Lust, Duty, and STDs

Fraternization and Disobedience in American-Occupied Germany, 1945-1946

By Jessica Luepke

March 1, 2026 | Army History, Spring 2026 Edition

Read Time: < 47 mins

In September 1944, as American soldiers marched through Germany, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force (SCAEF) General Dwight D. Eisenhower issued an order prohibiting fraternization between Allied troops and the German population. The fraternization ban eventually would be included in the occupation directive the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) drafted prior to V-E Day, JCS 1067. Soldier fraternization with German women caused the most trouble for the Military Government (MG). In the summer of 1945, the rise in soldiers reporting cases of venereal disease (VD) forced MG officials to shift their focus from denazifying and democratizing Germans to dealing with an alarming public health epidemic.1 As the sexual relationships continued in direct violation of JCS 1067, VD cases rose, drawing the attention of both the MG and the American public. Military officials attempted to control the soldiers but found that traditional methods, such as courts-martial, did not work. MG officials worried that if soldiers continued their promiscuity, the entire occupation could be at risk. Soldiers’ insubordination regarding the U.S. Army’s nonfraternization policy resulted in a public health crisis as VD cases interfered with the occupation of Germany.

The U.S. Army’s first year of occupation duty in Germany created unexpected opportunities for soldiers to rediscover their own autonomy independent of the military. Morale suffered as the occupation delayed soldiers from returning home. Soldiers reacted as people often do: seeking sexual satisfaction as a distraction. Soon after V-E Day, the professional officer corps realized that it would be dealing with a different military atmosphere than it had during the war. Although relationships with noncombatants often occurred during and after wars, occupation policies forbade these types of interactions. The predominately civilian, noncombat nature of the occupation and its peacetime duties created unanticipated problems for the U.S. Army. The initial period of the occupation presented unfamiliar problems that other occupations had not. The unique problems of the fraternization policy and soldier dissent present an interesting opportunity to examine how the modern U.S. Army responds to disobedience during an occupation. Ultimately, the American government’s military policies, released in the document JCS 1067, were difficult to implement and eventually created dissension within the enlisted ranks of the Army.

Soldiers considered antifraternization policies impractical and unreasonable. Fraternization with German women, and the German population as a whole, began almost immediately upon entering Germany while the war was still ongoing. Despite SCAEF and MG attempts to curtail this kind of insubordination, the soldiers’ individual sexual needs became more important to them than any denazification or democratization policy. The U.S. media decried the blatant disregard for Army orders and lamented a decrease in prestige that it perceived resulted from this behavior.2 The U.S. Army eventually surrendered to the dissention pragmatically, amending the nonfraternization policy in July 1945, in September 1945, and again in late 1946 to allow soldiers to fraternize without consequences. Interestingly, the decision had some precedents. After the First World War, fraternization with foreign peoples was not only expected but also regulated. In Britain, for instance, “khaki fever,” or the temptation of casual relationships between soldiers and local women, provided ample opportunities for American service members on leave to enjoy the company of British women.3 The British government saw this behavior as “indecent” and took steps to control the women’s behaviors.4 The biggest issue between fraternization after the First World War and the Second World War is evident in the spike in cases of VD. In September 1945, VD rates surpassed the 1918 peak rate, forcing the MG to determine how to ease fraternization bans and address VD.5 JCS 1067 served as the reigning authority over both the occupiers and occupied. If one policy could be amended, does that also mean the others could, too? In the end, the dismantling of the ban took more than a year but served to show how the troops' quiet, but visible, dissent had a greater influence on the U.S. Army than the militant demobilization protests of January 1946. In the case of those demonstrations, more than 10,000 U.S. soldiers marched through Berlin to the MG headquarters calling for immediate demobilization of troops in Germany. The overt actions of these soldiers had a lesser effect on U.S. policy, despite the attention they received.6 The Army changed the way it treated its troops because of the occupation soldiers’ deliberate disregard for fraternization policies and the resultant public health situation as VD cases threatened German reconstruction.

Nonfraternization: The Beginning of the End

The nonfraternization policy, as defined in the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force's (SHAEF) Handbook for Military Government in Germany, ordered “avoidance of mingling with Germans upon terms of friendliness, familiarity, or intimacy, whether individually or in groups, in official or unofficial dealings.”7 This description mirrored the 1944 ban and articulated the JCS 1067 policy to the officers in charge. Soldiers were forbidden from shaking hands with Germans, visiting their homes, playing games, exchanging gifts, or socializing with them in any manner. Eisenhower feared interaction with the German people might influence American soldiers’ attitudes. As one German commentator recalled after V-E Day, the German people “emerged from the chaos, woke up from the devastating, oppressive nightmare of a reign of blood and violence.”8 This type of language, although representative of the feelings of many Germans at the time, solicited sympathy which Eisenhower believed would lead to appearances of leniency and would hinder enforcement of the idea of defeat on Germans. With both the SCAEF and the JCS directive prohibiting U.S. soldiers from fraternizing with German citizens, MG leaders hoped the troops would abide by the orders. They did not do so—not because they sought to disregard their orders, but because nonfraternization was not a feasible policy in alignment with the occupation’s intention to democratize, reeducate, and rebuild Germany.

Political adviser Robert D. Murphy helped finalize a digestible rule book for the occupation troops. The first draft of the rule book, initially titled “Special Orders for American-German Relations,” cautioned troops from becoming attached to the German people, who were not to be trusted, “collectively or individually.”9 Soldiers needed to be on guard around Germans, who might “poison [their] thoughts or influence [their] attitude.”10 Murphy’s draft reflected the U.S. command’s fears that Americans would sympathize with Germans and therefore fail to hold Germans accountable for the loss of Allied lives over the past four years. The U.S. Army finalized Murphy’s orders and distributed a Pocket Guide to Germany to every soldier. The forty-eight-page booklet warned the soldiers against trusting the German people: “Be on your guard particularly against young Germans between the ages of 14 and 28.”11 On the subject of fraternization, the guide provided clear orders: “There must be no fraternization. This is absolute!”12

If American soldiers were caught fraternizing with a German, such as the case with Hermann W. Göring, they faced a court-martial and a fine. In May 1945, American newspapers discovered that two high-ranking U.S. generals had taken a picture with Hermann Göring, the former president of the Reichstag and supreme commander of the Luftwaffe and accused war criminal, after serving him a “chicken and peas” dinner at the Seventh U.S. Army headquarters.13 The media used this incident to claim Nazi leaders were treated in a “friendly manner.”14 In particular, if the military police discovered a soldier with a German woman, that soldier would be fined sixty-five dollars, nearly a month’s pay for a private at that time. Consequently, soldiers often referred to the act of asking out a German woman as the “$65 Question.” Even taking pictures with Germans without SHAEF or MG approval resulted in disciplinary measures. Eisenhower informed his senior commanders that he was “intensely displeased that my orders on nonfraternization have been so flagrantly disobeyed.”15

What Eisenhower and other U.S. policymakers failed to realize was that although the U.S. media and American public could misinterpret “friendliness” as “softness,” the long-term success of the occupation of Germany nonetheless required forming relationships with German citizens.16 For example, U.S. troops defied nonfraternization regulations when dealing with German children. Soldiers were reluctant to blame youngsters for the war. Eisenhower chided his troops for their interactions with children, insisting that nonfraternization applied to “all individuals with German blood.”17 For Eisenhower, even a small breakdown in policy could create a ripple in the occupation programs and threaten the success of lasting peace. An occupation pamphlet recognized these fears and warned incoming soldiers that the Germans’ only weapon now was “making us feel sorry for them,” citing the “children who shuffle from one foot to another in the cold,” begging with “their eyes” for scraps.18 “These aren’t Nazis, you’ll say.”19 However, Eisenhower insisted that no matter the state of the Germans after the war, soldiers must remember the “Greeks, and Dutch, and Poles [that the Nazis] enslaved.”20 Despite these convictions, Eisenhower also knew “that the American soldier is not going to be stern and harsh with young children but on the contrary feels an inner compulsion constantly to make friends with them.”21 On 2 June, he forwarded an amended policy to then Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall to be shared with the American public. This amendment excluded “those below twelve years of age” from the nonfraternization rules because they reasonably could not be accused of war guilt.22 All other Germans were to be avoided unless interaction pertained to official business.

Venereal Disease and Soldier Satisfaction

At the heart of the soldier’s interpretation of any military policy regarding VD lay the nonfraternization ban. Despite the nonfraternization policy, the U.S. Army did not dismiss the history of soldier sexual fraternization and the medical consequences of those interactions. In September 1942, the U.S. Army established the Branch for Control of Venereal Disease (BCVD). It began as a program to educate, establish protective measures, and conduct epidemiological studies of venereal diseases. In the European Theater of Operations, VD already posed problems. The BCVD concluded that “to leave the source of the infection untreated was to permit a soldier, cured of such a disease, liable to reinfection and the other soldiers exposed to constant danger.”23 Contact tracing proved difficult considering the ongoing war. By January 1943, four nurses took over the program and limited the studies to two bases. As the end of the war presented an increase in soldier-citizen interaction, and with the nonfraternization ban in place, VD control took on a different approach. The Morale Services Section of the U.S. Army commissioned posters covering VD control and the Armed Forces Network launched a series of radio programs announcing, “venereal disease means trouble,” abbreviated to V.D.M.T.24 The military efforts to create VD-conscious soldiers had negligible results.

One soldier articulated the collective refusal to obey the fraternization ban and its limiting of the American soldier’s freedom in Germany. Still prohibited from interacting with German women, “Bill” declared that “Joe,” or a soldier, “is going to have his sex life, and no SOB back in SHAEF can tell [him] how he had better amuse himself.”25 Autonomy served as an important right that the troops seemed intent on retaining while serving as occupiers. U.S. soldiers faced the occupation with uncertainty and hostility. Those who entered the occupied zone after the war received a pamphlet roughly outlining their duties in Germany:

You’re going to Germany to help carry on a job we started December 8, 1941. You will be serving as a member of a team whose entire efforts are bent toward one goal—winning the peace. . . . For, until the last traces of hate, greed, and tyranny which symbolize Nazism are eradicated, there can be no lasting peace and security in the world. . . . Millions of Germans hope we will soon forget why we fought them, hope we will grow soft-headed and go home. They forget that we remember what happened when we failed to complete our mission after World War I. They forget we remember why it was that 171,000 Americans gave their lives in battle—for the same reason we are in Germany today—to crush and stamp out Nazism forever. In Germany you will be carrying on the most important job ever undertaken by the United States.26

Despite this propaganda, the soldiers did not know what to do now that the war was over. Many focused on their desire to return home, or to end their tours in Germany early. They sought comfort wherever they could, even if it meant disobedience. “The general attitude among senior officials is that the disintegration in morale . . . can be checked only by appealing to the American people to consider whether they want troops home now at the cost of losing the peace.”27 This universal fear of losing the peace influenced U.S. officials’ reactions to the public and the occupation Army’s disinterest in Germany.

U.S. soldiers disregarded the MG’s nonfraternization policy, finding sexual satisfaction wherever they could, often in “dark halls and alleys and under the cover of darkness.”28 Deputy Military Governor Lt. Gen. Lucius D. Clay blamed German women for the soldiers’ behavior, because “only the lowest type of girl, the tramp, would meet with soldiers under these conditions.”29 During the first six months of the occupation, soldiers more often solicited the “casual pick-up of prostitutes” rather than a “steady girl friend,” supporting Clay’s assertions.30

Curiously, there is no mention of homosexual interactions during the occupation period. Historically, the U.S. military excluded known homosexual men from enlistment. At the beginning of the Second World War, the military deemed these members of society unfit for their perceived susceptibility to postwar psychiatric injury.31 As for how VD may have affected homosexual relationships, the Army did not keep those records. Instead, the focus remained on the heterosexual spread of VD and the troops’ flagrant disobedience in regard to the fraternization ban.

Cases of VD within the occupation Army increased more than 300 percent between early April 1945 and 25 May 1945.32 In the first three months of the occupation, the average report of cases rose from 50 per 1,000 soldiers to 150. By December, that number had reached more than 250. Civilian cases likewise rose. Before the war, a district north of Berlin recorded only seven cases of gonorrhea and three cases of syphilis. The same district reported more than 130 new VD cases a month throughout the summer and fall of 1945.33 By April 1946, the U.S. Army reported cases of disease only when the number surpassed an “above-normal” rate.34 Throughout the 1946 quarterly reports of the 250th Station Hospital, the number of cases treated rose from 95 in April, to 198 in the second quarter, to more than 300 in the third quarter. Yet in each report, unit historian Maj. James C. Vaughan noted that “there [have] been no cases of Venereal Diseases.”35 These incongruous reports reflect how prevalent gonorrhea and syphilis were to the point that despite medical reports indicating new cases, unit histories stopped reporting on them. Those in the higher chain of command did not read the medical reports, only the monthly reports that the unit historians drafted. In this, one could assume that VD was no longer an issue. Despite this reassurance, VD became an increasingly apparent problem throughout the summer and fall.

The consequences for reporting a case of VD changed almost comically during the transition from war to peace. During the active war years, military law determined that a soldier or sailor deemed “absent from duty because of venereal disease” forfeited their pay.36 During the summer of 1944, Congress determined that this forfeiture did not deter troops from becoming infected. Instead, the law “merely promoted the concealment of infection, self-treatment and treatment by non-military personnel.”37 By May 1945, an anonymous battalion quartermaster discovered that if any soldier reported a case, “all passes and rest center quotas for that installation will be suspended for a period of two weeks.”38 Stars and Stripes reported in June 1945 that civilians in the United States were worried about the rising VD rate in Germany. An article claimed VD rates rose “solely to the fact that if a soldier goes to an Army medic for prophylaxis he is court-martialed and fined.”39 To keep soldiers from returning from furloughs with gonorrhea or syphilis, a September 1945 order instructed the soldiers to report to the unit health officer for a medical check before they received their ration cards.40 Recognizing there was a problem was only one part of combating the VD crisis.

The U.S. Army attempted to combat the spread of VDs with the creation of prophylactic stations throughout the American Zone. These establishments would provide “pro-kits” (prophylactic kits) that had both preventative contraceptives—condoms—and treatment options in the form of a syringe of 5 grams calomel and sulfathiazole ointment that the men were instructed to use to clean out the urethra. The establishment of prophylactic stations did not equate to a relaxation of the fraternization ban. On 6 June 1945, 12th Army Group Headquarters released a statement in Stars and Stripes, making the policy clear for soldiers: “There are cases of clandestine fraternizing. For that reason, and for the health of other soldiers thus innocently exposed to diseased men, prophylactic stations have been set up.”41 Making the headquarters position undeniable, a spokesperson went on to say: “Inside Germany the Army orders non-fraternization. But that law of averages is still at work: Hence, pro stations.”42 Training films about VD echoed this reasoning. One film, Pick-Up (1944), tells soldiers that although they may think it “can only happen to the other guy, can never happen to you,” they should always “avoid prostitutes, avoid pick-ups, [and] avoid push-overs.”43 Even if a woman seems “clean,” use caution, or else the need for treatment could delay furlough or demobilization.44 Pro stations helped to prevent VD, but the “immaturity of a good portion of our enlisted men” led to more scientific measures to stamp out the spread.45

U.S. media outlets and the MG blamed German women for encouraging soldier fraternization more often than they blamed U.S. troops. Some officials and media correspondents claimed the lack of morality during the Nazi regime had left German women without the “native sense of delicacy” that all women purportedly possessed.46 Others believed that the women knew exactly what they were doing. The “national striptease,” as one journalist called the supposed promiscuity of German women, inspired soldiers to disobey the MG’s nonfraternization policy.47 Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Leland Stowe argued that fraternization noncompliance was a postwar battle yet to be won. The attention the German women gave the soldiers, he argued, was all part of a German strategy to foster not just favorable relationships, but make the Americans admire the German tenacity for survival.48 Perhaps, then, the American soldiers would be more likely to share rations or overlook nominal Nazis when denazifying a business. Reminiscent of Eisenhower’s earlier fears of leniency, sympathies could jeopardize the occupation goals.

Weimar Laws and Nazi Promiscuity

MG officials claimed Nazi ideology was to blame for German promiscuity. Historically, the problem of venereal disease and prostitution entered German legislation with the Gesetz zur Bekämpfung der Geschlechtskrankheiten [Act on the Control of Venereal Diseases] of 18 February 1927. The Weimar Republic stressed the importance of health over the punishment relating to reporting cases of VD. Before this act, “transmission of the disease by those consciously aware of it was punishable” by law and the government publicly released the names of individuals with confirmed cases.49 The 1927 legislation allowed patients to receive treatment secretly, under the stipulation that every affected person must submit to treatment, and at the expense of the Weimar government. The other provisions dictated that those infected must undergo isolation, whether in their homes or in a detention hospital; only qualified doctors could administer treatment; those infected must refrain from sexual relations; doctors must inform patients of their condition and the treatment plan; wet nurses with VD cannot breastfeed the infants under their care; and advertised treatments must come only from an official health agency.50 The German Parliament also included in the law a provision that outlawed brothels and prostitution in an effort to control the spread of VD. In addition, it removed the police from the public health department. “Police are not at all the appropriate authority for registering sick people,” one German newspaper commented, “All police measures in the fight against venereal diseases are also subject to the procedure of fighting prostitution, the ‘moral’ police, from which raids and similar measures have developed.”51 Under Nazi law, however, the Gesetz zur Bekämpfung der Geschlechtskrankheiten of 18 February 1927 was amended beyond recognition.

Nazi law abolished the secrecy of treatment for those with VD and instituted “semi-official” brothels. The new law legalized “houses of prostitution in cities of more than 15,000 population.”52 Still, in an effort to control VD, men who visited these places received examinations from the Public Health Authorities. Most importantly to the U.S. antifraternization propaganda machine, the Nazi regime campaigned against contraceptive usage. Nazi prohibitions against contraceptives, MG officials claimed, had been put in place to increase the birthrate but also increased the rate of infections. In 1938, 25 percent of women and 12 percent of men between the ages of 15 and 49 received treatment for venereal diseases. That rate “increased perceptibly” during the war.53 After living with this cultural mindset of permissible promiscuity for two decades, women did not believe that having sexual relations with Americans was wrong. Most, in fact, tried to use their relationships with American soldiers to their advantage to obtain extra food or small luxuries like nylon stockings.54 In the United States, however, conservative values prevailed, and Americans decried the alleged immoral relationships. In the spring of 1946, President Harry S. Truman and military officials received letters from American civilians and soldiers stationed in Germany asking them to act promptly on the fraternization issue. For almost a year, U.S. soldiers’ “social contact” with the Germans was a constant source of complaints for the MG.55

Controlling VD

The rules and regulations concerning nonfraternization had minimal effect, and controlling the population required new, denazified laws. In early attempts to control the spread of VD, “stop gap measures” were put in place.56 The first VD-control directive, issued on 2 August 1945, ordered the reinstatement of the 1927 VD laws, the establishment of treatment and diagnosis stations, the formation of isolation wards in hospitals, contact tracing of infection, and follow-up of those released from the hospitals to ensure gonorrhea cases were cured and syphilis cases continued outpatient treatment to prevent relapse. The directive also established an education program to inform both the occupiers and the occupied of the increase in VD cases so that people may seek treatment early. By the end of August 1945, the U.S. Army had 57 VD detention hospitals in operation with a total bed capacity of more than 5,000.57

To continue to counter the VD problem, the Allied Control Council amended the nonfraternization policy in September 1945, defining new conditions for fraternization. Only women whom the Army Criminal Investigation Division had carefully screened to rule out ties to Nazism received invitations to military clubs and dances.58 However, because of the soldiers’ reputations of soliciting the affections of “tramps,” and Army regulations prohibiting soldiers from giving food or alcohol to Germans, the women remained wary of interactions with Americans.59 Consequently, the regulated interactions of American soldiers and German women was a failed process.60 Soldiers were impatient, preferring to choose German partners as it suited them, not as the military issued them. As a result, fraternization increased, and media correspondents reported the interactions to the American public.

Soldiers who presented with a case of gonorrhea or syphilis found themselves in a detention center under the care of MG medical officers. To return troops to duty, the Army needed new treatments for VD. The relatively new drug, penicillin, entered mainstream use in these detention centers beginning in the autumn of 1945. Principally used to counteract gonorrhea, the injection became the most important weapon in the fight against VD.61 “Only penicillin treatment of gonorrhea patients” seemed to satisfy the need for a quick and efficient solution to the problem of VD, and thus the War Department authorized its use for the German population beginning 28 October 1945.62 Once introduced to both civilian and military patients, MG officials claimed that penicillin “undoubtedly . . . aided in the control of [gonorrhea]” throughout 1946. Unfortunately, use of the drug, and the continued need for it, resulted in the MG reporting that by December 1946 penicillin stocks were depleted.63 Offering penicillin to U.S. soldiers did not stop the spread. Some MG officials believed penicillin and pro-stations worsened the fraternization problem between soldiers and German prostitutes. The medicine shortened the recovery time for the prostitutes to return to work from clinics or jailhouses. Those who did not present themselves for treatment were a threat to the MG. Officials turned to local German police to help identify red-light zones where prostitutes congregated, and American investigators could then find and compel the sex workers to receive an examination and treatment. Reports of infected soldiers also indicated locations where G.I.s and German prostitutes would engage in sexual activity.64 With the forced treatment and availability of penicillin, more people participated in the sex trade because the risk of contracting diseases had diminished. Even casual sexual encounters increased. One report noted that women from the other Allied sectors traveled to the American zone in Berlin to receive treatment after military police apprehended them.65

Newspapers lamented the immorality of the U.S. soldiers as they fraternized openly and without hesitation with German citizens. The “free social contact” between American soldiers and Germans was “undermining morals” and tarnishing the prestige of the American military.66 Local chaplains declared that the American sector in Berlin was “probably the most immoral city in the world” because of the G.I.s’ willingness to trade chocolate or cigarettes for sex.67 “Venereal Disease has been a problem due to the constantly changing personnel, and the subsequent loss of pride in the organization, which is so important in keeping down the venereal rate.”68 This comment from the 130th Station Hospital’s historian is interesting. He charges the loss of pride in the U.S. Army as a direct cause for the VD epidemic. If soldiers followed MG policies, such as nonfraternization, would soldiers have more pride in their occupation duties? The number of cases reflects a dissociation between a soldier’s job as an occupier and an individual surrounded by sexual opportunities. No number of sanctions or threats of discipline deterred soldiers from finding emotional and physical comfort during the occupation. Both male and female soldiers explored relationships with Germans. Male and female soldiers condemned the Women’s Army Corps soldiers (WACs) for fraternizing with those who “killed so many of our boys.”69 As the occupation continued, the media talked less about WACs relationships with Germans, possibly because the women were more discreet about their fraternization.70

Black Soldiers and Fraternization

In 1945 and 1946, many African American soldiers saw the occupation of Germany differently than their White compatriots. Comprising only 10 percent of the occupation Army, Black soldiers stood out as “other.” The Third and Seventh U.S. Army provided about 50,000 African Americans in the military police and other service outfits. These troops shared the duty of policing the Germans with White soldiers and “handling the defeated Nazis.”71 Their task placed Black soldiers in an odd position. Although many held the same resentment of the Nazis as their fellow White Americans, some also identified with the defeated German people as White Americans considered both groups as “lesser.” The occupation opened a window for African American soldiers who would compare their lives in the occupation Army to the plight African Americans faced in Jim Crow America. What they experienced as victors gave many Black soldiers courage and hope for a life outside of hatred and prejudice.

Initially, Germans were apprehensive of Black soldiers, mostly because of racial prejudice and wartime propaganda. Some Germans believed African Americans had tails, or were cannibals, savages, and rapists.72 On some initial interactions, Germans reacted to Black soldiers with disgust. Other Germans treated the Black American soldiers with dignity. Racial prejudice never vanished completely. For instance, civilian complaints of soldier misconduct were disproportionately higher for African American soldiers than for White soldiers.73 Black soldiers, though, were accustomed to insidious racism and overt bigotry. Despite the prejudice, these soldiers generally found life in the occupation Army tolerable because of the social freedoms they found while in Germany but that were denied to them in the United States.

Black soldiers compared the way Germans treated them during the occupation to the way White Americans treated them stateside. The social equality that African Americans experienced during the occupation gave Black soldiers a vision of a more tolerable life compared to the racial injustices they endured within the United States. By 1946, Black soldiers were telling their friends and families of the surprising lack of racism in Germany. In the October 1946 issue of Ebony, one writer revealed that, “Strangely enough, here [in Germany] where Aryanism ruled supreme, Negroes are finding more friendship, more respect and more equality than they would back home either in Dixie or on Broadway.”74 The article continued, “Race hate has faded with better acquaintance and interracialism in Berlin flourishes. Many of the Negro GIs in the German capital are from the South and find that democracy has more meaning on Wilhelmstrasse than on Beale Street in Memphis.”75 Black soldiers had faced Nazis during the war and challenged antisemitic barriers as they performed their occupation duties. However, they knew there were still racial barriers at home. The civil rights activist and cartoonist Ollie Harrington described fighting to “wipe out the noose and the whip in Germany” only to find “the noose and whip in Georgia and Louisiana.”76 Systemic racism within the United States and the armed forces encouraged Black soldiers to seek some semblance of comfort and happiness in Germany.

Because of the welcoming spirit of some Germans, Black soldiers were less likely than White soldiers to adhere to the MG’s nonfraternization policy. To the dismay of MG officials, fraternization between African American soldiers and Germans reached alarming levels in the months following the German surrender. This fraternization differed from the relationship between White soldiers and German civilians. Black soldiers “appeared less likely to treat Germans as subordinates.” Germans, for their part, found Black troops compassionate, kindhearted, generous toward children, and “responsive to the stark misery of other Germans after the war.”77

Similarly to White soldiers, African Americans sometimes found romance during the occupation. Unfortunately, Black soldiers also experienced the potential negative consequences of sexual relations as they also became infected with VD. According to historian Brenda Gayle Plummer, Black soldiers were six to seven times more likely to contract a VD than White soldiers. This may have been because White soldiers did not face racial obstacles to dating “respectable” German women. For example, military police who enforced nonfraternization disproportionately targeted German women dating Black soldiers, and often charged the women with prostitution or accused them of spreading VD. The high rate of infection within Black units “played a major role in the postwar decision to demobilize large numbers of” Black soldiers before they acquired the necessary discharge points.78 In this case, the racism worked in the African American soldiers’ favor because some wanted to return home. Racism was still dangerous, though, as Germans who disapproved of local women dating Black soldiers would often accuse the soldiers of rape. Black soldiers kept their relationships quiet when they could, leading one newspaper to declare that “Negro GIs Fraternize—But Wisely!”79

The German Reaction

MG officials were not the only ones in Germany mulling over the G.I. fraternization and subsequent VD increase. The first sign of fraternization—gifts of chocolate and stockings—drew the ire of former Nazis. In Munich, the “unsuppressed Nazi underground” threatened to find German women who fraternized with American soldiers, strip them nude, and parade them through the city as a warning to others.80 Placards written in German plastered around the city’s Max-Weber-Platz conveyed these threats. Stars and Stripes reported that when U.S. soldiers went to the square to remove the threats, “they found German civilians copying the words on pieces of paper.”81 Some of the placards read: “It took them five years to conquer the German soldiers, but a German woman can be had for chocolate. You will pay for it”; “Dead-tired after many weeks. German soldiers come creeping along roads, sore of feet, to find German women with foreigners in a most shameless manner”; and “German women are having nothing to do with maimed German soldiers because they have no coffee and butter, but a stranger has cigarettes and sugar and if he produces chocolate, then the color of his skin can be as it may.”82 This final reference to the color of skin draws on Nazi racism and the prevalence of Black American soldiers in Germany. In Bavaria, one anti-American poster was less subtle. As described by journalist Tania Long in The Gazette, “one side showed a huge Negro soldier with a blonde to whom he was offering candy and cigarets [sic]. The other side showed several disabled German soldiers returning home from prisoner cages. The caption underneath was ‘Is this what we fought and bled for?’”83

A series of anonymous poems reveals what one person saw as the evolution of anti-American sentiment. Despite the author never revealing their nationality or gender, the nature of the poems reveal the author to be a German woman composing them during the first year of the occupation. Her first poem, “The Negro Women!,” laments the Americanization of German women as they smoked Chesterfield cigarettes and took chocolate in exchange for the “great shame” of producing “black-white children.”84 Her next two poems make no mistake of her feelings, calling these women “whores” and “sluts.”85 Interestingly, the anonymous woman begins to sympathize with the fraternizing women. She recalls the Nazi pride of producing babies for Hitler, even if it meant the German men procreated in foreign lands. The women, she claims, do not love the Americans, but engage in these relationships “because we suffer want after the nazis took away from us the bread.”86 The series of poems ends with “Envy of these not being in the possession of a thing.” She directs this final poem toward German soldiers, berating them for shaming the women for engaging in relationships with American men:

Soldiers, be not envious,
for all you need, may be yours later on,
even if you have to wait 10 years,
for so long we have to kiss Americans.

May be that 10 years are a long time for you
for us, however, unfortunately only a short happiness.
As soon as the Americans leave us
you may have your full right again.

What about your behavior in foreign countries?
Didn’t you have girls and ladies day and night?
Therefore; shut up and keep quiet,
every girl looks for a pleasure where she can do so.

And as regards yours [sic] threat to cut off our hair
be sure that we shall offer resistance.
Don’t think that we are cowards
you will feel our force, be sure of that.

The (Ami) [American] is giving us this strength
we get chocolate, cigarettes, beer and wine.
That’s the reason why we take this courage
and why we don’t fail to love the Americans.

Therefore, dear soldier, once more;
for you the time of love will come later on.
You are surely satisfied by your adventures in foreign countries
and there is no doubt that many babies
you left behind you.87

Other Germans did not understand the position of German women quite the way the poet does. These antagonists pleaded for the women to remember that the Americans “took the lives of your sons, brothers and men.”88 Just as with MG attempts to curb fraternization, these pleas and threats had a marginal effect.

The rise in VD cases also drew ire from the German population. One Berliner, Ursula Lampe, wrote articles for the Berliner Zeitung on topics that showed a pro-MG stance while lamenting individual soldier behavior. Eisenhower’s ban on “GI-fraulein marriages” would save “German girls from humiliation.”89 Moreover, the VD epidemic “raging among Berlin girls” threatened the livelihood of “nice” girls in Berlin.90 With the spread of VD and no hope of future happiness in America with their G.I. boyfriends, why would German women willingly submit themselves to the ire of both the occupation government and their neighbors? One German article offers a simple answer: these girls were “lovesick.”91 They had withstood the war, and all the hardships that came with it, and now in postwar Germany there were far more women than men. These women wanted companionship and security. To some, that meant selling their bodies or their hearts for chocolate, even at the risk of contracting VD.

The German Woman

Postwar U.S. soldiers and German women wanted a sense of normalcy in their lives. During the war, both had been preoccupied with survival. German demography favored women as 6.9 million men had died in the war. By September 1945, more than 82,000 were prisoners undergoing denazification. An estimated 6 million German men were in labor camps in the Soviet Zone; an unknown number of men simply chose not to return to their families.92 Millions of German women functioned as heads of households, providing what they could for their families. Most struggled, facing food shortages every day. For American soldiers far from their spouses, the surplus of German women provided an opportunity for social and romantic relationships.93 A mutual satisfaction situation arose as relationships with American men meant opportunities for extra rations, so some German women were willing to satisfy the soldiers’ sexual desires.

“The Army has retreated so far from non-fraternization that we may soon expect the setting up in the War Department of a bureau of marriage and maternity.”94 Renowned political economist Raymond C. Moley’s prediction in September 1945 came true by winter. The U.S. Army could not enforce nonfraternization. Soldiers in the occupation Army proved this in every interaction with a German citizen, whatever their ages. By December, Congress received reports of U.S. soldiers requesting marriage licenses from their superiors. Soldiers throughout Europe faced the same barrier to marrying local women. Despite policies forbidding international marriages, soldiers continued to fall in love and ask the Army for permission to bring their partners to the United States. Although at first the military denied such requests, Congress and the War Department acquiesced to the calls for change to the marriage policy. Beginning in December 1945, the War Brides Act permitted U.S. soldiers to marry French and British citizens. The ban on U.S.-German fraternization officially remained in place. It would take another year of requests and denials to move Congress to amend the War Brides Act to allow White U.S. soldiers to marry their German paramours.95 Congress still prohibited Black G.I.s from doing so.

The practice of “war brides” was not new to the Second World War. War brides from World War I freely gave advice to the new generation emigrating to the United States to be with their G.I. beaus.96 The difference between the two generations, however, were the countries they came from. Most of the post–World War I brides were from France or England. After the initial establishment of the War Brides Act, French and British brides were welcomed. However, when American soldiers began courting German women, the public looked on with disdain because the U.S. Army could not control its soldiers. Before the establishment of the War Brides Act, one young lieutenant, Edgar C. Forsberg, fell in love with Elizabeth Schnupp. His story reached the newspapers in Akron, Ohio, when he announced their engagement. “You can guess how much I love her when you know I have signed to stay over here for two years. I have begged for permission to marry her, but in vain, of course.”97 Forsberg, along with other soldiers, stayed in the occupation Army for love. This lieutenant’s experience is one example of many soldiers who defied the Army’s orders to pursue their own interests. This side of the occupation soldier was new and stood in stark contrast to the troops who marched on Frankfurt, agitating to return home to their sweethearts. Instead of actively protesting occupation policies, soldiers simply ignored the nonfraternization policy. Both types of dissent served the interests of the American soldier, but fraternization proved harder for the U.S. Army to control and was more pervasive in the occupation Army than the vocal and visible opposition to the slow pace of demobilization.

In the case of interracial relationships, mixed-race babies heightened MG officials’ awareness of the policy violations. U.S. racial prejudice determined how U.S. Army officials dealt with interracial relationships and biracial children.98 German women faced verbal backlash from other Germans and from White soldiers for engaging in relationships with African American soldiers. Commonly, the MG and German locals called the women “sinners” as they were shamed publicly in the streets and in newspapers for choosing Black soldiers as sexual partners, referring to the relationships as “an unacceptable antinorm.”99 The children of these relationships suffered as they were seen as neither German nor American. The MG held the power to grant citizenship, both German and American, in their occupation zone because Nazi Germany previously had denied newborns birthright citizenship. As part of governing the American zone, the MG took over the issuance of citizenship.

White children born to German women and American soldiers often were granted German citizenship, whereas military officials refused to grant “brown babies” the same designation because of racial hierarchies. MG officials refused to consider paternity suits or grant dual citizenship to American soldiers’ illegitimate children. Although many African American soldiers wanted to marry their German girlfriends, many U.S. state racial laws in 1946 and 1947 prevented them from doing so. The MG eventually granted mixed-race children of the “offending mothers” only German citizenship without a path to become Americans like their fathers.100 The MG did not forbid soldiers from interacting with their own children but did continue to prohibit troops from engaging in friendships with German-born youth older than age 12.

Control Morale to Control the Soldier

Generals Clay and Eisenhower took an interest in the morale of the occupation Army. Demobilization would take months for some soldiers, so the War Department introduced education and recreation programs for off-duty troops. The MG organized sports, theaters, and United Service Organizations (USO) concerts to raise Army morale. The MG leaders wanted to keep the troops engaged in the occupation process and for that to happen, officials believed soldiers needed to be happy.101 In July 1945, Eisenhower established an education program that would serve a dual purpose. Aside from sustaining morale by keeping soldiers occupied with worthwhile activities, it also prepared them to transition to civilian life. Occupation troops had the option to attend three American universities established by the U.S. government in England and France, and thirty-five civilian colleges spread throughout Western Europe. Soldiers could apply for an extended furlough to attend the colleges in person or have course materials sent to their duty station. Courses covered subjects such as agriculture, commerce, education, engineering, fine arts, journalism, and other liberal arts. Additionally, the MG built nearly 1,500 libraries and supplied more than 15 million books and 44 million magazines to the institutions.102

Entertainment and recreation programs established during the war in Europe to maintain troop morale continued after the German surrender. Sixty-six USO shows played to 750,000 soldiers a month after V-E Day. Postwar entertainment came from several big-name stars such as comedians Bob Hope and Jack Benny, and big band leader Shep Fields. Performing groups of active-duty soldiers, like the Jeep Shows and Soldier Shows, continued to present plays and provide live entertainment. After the war, the plays became more popular as civilian actors joined the casts. During the summer of 1945, the Seventh U.S. Army conducted acting classes at the Soldier Show School. Still, the “most available and most heavily attended form of entertainment” in the postwar period was the motion picture.103 If the occupation Army wanted more interactive programs, the MG did not disappoint. By November 1945, the MG provided 21,000 basketballs, 100,000 table tennis balls, and an estimated 350,000 decks of cards. Soldiers participated in official games, playing against each other as officers and Germans watched. American football remained the most popular spectator sport throughout the occupation.104

Despite these programs, troop morale remained low throughout the fall of 1945 as soldiers increasingly complained to their superiors and the media that their deployments to Germany were unnecessary. Newspapers across the United States reported on soldiers’ letters home and in military publications like Stars and Stripes. “The enemy has been defeated and . . . now everyone ought to go home.”105 Despite pamphlets, propaganda, and MG efforts to enforce “winning the peace,” the troops were not convinced of their mission. Demobilization policies hindered any morale program the Army could devise. Sidney Shalett, a freelance writer for the New York Times, claimed the U.S. Army was in a self-constructed morale crisis. The apparent friendliness of German citizens exacerbated this crisis. One October 1945 newspaper charged the Germans with “courting” the Americans into believing they had wanted no part of Hitler’s war.106 Whether soldiers were truly “forgetting the horrors and destruction that the whole German nation unloosed upon the world” is debatable.107 What was more likely was that a shared dissatisfaction with their postwar lives encouraged fraternization. Germans were defeated and had no choice but to live among the U.S. soldiers. Soldiers wanted to find purpose in the occupation but lacked the motivation to rally behind MG policies.

Analysis

At the end of the war, policies dictated that soldiers keep themselves at an emotional distance from the German people. Those same policies indicated the occupiers would be at their duties for an undetermined amount of time. Loneliness and low morale gave the men and women of the occupation Army the courage to violate nonfraternization policies, resulting in a public health crisis. Adapting to local conditions forced the U.S. Army to reevaluate its occupation policies. The soldiers’ reluctance to follow policy, and the public outcry that followed, forced the U.S. Army to create and amend occupation procedures. Because the soldiers would not abide by the MG’s prohibitive orders in their interactions with the German people, the Army changed its policies so that it would appear as if it was in control of the soldiers. The amendment to the War Brides Act and the establishment of youth programs and policies were two such changes.

The occupation began with a simple goal: denazify, democratize, and reeducate. The Americanization of its zone seemed easy enough to attain, at least on paper, through the directive JCS 1067. However, soldiers’ reluctance to adhere to the nonfraternization policy led the U.S. Army to pause its state-making to address the VD crisis. The men and women of the occupation Army caused the U.S. Army to change fundamentally how the occupation would proceed. The Army, which controlled and organized men and women as a fighting force, found it difficult to dictate what the soldiers did in peacetime. This new Army had a minimal appreciation for the military chain of command, which is unsurprising as most had enlisted to fight in the war, not to serve in the Army professionally. The occupation troops expected clear lines of communications between themselves and their superiors. Soldiers took it upon themselves to satisfy their own needs, be it sexual or emotional, in direct violation of military orders. The U.S. Army adapted. Instead, the military command changed its approach to fraternization and VD. Treating soldiers with VD without punishment and the eventual reversal of the fraternization ban exemplifies the change in command culture.

Notes