Russian Female POW taken captive by German Nazi soldiers on the eastern front 1944.

Russian Female POW taken captive by German Nazi soldiers on the eastern front 1944.

Russian Female POW taken captive by

German Nazi soldiers on the eastern front 1944

The Wehrmacht had standing orders that female Soviet soldiers, with the exemption of medical personnel, were to be shot on the spot. Being she has had a wound dressed, she is probably a medic of some kind.

Was that so as to not have so many female prisoners as to not affect morale, or more as a reaction to what they saw as out of bounds?

The Germans had a very clear thought of the role and place of women in society. They did not consider women fit for combat military service, as they viewed that the capture of their women would result in disgrace for Germany, her family, and of course herself. Accordingly, women were only allowed to do supporting duties for the army during the war, mostly

medics.

When Germany invaded the Soviet Union, they encountered this new problem of female POWs, which they had not in the West. Firstly, they did not have special POW camps for women, and second, they were utterly disgusted by communist mindset of

letting women in combat roles. Although the German High Command had declared those orders illegal, many of the Generals on the Eastern Front gave clear instructions of not to take female POWs. 

Soldiers of Nazi Germany committed rape on a massive scale. It is furthermore known that the Wehrmacht ran brothels where women were forcibly made to work. Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg

In the Eastern territories, the Wehrmacht used to brand the bodies of captured partisan women - and other women as well- with the words "Whore for Hitler's troops' and to use them accordingly." Seifert, Ruth, War and Rape. Analytical Approaches, Women's International Leaque for Peace and Freedom, May 29, 2009.

It's estimated that rapes of Soviet women by the Wehrmacht range up to 10,000,000 incidents, with between 750,000 and 1,000,000 children being born as a result. Zur Debatte um die Ausstellung Vernichtungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht

1941-1944 im Kieler Landeshaus (Debate on the War of Extermination. Crimes of the Wehrmacht

1941-1944). A 1942 Wehrmacht document suggested that the Nazi leadership considered implementing a special policy for the eastern front through which the estimated 750,000 babies born through rape between German soldiers and Russian women (an estimate deemed very conservative), could be identified and claimed to be racially German. (It was suggested that the middle names Friedrich or Luise be added to the birth certificates of male and female

babies.) Although the plan was not implemented, such documents suggest that the births that resulted from rapes and other forms of sexual contact were deemed beneficial, increasing the "Aryan' race rather than as adding to the inferior Slavic race. The underlying ideology suggests that German rape and other forms of sexual contact may need to be seen as conforming to a larger military strategy of racial and territorial dominance.

T'd also recommend reading Victims, Heroes, Survivors: Sexual Violence on the Eastern Front during World War l (PhD thesis). Gertjejanssen,

Wendy Jo (2004). University of Minnesota.