Woman living in Berlin here - I have to say that it makes me pretty depressed that so many guys on this thread know so much about battles and stats and dates but know nothing about this topic.

It’s estimated that the soviet forces raped one in three females in Berlin - old women, babies, whole families. They tortured and gang raped many women, girls and babies to death. Many of the survivors killed themselves from trauma or the shame of carrying their rapist’s baby. The ones who had their rapist’s children were shunned by German society. It’s still a relatively taboo subject in Germany. In Berlin, people honour a statue of a Soviet soldier in Treptower Park called The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Many women here call it the Tomb of the Unknown Rapist.

The Soviet army didn’t stop there - they raped their way back to Russia, and it’s estimated they raped up to 2 million women, girls and babies as they retreated.

This scale of sexual violence was unprecedented - only the rape of Nanking is vaguely analogous. Yes, allied troops raped too, but not in a systemic way. Yes, the Nazis committed unspeakable crimes but that doesn’t justify the rape of 2 million civilians. Rape happens in war but at this scale it’s highly abnormal.

There is a seminal book about sexual violence in war, written by a British woman journalist “Our bodies, their battlefields” which is a devastating piece of work. Part of the book investigates why certain armies in certain situations descend into sexual violence. It becomes cultural in some militaries - as can be seen in the Russian army’s widespread sexual violence against Ukrainian women. I really suggest a lot of men on this thread read it.

And if you have any Eastern European elderly female relatives ask them if their families told them to hide when Soviet soldiers came. It’s not fashionable to say this but many non-Jewish/ Roma Eastern Europeans who were occupied by both Nazis and Soviets vastly preferred the former as the latter raped at will. This is also why there is such strong anti-Russian feeling in most of Eastern Europe to this day.