Talk:Rape in Germany

FRA study

Hi,

the article says: "A study into sexual abuse sponsored by the European Commission and conducted by the Vienna-based Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) showed Germany above the EU average with 35% having suffered sexual abuse."

But that's not what the linked source says. The source says that 35% have experienced physical and/or sexual violence. 7% have experienced sexual violence by a non-partner and 8% by a partner. Even if we assume that those numbers don't overlap at all, at most 15% could have suffered sexual abuse.

Regards

--2A02:8108:200:6C4:E00E:757B:E56D:A8C8 (talk) 14:09, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Notable rape cases added

I bring this from the history to the talk page to avoid edit-warring (I undid my own edit): If you find notable cases not committed by immigrants, they may be added. That rapes are committed by immigrants is no reason not to add them - Cologne is also added.--Greywin (talk) 19:58, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

No, it's not acceptable to move from the general to the specific in this way, selecting certain individual cases that are not shown to be representative. Deb (talk) 20:07, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

It is fully acceptable to mention prominent cases, because the sources do. I can't find any guideline saying that it is not allowed to mention notable cases. See also Terrorism in Germany, where notable cases of all kinds are mentioned - from the general to the specific. --Greywin (talk) 20:10, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Maybe you missed the second part of my comment: "...selecting certain individual cases that are not shown to be representative". Deb (talk) 06:47, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

I am not selecting, I just mentioned the cases which are proven to be notable, and which, above that, sparked a political discussion. If there was a notable case with a German, European or whatever perp which had a comparable political impact I would mention it too. If you think that something is not representative, why don't you come up with other notable cases?--Greywin (talk) 18:41, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

These relatively recent cases appear to be considered notable in Germany purely because of the immigrant involvement. That is an example of media bias which I cannot change. However, when taken in the context of the subject of this article, they are certainly not representative and should not be given prominence in a general article like this one.Deb (talk) 08:19, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

It doesn't matter, why media reception exists - it exists in these cases, that's why they are notable and that's why it's right to mention them. And again, if they were not representative - where are the "representative" cases then?--Greywin (talk) 00:14, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Greywin you may include them at Immigration and crime in Germany. AadaamS (talk) 08:58, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Deb, I sympathise, even as written at present, the impression given is that no one was raped in Germany between the departure of the Red Army and New Year's day 2016! Selectively adding individual cases is blatantly a falsification of the subject. Pincrete (talk) 16:35, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

To add no notable cases wouldn't be even more "blatantly a falsification of the subject"? This would give the impression, that notable cases shall be denied completely. As I wrote above, we simply can add all notable cases instead to leave them out to give the impression that no one was raped in Germany by immigrants (as well as by non-immigrants).--Greywin (talk) 17:45, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

If you pick and choose the cases you include, you are not editing from a neutral point of view. Therefore you need to ensure that your edits are balanced. See also Wikipedia:No_original_research#Synthesis_of_published_material, which I think is what you have been doing in your recent edits.Deb (talk) 06:55, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

(Inserted:) No, I just added the single cases I found in the related category Category:Rape in Germany.--Greywin (talk) 17:56, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

There is no mandate on Wikipedia that in order to include something well attested by WP:RS one must also include other stuff. The fact someone has laboriously added cases from the 1940's and from the 2010's marks signposts to other interested editors that further valuable contributions can be made for the 1950-2009 period, but these are no grounds to delete the 1940/2010 information. XavierItzm (talk) 10:03, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

The remedy here is to expand the article. Surely an article on rape during the Third Reich (a notorious technique of the Übermensch) ought to exist. And, as someone suggests above, there could be material on rape from 1945-2010. But the editor who added reliably sourced and linked material is not required to such sections. Certainly the lack of such sections is not a valid reason to delete sections that do exist.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:06, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Certainly the lack of such sections is not a valid reason to delete sections that do exist - Yes it is. That's WP:WEIGHT. It's about proportionality within the article with regard to proportionality in the body of literature on the subject. If what we do include paints a picture of the subject that does not reflect the body of literature on the subject, we shouldn't be covering it yet. If it weren't a contentious subject, there wouldn't be much of an issue to just say "no deadline" or somesuch, but where NPOV is a concern and material is contested, it's preferable not to have the material than to present undue weight on one aspect of a subject. [here via NPOVN] — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:43, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Absolutely correct.Deb (talk) 08:48, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

BLP rules forbid us form saying someone is guilty before they are sent to trial. So until all the suspects have been found guilty we must not say they are.Slatersteven (talk) 16:01, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Well-sourced material deleted in violation of WP:PRESERVE

For the record, the following paragraph and its well-sourced WP:RS were memory-holed on 19 June. This content can be added back once the "controversy" is resolved. Observe the media linked/grouped more rape cases, but Wikipedia currently only bluelinks two.

 There were also several prominent rape cases in recent years such as the 2016 Murder of Maria Ladenburger and the 2018 Killing of Susanna Feldmann, which the media grouped together.

As additional sources should appear, I'll add them here. Cheers to all, XavierItzm (talk) 22:04, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

References

Not sure why this needs a new section, as it is the same content being discussed immediately above. That it was added with sources in the respective incident articles vs. sources in this article doesn't really change anything. WP:PRESERVE explicitly mentions "...should be retained if they meet the three article content retention policies: Neutral point of view...". NPOV is what's at issue here. The use of the term "memory hole" isn't exactly encouraging along those NPOV lines, nor the retaliatory edit warring template on my user page after I left one for OP. To be clear, you can add a hundred sources about these specific examples, but it won't resolve the issue. Nobody is challenging WP:V, only whether they belong in the article [at all and/or at this time]. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:32, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't see NPOV in danger just because migrants are the suspects here. Obviously there is a notable amount of such crimes in recent days. I asked the opponents of the paragraph above to list the notable rape crimes by non-migrants so they can be added here. Unfortunately I got no response for that. But maybe you can help? It can not be a solution to mention no crimes at all. Otherwise - if there are no counter-examples to mention - we must assume that such cases are in fact representative.--Greywin (talk) 00:36, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

With regard to this paragraph, you can see that the NPOV is 100% on the eye of the beholder raising the NPOV issue. The paragraph itself says nothing about immigrants. It is those insistent on memory-holing the WP:RS who are introducing a bias to the Wikipedia by highly selectively deleting WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT. XavierItzm (talk) 18:05, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

You can use as much meaningless jargon as you like, but you are both repeatedly WP:SYNTH tailoring the content of the articles to support a particular view which is not supported worldwide. Selectively quoting from your sources is not on and needs to stop now, before you both find yourselves with a topic ban. Deb (talk) 08:46, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

«quoting from your sources». “My” sources:
* De Telegraaf, largest Dutch daily morning newspaper
* Oberbayerisches Volksblatt, most widely read paper in Upper Bavaria
* Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine, a paper with a circulation of 170,000
* Het Laatste Nieuws, the most popular newspaper in Belgium
* Süddeutsche Zeitung, only the most respected paper in Germany and the closest that country has to a "newspaper of record."
But here, just between us, let me whisper: it is a cabal of conspirators! They're all in! Cheers, XavierItzm (talk) 16:12, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

The article looks pretty balanced now. Thanks to all who have contributed.XavierItzm (talk) 13:06, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Yo XavierItzm. Assuming you speak German, since it seems like maybe you do, we could really use someone to do a deep dive and find something, anything really, as far a sources go for rape under the East German legal system. I would be all like "thank you" and stuff. GMG^talk 20:53, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I'll see if I can dredge something up. XavierItzm (talk) 14:58, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Rapefugees.net

Is rapefugees.net a notable website for an investigation presented here? Not in my opinion. Yes, there are shifty right-wing blogs, but they can't be the base of the numbers presented here. I strongly doubt that this investigation is notable here. It was more notable in an article about the activities of right-wing blogs and maybe can be moved to such an article.--Greywin (talk) 18:00, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Not if this is anything to go by [1].Slatersteven (talk) 14:47, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

What Rape is not

Theft, why is this even mentioned?Slatersteven (talk) 14:41, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

So only two decades of rape?

Why do we (in effect) only have sections on two specific periods of (less then) 10 years each? Were there no rapes in the 2000's or 1990's?Slatersteven (talk) 15:29, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Up until now, a searches for important rapes that were constantly brought up in the media, listed by the media, referenced in the media, grouped in the media, or said by the media to have generated national debate in the 1960's and 1970's have found no results. Apparently, Germany might be going a crisis unprecedented in the postwar. Anyway, if those cases existed in Germany, editors would probably have added them up a long time ago. Contrast with Roman Polanski's 1977 guilty plea for unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-y.o., which is well documented on Wikipedia and even has its own entry. XavierItzm (talk) 16:20, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

It appears to be because those who wish to see individual cases listed in these sections (which seems to me to be wholly unnecessary) only want to include the ones that support the view that immigration is responsible. Deb (talk) 16:25, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Well here is a rapist [2], so one notable rape case from the 60's. So is it a case of could not find?Slatersteven (talk) 16:34, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Good find and Pommerenke in fact was condemned for four 1959 rapes, and on his death in prison earned the dubious honor of being the person who's resided the longest in a correctional institution in Germany, ever. I had a couple of sentences+refs lined up but now I see the article's been wholly restructured and I am not sure if it's worth writing it up. XavierItzm (talk) 22:12, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

with at least one suspect registered

What does this even mean? At the moment we are saying that in cases where there is one suspect one of them was an immigrant (I suppose as opposes to those cases where there are no suspects). Now either "registered" means more then "recorded" of we are saying the same thing (in effect) twice.Slatersteven (talk) 16:30, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

No. The point is that there could be hundreds or thousands of rapes where no suspect has been identified, which would seriously skew the significance of the quoted proportions. Do you see what I'm getting at? Deb (talk) 16:32, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

No, because for one of them to have been identified as an immigrant there had to have been...at least one recorded. So what does "registered" mean if not recorded?Slatersteven (talk) 16:36, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but what I'm pointing out is that it's not a percentage of all cases, it's a percentage of those cases where there are suspects registered/recorded/identified. So, for example, it could be a percentage of 5000 cases, but there might be another 3000 where there is no suspect so, if you measure it in terms of the total 8000, it would become a much lower percentage. But I don't think the article says what the total numbers are. Deb (talk) 17:01, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, but we already said "identified" (I.E. there is a suspect). I really do not see what your added text adds to that.17:05, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Actually I see that the wording of the whole sentence is not what I originally wrote and it is not correct as it stands: "with at least one suspect registered had at least one suspect identified as an immigrant". It should say "where at least one suspect was registered had at least one immigrant suspect". So let's try and create an example:

• There are 1000 crimes
• 900 of those crimes have a suspect registered; 100 do not.
• Of those 900, 10% (i.e. 90) have an immigrant among the suspects.

BUT, if you include those that don't have any suspects registered:

• the percentage of immigrants identified as suspects among the total crimes is only 9%.

Do you see why it makes a difference? Deb (talk) 17:38, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

No as in order to have been identified they have to have been registered "well yes sarge I know she said he woz a darkie but I did not bother to record the fact she said anything about im". The fact they have a record of them being an immigrant means they recorded an attacker.Slatersteven (talk) 17:56, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

But what about all the other ones where they didn't register a suspect? What I'm trying to say is that the figures look significant out of the context of the total crimes but they may not be as significant in context, and I think that is why the source words it that way. Deb (talk) 18:05, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

If at least one suspect was identified as an immigrant by inference that only can include instances were at least one suspect had been identified (and thus registered). I am just not getting how one can read that and think "they must also mean situations where no suspects were recorded".Slatersteven (talk) 18:11, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I see what you're saying, but if you didn't include that wording, a reader could assume that there were no other crimes recorded. Deb (talk) 18:44, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Proposal

I would like to see the removal of the whole section entitled "Historical Events" because I do not think individual crimes can be listed without bias intruding. The section on the 1940s concentrates on crimes committed by the Red Army without any mention of those carried out by servicemen from other countries, let alone the civil population. Likewise, the inclusion of only two post-war cases, which just happen to have been carried out by immigrants may reflect the media's response to current events but it is nevertheless unbalanced.Deb (talk) 16:32, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Sorry about that last edit summary - I got caught up in an edit conflict. Deb (talk) 16:33, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Umm...well one of these is a contender for the largest mass rape in human history, depending on what estimates you go by, and...whether you count Genghis Khan as "an event". So any version of this article that does not include the Soviet invasion is wrong. I have no strong opinion about the rest of it, but I have severely shortened it, and completely rewritten the bit about the Red army, which was ass backward before. GMG^talk 16:36, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

In the latter case there may well be an issue with recentism. As to WW2, it needs to be expanded or removed..Slatersteven (talk) 16:38, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I would only question whether it belongs in this particular article. Deb (talk) 16:38, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Just looked at Rape during the occupation of Germany and it seems at odds with the version given in this article. Would it not be better to keep it all in one place? Deb (talk) 16:45, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Well...at the risk of sounding calloused, the crimes committed by non-Soviet groups are nearly par-for-the-course for 19th/20th century warfare. Those committed by the Soviets were unprecedented in modern conflict, and since unsurpassed in scale, even comparing Nanking (the worse massacre in all the Pacific theater), you're still comparing upper estimates of 20,000 to upper estimates of 200,000 to two million rape victims. We could still include mentions of the other allied forces, and I don't think we should be attempting to duplicate large portions of the main article, but leaving this out is leaving out probably the single most historically significant event in the history of rape in Germany.

I would be fine spinning off WW2 into a small stand alone level two section and including the new years events as context for the 2016 law, because by all accounts, it was those events that brought conservative elements of the government over the edge in supporting major reforms of the national rape laws. GMG^talk 16:50, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

What about just linking to the other article? Assuming there is a source that says what you just explained ("it was those events..."), we could say that but just link to the other article instead of going into great detail. In terms of "Historical", I think the section would have to go further back in time as well, in order to be neutral, and I don't think this is even possible. There is nearly always going to be uncertainty over what actually occurred and in what numbers, and relying on media sources does not seem to be a remedy because, with a sensitive subject like this, reporting practices change regularly. Deb (talk) 16:58, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Ok. I basically just rearranged the entire article. But as far as just linking, per WP:SUMMARY, we need to include a short overview of the subject here in the parent article. GMG^talk 17:03, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

We really need to find someone with a book that explains where the laws prior to 1997 came from. I...haven't found anything at all online so far. GMG^talk 17:16, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Looking okay so far.Deb (talk) 17:40, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I was forgetting that it was two separate countries between WW2 and 1990. So we need to go back before 1939. Deb (talk) 17:44, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Yeah. I'm assuming the pre-1997 laws probably originated in West Germany, since the West German government more-or-less absorbed the East. But...do they go back to the German Empire?...or some kind of old Prussian common law thing that got carried over after unification? No idea. GMG^talk 18:13, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

You seem to be doing a pretty good job on this! I would give you one of those stupid barnstars if I believed in them :-)Deb (talk) 20:56, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I definitely think it's in better shape than it was. There was apparently some reform that happened around 1970, but I can't find any English language sources that deal with it in depth. Same for statutory rape. So around this point, we really just need a few editors who sprechen deutsch to fill in the gaps I think. It's probably just an article that's never going to get to anything around GA without input from people who speak the language. GMG^talk 21:07, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

This is a problem, because some of the German contributors who have been involved recently seem to find it hard to separate their political prejudices from their Wikipedia editing. We need contributors who have been on English Wikipedia for a long time and have built up some respect. We could seek help at Wikipedia talk:German-speaking Wikipedians' notice board but I'm anxious about what might result from that. Deb (talk) 06:59, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Whilst normally i would warn against this kind of finger pointing the fact it ignores some very notable cases of rapists does lead me to the conclusion this was more about the one set of incidents, rather then a general overview.Slatersteven (talk) 09:19, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

We need to attribute and somehow further qualify the statement about the government overlooking crimes against refugees. We've gone from an anecdote about one instance by one observer to a general statement about German criminal justice, which needs either dialed back or a source dialed up to what it claims. Also, if we are going to use the German language source as a direct quote, we have to provide the original German in the citation per WP:NOENG. ...Also please use citation templates to avoid link rot. We're already skirting by on not using unique identifiers basically at all. GMG^talk 11:06, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Oh...umm...maybe Sandstein or SoWhy would lend us their services in beefing up our coverage with some high quality German language sources. But they're the only German speaking long term editors I can think of off the top of my head. GMG^talk 11:29, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm always happy to help but that is not really my area of expertise. If you can point me to what parts you need sources for, I'll go look for them. Regards SoWhy 12:12, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Off the top of my head...

1. I have no idea really what the 1998 reform actually did re: rape law. I just have a vague statement in one source, and it took forever to even find that in English.
2. We have zero coverage on statutory rape. No statistics, no legal background, no history, nothing.
3. We have zero coverage on treatment, whatever mental/behavioral health regimes might be in place for victims, either government run, private, or non-profit.
4. According to the de.wiki article, the Gesetz zur Reform des Strafrechts von 1973 changed the context of rape from a crime against the family to a crime against self-determination. Have not found a single English language source for this.
5. Per de.wiki, there was a failed effort in 1983 to remove the exception for marital rape. This probably isn't essential, but I don't know enough to say really.
6. Per de.wiki, in 2002 there was a reform that allowed men along with women to seek civil damages for pain and suffering resulting from sexual assault. We currently have no coverage of civil prosecution at all.
7. Apparently there was some Nazi-era "reform" that dealt with rape in the context of gay men, in a way that was...well...Nazi. No idea if this survived legally or was historically important for our purposes.

I realize that's a lot of holes probably. But, in the context of an English speaking country, these are all answers I would expect to find in probably one or two high quality feminist sources dealing specifically with the history of rape. But English speaking feminist scholars don't seem to have cared much for Germany. GMG^talk 12:36, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I can answer the first one now but for the rest I need some time to research myself:

The major reform was in 1997. Before then, § 177 StGB only sanctioned extramarital rape. The 1997 reform (due to the "Dreiunddreißigstes Strafrechtsänderungsgesetz" (33rd law to change the penal code)) created a new system of combining sexual assault and rape in one law, with sexual assualt as the "base" crime. Rape, which was now defined by involving penetration, was changed to be a subset of sexual assault, a rule example for a particularly serious sexual assault. You can find all revisions here. The "6. Strafrechtsreformgesetz" from 1998 mainly increased the sentences.

Sources:

• Goedelt, Katja (2010). Vergewaltigung und sexuelle Nötigung: Untersuchung der Strafverfahrenswirklichkeit. Universitätsverlag Göttingen. ISBN 9783941875289 – via Google Books.
• Müting, Christina (2010). Sexuelle Nötigung: Vergewaltigung ([Paragraph] 177 StGB) : Reformdiskussion und Gesetzgebung seit 1870. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 181–196. ISBN 9783110247947 – via Google Books.
• Kieler, Marita (2002). Tatbestandsprobleme der sexuellen Nötigung, Vergewaltigung sowie des sexuellen Mißbrauchs widerstandsunfähiger Personen. Tenea Verlag Ltd. p. 200. ISBN 9783865040336 – via Google Books.

Regards SoWhy 13:08, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

 Done, with only a few minor tweaks for flow. Incidentally, I do recall that at some point "penetration" was itself redefined from "penetration of the victim" to simply "penetration", which has all kinds of implications for scope. I can't remember whether that was in 1997 or not though. GMG^talk 13:27, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm a bit surprised there are not more sources. Once my memory was triggered with the basic information about the 1997 reform, I do now vividly remember that this was quite a broad and controversial discussion that went on for quite a while. I'm tied up today but will try my luck tomorrow to see if I can dig up some more in newspaper archives, though they may be German sources._pseudonym Jake Brockman ^talk 09:54, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

I did find one source dealing with statutory rape and added that bit. It's brief but it's there. Probably the biggest holes we have currently are absence of civil protections including the 2002 reform, the 1973 reform, and then the public health treatment/prevention regime. But everything currently seems pretty well sourced, and I cleaned up the referencing formatting to comply with fairly standard GA expectations. I may look to rearrange the stats section more markedly by topic, rather than the current thematic mix of topic/study organization. I'd like to have at least a hat tip to the queer perspective on the issue, but I've found literally nothing to work with, so it's not absent for lack of looking, just lack of sources. GMG^talk 13:37, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

GreenMeansGoI had thought of gay rape or more broadly rape of men, too, but so far all sources I could find are very specific to rape of men as war crime - mostly with examples of recent armed conflicts. I found the odd news clip about actual cases, but nothing (yet) that would be a good general overview for use in this article. German Wikipedia has an article about rape of men and boy (de:Vergewaltigung von Jungen und Männern, however that article is extremely non-specific and draws on a variety of international sources. None seem specific to Germany. Coming back to the 1997 reform, I remember one of the reasons that made the discussion controversial at the time was the implication on abortion regulations. Abortion regulations at the time did allow for terminations as a result of rape. The one side of the argument was that the inclusion of marital rape would allow women abort children resulting form rape so they could maintain their dignity. The other side argued that the inclusion would open the gates to false claims of rape to achieve an abortion. I was wondering if this would warrant inclusion or degresses too far? This article covers this: [3]. The other thing that needs to be looked at is the situation in Eastern Germany between 1949 and 1990. They will have had their own laws during that time which were replaced by West Germany's laws after reunification._pseudonym Jake Brockman ^talk 07:56, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Well...Rape of males doesn't so much as mention Germany, so that doesn't bode well for the sources. That may be its own WP:SYSTEMICBIAS parfait. It's got layers of lax attention to LGBT issues, rape archetypes of woman-as-essential-victim, and bias toward the English speaking world. Funny enough, even the large national (n=10,000+) study currently cited is a sample entirely of women. So men, straight or gay, literally don't exist in the best study available.  

Incidentally, today I leaned that the Nazis radically liberalized abortion laws, which is a strange historical tidbit coming out of a radical far-right regime. Umm...#AccidentalWomen'sRights I guess. But more like #Eugenics really. As to whether abortion fits here, I guess that depends on how much public debate there has been. You could write an entire stand alone article on rape and abortion in the US.

East Germany? East Germany is a black hole. I've literally not found a single source that mentions it even in passing, at least in anything other than the context of war rape. The sources might not actually exist for all I know. The Soviets had their own brand of bare knuckle gender equality. I mean, everyone thinks the US was progressive for "allowing" women to suddenly work in factories during the War. Meanwhile the Soviets were forming entire regiments of women. The Night Witches flew some 20k combat missions. Meanwhile the US got it's first female fighter pilot in 1993. The whole thing was a total mind fuck for the Nazis, and seriously affected their estimates of Soviet strength, and...was its own sort of harsh poetic irony at a bunch of fascists being super uncomfortable being killed by what they saw as barely human Slavic breeding stock, while by all accounts the Soviet women were absolutely vicious in the field. But anyway, NOTFORUM, NOTHISTORICALRANT. But I wouldn't be surprised if much of the Eastern Bloc just didn't collect data or otherwise pay much attention to this sort of thing. GMG^talk 12:29, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I found a few recent articles that support the theory of violence against women in East Germany being a black hole. This is one of the areas that some studies are only just starting to look at, however it seems that the basis for evidence is rather thin. Officially, men and women were equal and as such violence against women effectively contradicted the official government line. As a result, it seems, rape did either not get reported or did not find its way into any kind of statistic. I found some basic comparisons between the two German penal codes, but unfortunately the google books preview blanked out the interesting pages... As for rape of men/gay rape, I am tempted to email one of the LGBT groups in Germany to see if they know of any published studies. Besides that, I think the Nazi and Weimar times need some more light for this article. _pseudonym Jake Brockman ^talk 12:49, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm definitely getting to a point of diminishing returns, looking through a dozen or more sources to find one that's the least bit useful. Per this source, the wartime rape did play an important social/political role in liberalizing abortion laws in East Germany. So that may be a route of tying in the section on the War with a section on rape and abortion. It also mentions a Penal Code of 1968 that decriminalized most sex acts other than "rape or the homosexual seduction of youth", but I've yet to find anything more on the 1968 code so far. This source might be a clue, if not itself useful. Apparently there was some public debate about whether the exception for rape was being misused as a way to defacto legalize abortion, since such a large number of rapes had occurred. It also refers to the "law of August 28, 1945", which might be helpful. (I really know very little about the East German legal system. GMG^talk 14:32, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

I tried to use the German WP article on rape as reference point, however the fact that even that article seems to completely omit the East German view resonates loudly. So I tried another angle by looking at the East German penal code in general. There is a German WP article about it at de:Strafgesetzbuch (DDR). It seems that this was only introduced in 1968. Until that point, apparently, the original penal code was in force that the Allies de-nazi-fied which was based on the 1871 penal code. West Germany passed their first reform in 1951, which I assume can be seen as the point where the two started to diverge. Now looking at the original text of paragraph 121 of the East German penal code which looks at rape, the basic provisions seem similar to West Germany at the time, i.e. focussing entirely on rape as "forceful intercourse" with a woman "outside of marriage". This source, if to be believed, highlights changes in red and magenta (or whatever that colour is). So from this source it seems that the clause on rape remained the same from introduction in 1968 until the end of the GDR in 1990 when it was superseded by West German law during unification. I appreciate this is all very much WP:OR, but looking at this I'm just not sure if a lot can be said about this "fork" law other than, broadly speaking, the legal situation with regards to rape was similar. At least at the face of it. The interesting focus here may be more on the social aspect which may differ in the East._pseudonym Jake Brockman ^talk 15:17, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Yeeeahhh... I've looked for sources on East Germany for most of the morning, and at this point I'm just giving up. Basically all of what I found was in the context of abortion or war rape, or both. Without any additional insight from someone else, I'm going with the story that there was just no significant public discourse or legal changes. At least this source seems to support that: In the last decades there has been an intensive discussion in west Germany about more rigid laws handling matrimonial rape, but there was no similar discussion in east Germany. GMG^talk 15:39, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

This book (in German) has a comprehensive discussion of the penal code for rape in the GDR: [4] page 136ff. --Count Count (talk) 15:42, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I saw that. However the passages where it becomes interesting seem locked in preview mode. If someone has access to a legal library, this would be the book to reference. I can only see pp.136,138 and 139. pp 137 and 140 are missing. There is something here for a couple of sentences but I worry that the missing pages might hold some important information that may (or may not) be important for the context._pseudonym Jake Brockman ^talk 16:43, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Hmm?

Umm... User:EnglishEfternamn, was that intentional? Not really any indication why you would revert the removal of off topic information. GMG^talk 15:22, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Well how's it off topic? It deals with the issue of sexual harassment against women at the workplace, and is referenced. Why omit it?EnglishEfternamn_*t/c* 15:26, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

This isn't an article about sexual harassment; it's an article about rape. GMG^talk 15:31, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

o_o, isn't that getting into very specific semantics. Sexual harassment in the workplace and rape can be, and often are, related. That many women are harassed in the workplace and don't feel safe in the workplace, well that's pertinent IMO.EnglishEfternamn_*t/c* 15:33, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

That's not semantics. Rape and sexual harassment are not the same thing. Stalking is also a related issue, and 17% of German women (and 4% of men) reported being stalked, but this isn't an article about stalking. Besides, the reference currently given for workplace harassment is a very poor quality opinion piece, and doesn't actually provide any citation for where the information is coming from, but only casually mentions "a study". GMG^talk 15:38, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Wait a minute, two refs were removed, one involving conviction rates of reported rapes (VERY relevant), the other of course being the study in question which involved info from the European Commission. Sorry to say, these are relevant enough to where there should be some discussion and rationale for removing them.EnglishEfternamn_*t/c* 15:48, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

There is a lot that has been moved, removed, rewritten and written. Basically the entire article has been redone in the past 24 hours. The part that was removed here was the bit about sexual harassment cited to an opinion piece. The part that was removed here is a newspaper, citing a newspaper (with no link), citing an anonymous source, and was removed because we already have that data from a large national study in an academic publication. I'm not totally sure why either of those should be controversial. GMG^talk 16:00, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

User:EnglishEfternamn's addition doesn't explain in what way they are relevant, and we have already discussed the removal of off-topic edits. Deb (talk) 16:02, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

German law is quite specific with rape. Legally, rape requires insertion of the penis as far as I understand it. While other countries may have a wider scope, this article is about the situation in Germany, so it should consider the local view. Sexual harassment is something entirely different. _pseudonym Jake Brockman ^talk 09:50, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

As I've learned over the past couple days, it requires penetration, although it doesn't specify orifice, object or person. Unfortunately for us, the data often examines sexual violence or sexual assault, both of which rape is a subcategory of, and only once so far have I seen it take into account attempted rape. GMG^talk 11:03, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Sexual harassment can lead to rape, follow up rape, end up with rape if its not addressed (which the source ripped out of the article deals with). You guys are going on hair splitting, ultraliteral interpretations of what surrounds rape situations. Sexual harassment may not be rape per se, it certainly doesn't mean it's not relevant to it.EnglishEfternamn_*t/c* 23:58, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

It's...just what rape is. It's the difference between assault and harassment. It's covered in the briefing that basically every working person in the western world has to sit through. (Unless you're in the military of course, then you get to sit through it 47 times a year because our incidence of workplace sexual assault are four times higher than the national average, and obviously power points are going to fix it.)

The article has tripled in size over the past three days, and will likely grow larger. I'm all for having an article on sexual harassment in Germany. We already have two separate harassment articles for the US, in education and in the workplace. But we're not going to have room to include content on every conceptually related topic. That's what main articles are for. GMG^talk 11:23, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

OTD

I've added the passage of the 2016 reforms to OTD here in case anyone more creative than me wants to take a look and improve upon it. GMG^talk 17:20, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

"the poor discipline and rapacity of soviet soldier was matched in the Western zones only by French Moroccan troops,"

Was the original quote actually made in this broken English phrasing or is this a poor translation? The correct English form would be "the poor discipline and rapacity of the Soviet soldiers was matched in the Western zones only by French Moroccan troops". --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 22:30, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

WWII

I hope you're all well. I've been looking at various Rape in X pages following a dispute concerning disruptive editing at Rape in Islamic law and other pages about rape in majority-Muslim countries. In Wikipedia's other Rape in X pages, the focus is on contemporary sexual violence, and individual instances of sexual violence aren't discussed in lead sections. Similar pages certainly don't all need to be the same, but looking for patterns brought Rape in Germany to my attention as significantly different from this pattern.

I imagine that people who look for Rape in Germany are mostly looking for information on present conditions—only a minority of pages that link here are historical.

1. I propose moving the WWII section further down the page, either by making the Legal history section just a History section & fitting WWII in chronologically, or by placing it after Services for victims. I am more inclined toward the former, but I can see why some might prefer to retain a specific Legal history section.
2. I also propose removing the final sentence from the lead section: I'm not sure that one instance of mass rape—horrific thought it is—is more central to the article than quite a lot of other things, & it seems a little incongruous with the WWII section, which is not solely about Soviet rapists. Pathawi (talk) 05:52, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

It's been about two weeks, & there doesn't seem to be much attention here. I've removed the sentence from the lead ¶, & moved the WWII section to after Services for victims. Very happy to discuss this & do something different. Pathawi (talk) 20:48, 4 August 2023 (UTC)