MORALE OF THE RED ARMY IN GERMANY
and the Party, the majority of the military personnel provided them–
selves with German women. Sexual craving-a natural enough mani–
festation
in
an army on field duty-does not sufficiently account for
this phenomenon. The attraction exercised by German women had
a deep and, if you will, a social reason: the Soviet privates and offi–
cers for the first time found themselves in a milieu that seemed
luxurious in comparison with their way of life at home. The German
women were only the most vivid embodiment of this luxury-a
symbol of a higher living standard. Applications for licenses to marry
German women, and cases of suicide and desertion because of refusal
of such permissions, became more and more frequent. The authorities
tried to combat these tendencies by rigorous measures. The only result
achieved was that the army orders began to refer to "secret violators."
When German places of entertainment were declared out of bounds,
the "evil" migrated to private apartments.
The spread of venereal diseases assumed threatening proportions.
To check it the authorities resorted to repression. The patients were
~ubjected
to disciplinary measures, their derelictions were made known
to their wives and relatives, and even made public. It was forbidden
to consult German doctors. All this resulted only in a further spread
of the diseases. The number of patients grew so great that they began
to be segregated in special units. I myself knew of two such regi–
ments, which we ironically baptized SS or Elite regiments. Every
member, from privates to colonel, had a venereal disease. These
units were under a particularly severe discipline; medical treatment
was accompanied with intensified military and political training. At
the same time the authorities encouraged (and later ordered) the
soldiers to bring their wives from Russia to Germany. Unmarried
officers going to Russia on leave were told to marry there and not to
return without their wives. Notwithstanding all this, German women
have remained the army's gravest problem.
The itch for possessions also remains disquieting. The political
authorities consider it less alarming than the problem of women;
but it, too, has assumed large proportions. Officers are the chief
culprits. Privates have less money with which to buy goods, lesser
facilities for storing them. That is why all their covetousness is focused
on watches; they put five or six of them on each wrist, wear them
even when asleep, and constantly exchange them. Officers, particu-
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