Figure 1.--There are few actual photographs illustraring the German Rape of Belgium. Most of the most notorious incidents are depicted by illustrations which of course are not reliable evidence. Here is an actual photograph of an unidentified Belgian (or perhaos family in northern France) victimized by the advancing Germans. German soldiers after looting the family have scrawled in German Gothic script what a French reader tells us looks like, "Gute Beute, schonen." That means, "Good loot. Take care." A German reader sees a different message. Click on the image for a discussion.

Germans soldiers invading Belgium committed numerous atrocities against the Belgian civilian population along their advance south through Belgium. [De Schaepdrijver] This continued as the Germans advanced into northern France. Often this was minor crimes such stealing food and property from shops and homes. There were also more serious incidents including rape. As far as we know, there is no detailed assessment of these extent of these incidents. There was no similar Allied actions as the war on the western Front was mostly fought on allied territory (Belgium and northern France). These were the depredations of individual soldiers and not German policy. we do not know, however, to what extent Army commanders tried to maintain order and if any soldiers were arrested and procecuted for such acts. There were, however, also killings, massacres of Belgian civilians. This mostly occurred in towns where the Germans accused the local population of fighting as Francs-Tireurs (guerillas) and attacking German soldiers. [Kramer, pp. 1-27.] The Germans took men as hostages when they entered cities and towns. If resistance incidents occurred, these men were then shot. It was easier than hunting down actual resistance fighters. And was meant to discourafe resistance. This was done on the orders of ranking German officers and was part of a policy approved by commanders. German authorities also deliberately destroyed Belgian towns in a series of punitive actions. The actions of the German Army during their offensive through Belgium and the months immediately following until the Western Front stabilized has become known to history as 'The Rape of Belgium' (August-Novmber 1914). The extent of these actions has been highly debated, but there is no doubt that the Germans committed what we would call war crimes. There is substantial evidence that the Germans killed some 6,500 civilians. One of the most serious actions occurred in Leuven. The Germans burbed the historic library of the town's university. It was no accidental incident, but an action ordered by German commanders. News of the atrocities were widely reported in the international press, inclding America. Adding to the fact that the Germans invaded a neutral country, the Rape of Belgium seriously tarnished the hiterto positive public perception of the German nation and its Army. These actions were widely exaggerated by the British press as war time propaganda, but the Germans gave the British plenty of material to work with. German soldiurs in Brabant, for example, ordered nuns to strip naked using the pretext that they were spies. Many reports from Aarschot describe women being repeatedly victimised. Numerous accounts suggest that looting, murder, and rape were widespread. [Lipkes] It was nothing like the horrendous war crimes committed by the NAZIs in World War II, in fact individual German soldiers in World War II appear to have been better disciplined, albeit more murderous. While less deadly than the German actions in World War II, they were undeniably serious. The press reports and other German actions generated tremendous sympathy for the Belgians. [Zuckerman, pp. 140–41.] The German managed to provide the British a steady supply of grist for their propaganda operation throughout the War. And those reports would play an important role in bringing America into the War. As bad as the Rape of Belgium was, in paled into insignificance compared to the consequences of the Germany Army seizing the civilian food suply. Without American food relief, several million Belgians would have starved.

Sources

Kramer, Alan Dynamic of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

Lipkes J. Rehearsals: The German Army in Belgium, August 1914 (Leuven University Press: 2007).

(De) Schaepdrijver, Sophie. "Violence and Legitimacy: Occupied Belgium, 1914–1918," The Low Countries: Arts and Society in Flanders and the Netherlands Vol 22 (2014), pp. 46–56.

Zuckerman, Larry. The Rape of Belgium: the Untold Story of World War I (New York: New York University Press, 2004).

Created: 6:28 AM 11/26/2016
Last updated: 6:28 AM 11/26/2016