On April 16, 1945, heavily armed and well-armed Soviet troops, under the cover of thousands of artillery pieces, launched a fierce attack on the German base, and the famous Battle of Berlin began.
At this time, Germany was already embattled, and its two main allies, Italy and Japan, had long been unable to protect itself: Italy had already surrendered in 1943, and Japan was defeated by China and the Soviet Union.
In addition, Germany suffered several defeats under the attack of the United States, the Soviet Union and other countries, and the Axis group came to an end step by step. Although the number of Soviet troops sent this time was only 2.5 million, the Soviet army was like a bamboo in the face of the German army, which was already a trapped beast, and defeated the German army of up to 7 million with a crushing advantage.
Just 11 days later, on April 27, 1945, Soviet troops managed to break into the center of Berlin. On the 29th, the Soviets pursued the victory and launched a general assault on the Reichstag in Berlin. The invincible Soviet army wiped out the remaining German army that was dying and struggling.
The next day, with a crisp gunshot, the Chancellor of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, committed suicide. Nine days later, on May 9, 1945, Kohl, the representative of the German High Command, signed his name on the instrument of surrender, and Nazi Germany officially surrendered.
According to post-war statistics, in World War II, Nazi Germany invested more than 17 million troops, of which more than 500,000 were German women.
But the strange thing is that these 500,000 or so female soldiers disappeared without a trace almost overnight after the surrender of Germany, what is going on?
This has to start with Germany after the First World War.
Germany after World War I
In 1914, with the sound of a gunshot in Sarajevo, the First World War began, and the people of the world were in dire straits. Four years later, in 1918, the First World War ended with the defeat of Germany.
After World War I, the United States, Britain and France convened the Paris Peace Conference at the Palace of Versailles in Paris to liquidate Germany's crimes in World War I.
The treaty almost cornered the defeated Germany, which not only lost 10 percent of its population, but also lost one-eighth of its territory, and all its overseas colonies were divided among the Allied members, and it was severely sanctioned in terms of defense forces.
Germany's military weave was reduced to only 100,000 men, and it was forbidden to possess large-scale weapons and to create a general staff. The worst thing is that the Entente group also saddled Germany with a war film reparations of up to 132 billion marks.
The news of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles reached Germany, causing great indignation among the German people. It is really unbearable for the uncle, and the whole of Germany thinks that this is a great shame for Germany, and this is a provocation by Britain and France against Germany.
The anger of the Germans also laid the dangerous groundwork for Germany to provoke World War II again. According to historical records, shortly after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, French Marshal Ferdinand Foch sensitively felt: "This is not peace, this is a truce of 20 years!"
And that's not even counting the fact that after World War I, Germany's economy began to languish under the sanctions of the Treaty of Versailles, and the whole country became invigorated and the people were struggling to survive, but Germany was still struggling to support itself. In 1929, the world broke out into a major economic crisis, and all countries in the world were not spared, which made the already economic decline of Germany even worse.
At this time, a man named Adolf Hitler stepped onto the stage of history. At that time, Hitler was already the Führer of the Nazi Party. Hitler himself was a fanatical warmonger, and he himself was honored for his service in the First World War.
Against the backdrop of the Great Economic Crisis of 1929, Hitler relied on his oratorical prowess. He skillfully exploited the German people's strong dissatisfaction with the Treaty of Versailles and their desire for a better life, frantically inciting national hatred and attracting a lot of votes for their political campaigns and ambitions.
Soon after, Hitler was elected Führer of the Third Reich. After taking office, Hitler fulfilled his campaign promise to provide bread and milk to every family, and at the same time introduced a policy to "encourage women to have children".
For Hitler, the world of German women was husband, family, children, and home. This also gave Hitler great support and admiration among German women, many of whom regarded Hitler as their idol and role model.
Just when the German people thought they had met a great savior, Hitler secretly planned one conspiracy after another in a vain attempt to make a comeback and regain everything Germany once had.
After Hitler came to power, he struck hard politically, economically, and militarily, and he forcefully brought the economy under the control of the German government to meet the needs of politics.
At the same time, while Britain and France were too busy to take care of themselves, Hitler lied that Germany was on the verge of collapse and forced them to agree to Germany's moratorium on the payment of war reparations. On the other hand, Hitler borrowed a large amount of money from the American capitalists through bonds, which relieved the depressed Germany.
Most hatefully, Hitler took advantage of the hatred of the Jews among the Germans, and the Jewish community had a great deal of wealth at the time. As a result, the Jews were persecuted, and their wealth was confiscated by Germany, laying a dirty foundation for Hitler's arms expansion.
Militarily, after solving the economic problem, Hitler boldly drafted a plan for the expansion of the army, and he used the millions of unemployed people in the country as a sufficient source of troops, so as to achieve the goal of expanding the army, and secondly, greatly alleviating the social contradictions in Germany.
In Germany, Hitler made a speech in which he vigorously preached the "Songun politics," and he even boldly said: Whether the economic policy is good or not and does not conform to Germany's national conditions depends on whether it can serve Germany's army building.
Hitler also constantly brainwashed the German people into a general belief that "there can be no candy, but never without bullets." Ideologically, the people were scavenged and the people were so that the German people would rather live the poorest life and spend their money and materials on the construction of the German army free of charge.
In this state of "high pressure", the whole of Germany became a war machine, frantically expanding its army, preparing for war, and producing weapons. According to statistics, in 1939 alone, the number of German troops had expanded by 8 million, which explains why Nazi Germany was able to devote more than 17 million troops to the battlefields of World War II.
If Germany has been able to go from a sanctioned defeated country to a military power that has turned losses into profits in just six years, it is not only because of Hitler's coming to power and the Germans' dissatisfaction with the "Versailles Treaty," but also because of the indulgence and acquiescence of Britain, France, and other countries to Germany's arms expansion.
At the end of September 1934, Hitler secretly ordered the expansion of the German armament from 100,000 to 300,000, which was a very dangerous signal.
This move was undoubtedly a blatant violation of the Treaty of Versailles, and was immediately strongly protested by Britain, France and other countries. However, for various reasons, this protest remained only rhetorical and on paper, and did not have any impact on Nazi Germany under Hitler's leadership, which laid the dangerous groundwork for the outbreak of World War II.
And Hitler took advantage of this loophole and made inch-in-progress, and he even openly drove 30,000 German troops into the Rhine demilitarized zone and built fortifications. This kind of posture, but anyone with a little military common sense and sense of smell can see that this is a posture to fight.
However, Britain, France and other countries still underestimated the enemy, and only formally protested against Germany. Hitler was also very cunning, and after protests from other countries, he pretended to order the troops to retreat, and after the calm was calm, he ordered the troops to move forward.
In such a dangerous situation, Britain, France, and other countries still had the mentality of "eating melons", indulged and acquiesced in Nazi Germany's frenzied military expansion, and vainly tried to lead the war to the Soviet Union, which was far to the east. But to the surprise of Britain and France, they soon paid a terrible price for their naïve ideas.
500,000 German women soldiers joined World War II
Since ancient times, men have always been the protagonists on the battlefield, and basically no women go directly to the battlefield, and women are only in the rear to escort the men who are fighting in the front. But this stereotype was broken in World War II, where women began to fight the enemy as the main force on the battlefield.
In Hitler's view, the main role of German women was to have children, raise husbands and children, and take care of the elderly, and their scope of activity was mainly in their own families, which was basically the same as the traditional concept of the mainland.
In 1933, when Hitler came to power, he began to introduce a decree to "restrict the employment of women in Germany" and dismissed women workers on a large scale. At the same time, the so-called "Marriage Loan Act" was promulgated, which provided that married German women could receive loans of up to several thousand marks if they resigned and did not look for a new job during the loan period.
But this series of policies eventually failed. According to statistics, in the six years between Hitler's rise to power in 1933 and the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the number of women workers increased by more than 1 million, and the proportion of married women increased by 5%.
On September 1, 1939, World War II began with Nazi Germany's blitzkrieg on Poland. In order to meet the needs of the war, a large number of adult males in Nazi Germany were sent to fight in major battlefields, which caused a huge deficit in the labor force within Nazi Germany.
You must know that the main body of labor is men, and men in Germany are basically sent to the front to fight, and the burden of security in the rear falls on German women.
Germany is not a big country in terms of land area, and it is simply not worth mentioning in front of the Soviet Union, China, and the United States. And the war is not only about the combat ability of the troops, but also the command ability of the generals, but also about money and food, and the support of the country, and the land area of the country makes it impossible for Germany to support the long-term war attrition.
Therefore, starting from the national conditions of Germany at that time, "blitzkrieg" was the best tactic. Blitzkrieg also requires a large number of soldiers, and in this case, the large number of German women has become the best solution to this dilemma.
Shortly after the outbreak of World War II, the then Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, Goering, ordered "all German women to stop resting and start working immediately", but it did not work much, because many Germans, especially Nazi politicians, believed that Germany would soon win the war and did not need the help of German women.
And as early as 1935, in Germany, a new national defense regulation was promulgated that "both men and women have the obligation to serve the country", and many German women signed up to join the army. But German women have no rank in the military at all, and to put it mildly, they have no military status at all.
Therefore, at that time, even if women go to the battlefield, they will also be considered to be indecisive.
At that time, German women could only do auxiliary work such as communications, medical care, and propaganda on the battlefield, and did not have the opportunity to fight directly on the front line. At the same time, at that time, German law had extremely strict regulations on women to join the army, and it was extremely difficult for women to join the army.
But man is not as good as heaven, and perhaps even Hitler himself did not expect that the front of the Second World War, which he was deliberately unleashing, would be so long and that there would be so many countries participating in the war. At this time, the rear of Nazi Germany was already getting tighter and tighter, and the combat pressure on the front was getting stronger and stronger.
In 1941, Hitler, who had killed in Europe, pointed the finger at the Soviet Union. On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany openly tore up the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact and attacked the Soviet Union on a large scale, and the Soviet Union was dragged into World War II.
Hitler tasted the sweetness of blitzkrieg on the European theater, and on Soviet soil he still ordered the tactics of blitzkrieg. The arrogant Hitler forgot that the Soviet Union was the country with the largest territory and the greatest strategic depth in the world, and that the blitzkrieg was not applicable at all in the eyes of the Soviet Union.
Germany was mired in the huge "quagmire" of the Soviet Union, and Hitler had to invest more and more troops in the Soviet Union, and the German defense industry at this time had entered a state of overload. The Soviet Union was not a vegetarian either, both in terms of the number of troops and weapons and equipment was not inferior to the German army, and in the face of German aggression, the Soviet army rose up to resist.
As the tug-of-war between the Soviet Union and Germany deepened, the German army began to decline, with more casualties on the front line and fewer male soldiers. As a result, more and more German men were conscripted into the army.
According to post-war statistics, after the outbreak of the Soviet-German war in June 1941, more than 300,000 German soldiers died in the Soviet Union. However, this was only the tip of the iceberg, as the Germans suffered at least 200,000 casualties per month after the Normandy landings in 1944. Of course, that's another story.
The harsh reality forced Hitler to consider turning his gaze to women in Germany.
In order to reverse the disadvantage of the German army in the Soviet-German war, Hitler's cabinet again issued a new policy, requiring German women between the ages of 17 and 25 to fight on the battlefield and engage in auxiliary work for one year.
Hitler's move can be described as killing two birds with one stone, one is to greatly expand the source of troops on the battlefield, and the other is that German men who were originally engaged in logistics support work in the rear can be sent to the front to participate in the battle. In this way, more and more German women were sent to the battlefield.
However, the reputation of the German female soldiers was very poor. This is because some good-looking and hot-looking women are arranged to serve as tools for male soldiers to solve their physical needs (similar to "comfort women"), which is used to relieve the physical and psychological pressure of long-term war with guns outside the home. But this kind of behavior is despised by many people, and many people scoff at female soldiers.
The remaining female soldiers were arranged to learn to produce and operate various weapons and equipment. After that, he was sent to the brutal battlefield. Regardless of historical and political factors, among these female soldiers, there are also some heroines who have made great contributions to Germany in the eyes of the Germans.
Who says women are inferior to men? Hannah Rich, a female pilot in the German army, was awarded two crosses, and Ayrs Grossman, a female nurse, was awarded a cross for driving in the war to protect the sick and wounded.
But many more female soldiers are murderous executioners. According to historical records, German female soldiers carried out inhumane massacres and persecution of Jews, and Ils Koch was one of them. She was placed to work in a concentration camp, where she claimed the lives of more than 30 people in a single day.
According to post-war statistics, there were only 140,000 women in the German army at the beginning of World War II, but by the end of 1944 that number had soared to 320,000. At the end of the Second World War, there were still more than 500,000 female soldiers in the entire German army.
After the defeat of Germany, why were there no trace of 500,000 female soldiers?
On May 8, 1945, Nazi Germany announced its surrender, Europe returned to its former tranquility, and the German fascist rule under Hitler's leadership was finally completely overthrown. But the 500,000 female soldiers mentioned above disappeared from the world overnight, where did they go?
According to historical records, shortly after Germany announced its surrender, a considerable number of German female soldiers chose to commit suicide like Hitler. However, the remaining German female soldiers who did not have time to commit suicide were worse off than dead.
After the end of World War II, Britain, France, the United States, the Soviet Union and other victorious countries once again imposed severe sanctions on Germany, and they vented almost all their hatred for Nazi Germany on these German female soldiers.
After receiving some German female soldiers, Britain still maintained a gentlemanly demeanor and kindly sent the received German female soldiers back to Germany so that they could spend their old age in peace.
But these German female soldiers who returned home alive felt very lonely at this time - their homes had already been destroyed in the war, and their families basically died in the war, ending up in a lonely old age, which is embarrassing.
This is already a relatively perfect ending. The German female prisoners of war who fell into the hands of the Soviets were not so lucky, and the Soviets were not so merciful to these female prisoners of war.
You must know that Japan, as one of the Axis powers, did not directly send troops to invade the Soviet Union, but the Japanese prisoners of war captured by the Soviet army were brutally tortured by the Soviet army, and the slightest disobedience was severely beaten or even directly killed.
Japanese prisoners of war were treated in this way, and the fate of these German prisoners of war who participated in the invasion of the Soviet Union in the first place can be imagined.
The Soviet Union and Germany had a feud during World War II, and after the occupation of Berlin, the Soviet army, which had long hated Nazi Germany, carried out a bloodbath against these German female soldiers, and many died under the cruel torture of the Soviet army. According to historical records, in about ten days, more than 100,000 German female soldiers were brutally killed by the Soviet army.
War is cruel, behind the soldiers fighting on the battlefield are families, they are all fighting for their country, but the biggest victims of the war are the people of Lebanon.
The disappearance of 500,000 German female soldiers is only a drop in the ocean in the long river of history, but it will forever show people the cruelty of war, and always remind people to cherish peace and stay away from war.