 and 1955 when the passport was mailed to them. But all requests in this regard met with rejection.

War pension

If a woman is widowed after her husband dies on a war pension (krigspensjon) , her past is investigated in Norway. With her, the war pension will not continue if she is registered as a former member of the Nasjonal Samling . 92,805 Norwegians were investigated for treason during litigation. Of these, 37,150 proceedings were discontinued due to insufficient burden of proof. The proceedings are kept in the Reich Archives. When a widow applies to take over her husband's war pension , the state insurance company for social budgets in Norway, the Rikstrygdeverket , automatically contacts the Reichsarchiv to find out whether the applicant was a member of the Nasjonal Samling or had sexual intercourse with a German. In such a case, the application will be rejected, even if your proceedings were discontinued at the time.

In other nations

Denmark

In Denmark, too, women who got involved with members of the German occupiers were referred to as "Tyskertøser" and "Feldmadras" (field mattress).

Netherlands

In the Netherlands there was a multitude of terms for women with love affairs with German occupiers. These ranged from “Moffenmeid” (“German girl”), “Moffenhoer” (“German whore”), “Moffenmatras” (“German mattress”) to “Hunnebed” (“Hunnenbett”) and “Puinhoer” (“Trümmerhure”). After the liberation of the country by the Allies, these women were also subjected to various reprisals by the population.

France

One of the best-known among the French Tyskertøsers is the fashion designer Coco Chanel (1883–1971), who lived for almost three years with her lover Hans Günther von Dincklage (1896–1974), special representative of the Reich Propaganda Ministry in France, in the Ritz Hotel in Paris for almost three years . After the war she was arrested as a collaborator. At the hearing, she said that at her age, she was in her fifties, she didn't care about the man's nationality.

Another Tyskertøs from France was the French actress Arletty (1898–1992), who played the lead role in the famous film Children of Olympus (1943–1945). After a premiere, she was interned as a collaborator in prison for two months because she had an affair with the German Air Force officer Hans-Jürgen Soehring (1908-1960).

Tyskerbarn

In 1996 a study was carried out in which the number of Norwegian women who had relationships with German soldiers is estimated at 70,000. In the same study shows that 8364 Tyskerbarna, that is, from Germans and Austrians with Norwegians begotten crew children during the Second World War, have emerged from these relationships. Another finding was that most Tyskerbarn were born in Fylken Vestlandet (Bergen), Trøndelag and Nord-Norge in relation to the number of inhabitants , while Østlandet and Sogn og Fjordane counted the fewest. History professor Tore Pryser explains the numbers by stating that local German activity was decisive for the number of Tyskerbarn: "In parts of Finnmark there were ten Germans for one Norwegian, and that explains the high proportion of Tyskerbarn in this area". Wherever German troops had been transferred, the number of Tyskerbars was higher.

On the Channel Islands , where the population was partially evacuated, the ratio between the local population and Germans was 2: 1, on the island of Guernsey there was one German to one local. During the war years, the number of illegitimate children doubled in Jersey and quadrupled in Guernsey, where most of the Germans were stationed in this island region.

The biography of Anni-Frid Lyngstad , one of the two singers of the pop group ABBA , cast an early spotlight on the fate of the “German girls” . Born in Norway and later raised in Sweden , she is one of the most famous Tyskerbarn. She was born in 1945 as a so-called "Tyskerjente" to a 19-year-old and a German soldier who was stationed in Narvik . From an article in Bravo magazine in 1977, Lyngstad learned that her father had by no means died in the last days of the war, but lived in Gunzenhausen in Franconia .

Official apology from the Norwegian government

On October 17, 2018, the Norwegian government officially apologized to women who had been discriminated against because of their relationships with German soldiers. “The Norwegian authorities have violated the basic principles of the rule of law. No citizen may be convicted without a verdict or a law, ”said Prime Minister Erna Solberg . The politician admitted that the apology came very late, as most of the women are no longer alive. The extent of their fate only became known in recent years.

literature

  • Helle Aarnes: Tyskerjentene: historiene vi aldri ble fortalt. Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 2009, ISBN 978-82-05-39064-5 . (Norwegian)
  • Ebba D. Drolshagen : De gikk ikke fri: kvinnene som elsket okkupasjonsmaktens soldater. October forlag, 2009, ISBN 978-82-495-0592-0 . (Norwegian)
  • Kåre Olsen: Krigens barn: de norske krigsbarna and their mødre. Aschehoug 1998, ISBN 82-03-29090-6 . (Norwegian)
  • Vidar H. Grønli: Kjærlighet under hakekorset. Tiden Norsk forlag, 1989, ISBN 82-10-03231-3 . (Norwegian)
  • Astrid Daatland Leira: Kjærligheten has ingen vilje: norske tyskerjenter bak jernteppe og Berlin-mur. Tiden Norsk forlag, 1987, (Norwegian), ISBN 82-10-03092-2 . (Norwegian)
  • Sigurd Senje: Dønte kvinner: tyskerjenter og frontsøstre 1940–1945. Pax forlag, 1986, ISBN 82-530-1384-1 . (Norwegian)

Web links

Series of articles by Helle Aarnes in the Bergens Tidende

Other web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. Oktober forlaget, Oslo 2009, ISBN 978-82-495-0592-0 , p. 133. (Norwegian)
  2. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. 2009, p. 61.
  3. ↑ Helle Aarnes in Bergens Tidende : Tyskerjentenes livslange straff. accessed on August 12, 2010 (Norwegian)
  4. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. 2009, p. 164.
  5. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. 2009, pp. 236-237.
  6. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. 2009, p. 120.
  7. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. 2009, p. 75.
  8. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. 2009, p. 131.
  9. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. 2009, p. 129.
  10. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. 2009, p. 183.
  11. ↑ Florian Stark: Sex in War: Norway apologizes to "German slut" . October 18, 2018 ( welt.de [accessed February 9, 2019]).
  12. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. 2009, p. 95.
  13. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. 2009, p. 247.
  14. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. 2009, p. 152.
  15. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. 2009, p. 37.
  16. ↑ a b Helle Aarnes: De brøt ingen lov. In: Bergens Tidende. March 16, 2008, accessed August 12, 2010. (Norwegian)
  17. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. 2009, p. 156.
  18. ↑ a b Florian Stark: Sex in War: Norway apologizes to "German slut" . October 18, 2018 ( welt.de [accessed February 9, 2019]).
  19. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. 2009, p. 163.
  20. ↑ Exchangesplikt hindrer film om tyskerjenter. In: Dagbladet . May 9, 2010, accessed August 12, 2010 (Norwegian)
  21. ↑ Terje Pedersen: "Tyskertøser" - tight uten lov og dom? ( Memento of March 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file; 5.1 MB). In: Fortid. Issue 2/2007, p. 62, accessed on August 12, 2010. (Norwegian)
  22. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. 2009, p. 165.
  23. ↑ a b c d October 6 ... Krigsbrudenes historie i focal point. In: Norsk rikskringkasting . (NRK) focus. December 10, 2000, accessed August 12, 2010. (Norwegian)
  24. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. 2009, p. 224.
  25. ↑ Definition of terms on the Dutch webpage Ensie.nl online (Dutch)
  26. ^ Arletty. In: Store Norske Leksikon. accessed on August 12, 2010 (Norwegian)
  27. ↑ 70,000 kvinner hadde forhold til tyskere. In: Dagbladet. January 12, 1996, accessed August 12, 2010. (Norwegian)
  28. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. 2009, p. 82.
  29. ↑ Ebba D. Drolshagen: De gikk ikke fri. 2009, p. 94.
  30. ↑ Oslo opens a dark chapter from the war . In: ntv.de, October 18, 2018 (accessed October 18, 2018).