Workshop "Gender Relationships between Occupiers and Occupied during the Allied Occupation of Germany (1945-1955)"

There is currently a renewed interest in the Allied occupation of Germany after 1945 and in military occupation in general. Concerning the occupation of Germany after 1945, there is a lot of work dedicated to its economic, political and cultural dimensions. More oriented towards the „history from below“, current research questions the daily life of military occupation, the places and forms of encounters between occupiers and occupied, covering a whole range of interactions from conflicts or confrontations to various forms of cooperation or fraternization.

 British soldiers chatting to German girls, 16 July 1945. (Wikimedia Commons)

The workshop aims to answer the following questions in particular:

- What types of interactions took place between the men of the occupying troops and the Germans?

- What types of relationships between men - members of the Allied occupation - and local women did the military occupation framework allow? Has the non-voluntary promiscuity in cases of shared housing with the occupier encouraged fraternisation or, on the contrary, stirred up resentment?

- How have military administrations reacted to the many violations of the ban on fraternization and to what extent have they intervened in this area?

- Under what circumstances have acts of sexual violence occurred, and to what extent have they been punished? Has there been any recognition of this specific experience of war violence?

- Beyond the gender category, what categories (nationality, ethnicity, age, social origin, military rank, urban or rural population, religion, etc.) influenced the relationship between occupiers and occupied and how?

- What were the views of the post-war societies on the relationship between the occupiers and the occupied and with what consequences?

- How were women who have given birth to a "child of the occupation" as a result of either rape or consensual sexual intercourse perceived and treated in post-war German society?

The workshop is a Franco-German initiative and aims to bring together experts on the Allied occupation in Germany after 1945.

The working language is English.

Wissenschaftliche Leitung: Dr. Anne-Laure Briatte, Junior Fellow am FRIAS / Sorbonne

Den Call for Papers finden Sie hier.

Die Ankündigung der Tagung können Sie hier nachlesen.

Den Programmflyer können Sie hier herunterladen.