Claire Duchen – Crime and Punishment in Liberated France: The Case of Les femmes tondues
The case of Les femmes tondues is a debate that is somewhat difficult for historians to have. Les femmes tondues was the act committed by the French after the end of the second world war to punish those who were deemed to be un-French after collaboration or involvement with the Germans. This article sets out to examine what exactly happened to the women who were punished and given the punishment of shorn (head shaving) publicly. There were 2 waves of the Les femmes tondues, first in 1944 before the allied landings with a peak in June and July which continued slowly into the autumn of that year. A second wave followed this after the return of those who were liberated from concentration camps, these punishments took place in towns villages, anywhere that was public viewing and were carried out for mainly sexual reasons with the number of cases being recorded varying in different cities across France. The head shavings however were not the only punishment carried out against women in France, usually along with the head shaving women were made to strip publicly, had swastikas painted on their bodies had things thrown at them and made to walk naked through town as a sign of them being now viewed as no longer have the right to be called French. These punishments have been argued by feminists to be a symbolic act of rape, as the victim’s suffering is portrayed in such a way to show a man’s power with rape being crucial in war, this was argued by sociologist Ruth Seifert as women are seen to represent the nation, so when women are degraded in such a way by men it also destroys the community and the nation which is the aim in war. This article argues that it is a very hard event to argue without taking one side over the other, it is clear to see both sides of the reasoning behind the head shaving as France wanted to rebuild its government after the war and seen this as an acceptable way of showing everyone the steps that they were willing to take to ensure a fresh start for France, however, it is also clear to see why it was hard for those women who were punished as they were not only stripped of their privacy for something that may have been out of their control at the time such as sexual assault from German officers but they were also stripped of their right to call themselves French as they were in a sense outcasts from society.
Ivtván Deák – Purging Hitler’s Europe
The Nuremberg Trials in 1945-1946 are seen as a great triumph for European history after the German atrocities during the Second World War. These trials were set to put the leaders of sovereign states not only individually but also collectively to make them responsible for the actions made during the war, however, this article explains how this didn’t happen to the extent it was meant to. The first reason for this is that the Nuremberg Trials tended to minimise other crimes committed throughout Europe by political, administrative and judicial purges ranging from Norway to Greece and from France to the Soviet Union. The Nuremberg Trials put 23 defendants up on the stand for the war crimes they had committed however even when these 23 defendants were combined with the dozen or so follow-up trials this only affected an estimated 200 people. These trials only dealt with the high-up important German leaders without however the main culprits such as Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels who were all dead by the time of the trials. With the importance of this well-awaited trial, there were many non-German war criminals who were brought to trial and executed outside of Germany for crimes such as treason, collaboration with the enemy and crimes against humanity. The Bulgarian government held the record for executions of war criminals, as on February 2 1945 the communists ruling executed the former Prime Minister as well as 24 cabinet members and 68 parliamentary deputies for treason and crimes against the people. The list of non-German Europeans who were executed for War Crimes included thousands of generals, police chiefs, city mayors, politicians and journalists. The Nuremberg Trials have been known for being the trial that took down the criminals who had committed the worst atrocities and bringing those who had been affected some justice, however, this article shows that because of the nature of the trial and the reasoning behind it, it did in fact overshadow other trials that had taken place across Europe for other war crimes such as treason etc but these were not given the same amount of publicity due to the nature of the Holocaust and the thousands of people who wanted justice for what had been allowed to happen to innocent people.