The Bitter Road to Freedom: The Human Cost of Allied Victory in World War II Europe (16 page)

Yet this picture of hardworking relief efforts must be placed against other, less appealing images left by American and British soldiers, especially in the larg- er cities. At precisely the same moment as American soldiers and Belgian relief workers were toiling in the rubble of La Roche, General Erskine, the chief of the SHAEF mission to Belgium, received a disturbing ap- peal from the head of the Belgian High Commission for State Security, Advocate General Walter Ganshof. “It is my duty to acquaint you with the fact that from all parts of the country where the American and British troops have been in action, innumerable complaints are being made by the population on the looting which is going on,” Ganshof wrote. “ The Belgian population is as you know extremely grateful to the Allied Forces for hav- ing been liberated by them. They realize, no doubt, the extremely difficult conditions in which these forces are now fighting…. I feel nevertheless that if the troops re- alized better the appalling distress of the populations in the regions in which fighting has been going on lately, they would undoubtedly avoid some unneces- sary looting, destruction and wastage of items vital to the populations.” Ganshof said he had received many

reports of American units “destroying or wasting great quantities of food in front of local populations. Tins of fats and other ingredients vital to the people are being thrown away half filled, after having been spoiled…. In the very distressing state of the population, this cre- ates of course an extremely unfavorable impression.”
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Unfortunately, as High Commissioner Ganshof knew well, these were not the first such reports, nor were the incidents limited to the battlefield. Back behind the lines, numerous Allied troops had been causing public disturbances, getting drunk and disorderly, robbing, raping, and thieving their way across Brussels, Liège, Namur, Charleroi, Antwerp, and just about every other town where they were stationed. One charge sheet in the archives of the High Commission shows a com- plaint was lodged against Allied troops in Brussels on almost every day since September 11, 1944, when the first troops had rolled into Belgium. Some of these of- fenses were predictable and fairly minor: drinking, fighting, breaking furniture and windows in cafés and bars, brawling. But some were serious: armed robbery, theft of watches and rings, wallets and clothing, and of course rape.
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The frequency of such reports of Al- lied misbehavior picked up significantly following the winter fighting. One local study suggests that Liège became, after May 1945, “a veritable cauldron of ban-

ditry,” with soldiers involved in armed holdups, theft of valuables and money from passersby, and frequent public disorders like breaking café windows. The Liège press increasingly used the term “gangsters” in its re- porting about U.S. soldiers in the city, while in Brus- sels itself, women raised constant complaints about the public behavior of American soldiers, who spoke rudely to them, assaulted them, and pursued them re- lentlessly in hopes of initiating sexual contact.
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In the war-ravaged eastern part of the country, Bel- gians bitterly complained about the quantity and qual- ity of supplies the Americans enjoyed, and compared this abundance to their own destitution. “In many lo- calities damaged by the recent invasion, a chill has set in between the civilian population and the American Army,” one report for the High Commission for State Security concluded. The Americans were accused of wasting their own precious food stocks while requisi- tioning Belgian homes and supplies, and leaving them ruined and broken—a veritable second invasion. “It is not rare to hear it said that during the German occupa- tion, there was not such wanton destruction,” accord- ing to a report in mid-February. “If the situation is not remedied immediately, the great majority of people will turn away from the allies, who will thereafter enjoy only the favor of the prostitutes.”
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Business owners com-

plained to Belgian government officials that the Ameri- can Army was recruiting laborers at higher wages than they could match, usually to work in mines whose coal was to be used for military purposes. But the workers too complained of the poor treatment they received at the hands of American military overseers. “ They treat us like convicts,” said one, while others spoke of being subjected to constant body searches to look for pilfered American goods. Workers, wrote one observer, “have developed a distinctly unfriendly attitude toward our American allies.” One of the most persistent rumors passed along by Belgians was that the U.S. Army was stockpiling huge warehouses of luxury goods that were soon to be dumped on the Belgian market, earning windfall profits for the liberators. Despite a number of official investigations into this rumor, no organized plot was uncovered. Yet the widespread black market was awash in ladies’ toilet articles, soap, underwear, chocolates, fruits, candies, cigarettes, sewing scissors, and dozens of hard-to-find articles that the Army had shipped to the continent. One official noted that in a warehouse in Morlanwelz he had seen fifty cubic me- ters of crates filled with nothing but playing cards—a million decks of cards, he calculated. Though the High Commission made a “discreet démarche” to SHAEF about these complaints, little was done. The High Com- missioner’s brother, François Ganshof, who had been

recruited to work on fact-finding missions on the Com- mission’s behalf, wrote in despair over the huge in- crease in anti-American sentiments that was breaking out across the country. “I am more and more worried,” he wrote to the prime minister’s office, “by the deplor- able state of opinion that I have observed.”
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As important as these criticisms were, the chief area of contention between Belgians and the Allies was sex, and the role the liberators should play in determining the morals and public health of liberated territory. The site on which this debate played out was, quite literally, women’s bodies, and the problem on which the debate converged was that old scourge of men in uniform, ve- nereal disease (chiefly syphilis and gonorrhea). “ The incidence of VD among allied troops deployed in Bel- gium has recently reached such disquieting propor- tions as to merit the issue of a special order on the subject by the Commander in Chief himself,” wrote the deputy commander of SHAEF’s mission in Belgium in December 1944, and the picture worsened throughout the year. Figures gathered by the U.S. Army show that by June 1945, roughly 15 percent—about half a million— of all the American soldiers in continental Europe had some form of VD.
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This, on a continent that already had abnormally high civilian VD rates. The problem had become so serious that it compromised “effective

conduct of military operations.” But what solution did SHAEF propose to stop their men from getting VD? One obvious answer was to stop soldiers from having sex with prostitutes, and SHAEF declared brothels “out of bounds.” Yet SHAEF’s public health branch did not stop there. The Civil Affairs public health authorities believed that the real culprit in spreading VD were the prostitutes working their trade by themselves, in al- leys, cafés, and taverns “of doubtful character.” These women, therefore, must bear the principal burden of ensuring that their bodies were free of VD. The Allied soldier, in this configuration, bore no responsibility, and indeed, the Army had in September 1944 prevailed upon the U.S. Congress to repeal a law that punished soldiers who contracted VD. The War Department ar- gued that the law had no deterrent value and if any- thing only encouraged a soldier to be silent about his symptoms. Thus, Army policy was premised on the as- sumption that men would seek sex at all times, in all possible venues, and so the best curb on VD was to close brothels, distribute condoms, institute rigorous inspection of any women suspected to be involved in the sex trade, and encourage immediate and penalty- free treatment for soldiers who might contract VD.
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SHAEF drew up a draft decree for Belgium concern- ing prostitution and VD that it presented to the Belgian government for passage into law. Prostitutes, accord-

ing to the proposed law, must register at the town hall in their neighborhood, present three photographs, ob- tain a license, provide names of all cafés in which they sought customers, submit to biweekly medical exami- nations, and, if infected, agree to detention at a clin- ic for whatever period of time the doctor prescribed. Furthermore, any woman alleged to be a prostitute by an Allied soldier could be forced to undergo a medical examination immediately. Finally, proprietors of cafés and bars where prostitutes regularly worked were li- able to heavy fines and penalties.
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Despite “very energetic representations” by SHAEF authorities, the Belgian government refused to accept the decree. It was considered far too intrusive. In its place, the government offered an alternative law that placed the burden for curtailing the spread of VD on the infected man, and in particular, on his doctor. The Belgian law focused on the behavior of the “consumer,” as it were, declaring that “every person who exhibits the symptoms of venereal disease is required to have himself treated by a doctor of his choice.” The doctor was then obliged to report the infection and the date and location when the infection occurred; but he did not have to report the name of the infected man. The inspector of health must “use every discretion” but he could, if necessary, commit the infected man to a hospital. In any case, the expenses would be borne by the patient—a serious disincentive to go to the doctor in the first place. Any man who had sexual relations while knowingly carrying an infection would be sub- ject to imprisonment and fines. The Belgian law failed to discuss the issue of prostitution at all, and placed the burden of curtailing sexually transmitted diseases on men rather than on women who sold sex for money. Why did the Belgian law make no mention of brothels, and indeed, why did Belgians prefer to see soldiers use a maison tolerée to appease their sexual appetites? The reason became clear in a series of exchanges, both

public and private, during February and March 1945 when Belgian health officials demanded that SHAEF close the Army dancing clubs where soldiers were permitted to entertain female guests. These centers were chaperoned and although plenty of alcohol was available, military police were never far; Belgian girls frequented these halls to meet and socialize with sol- diers who could offer them drinks, music, cigarettes, attention, and perhaps some light romance. Yet pre- cisely because these clubs attracted nice middle class girls, Belgian officials saw them as a serious threat to the overall health of the female public. It was assumed that Allied soldiers, having been banned from broth- els, would naturally seek sexual contact with the nice girls at the dance clubs. Far better, the Belgian health authorities reasoned, if the brothels remained open so that soldiers could satisfy their desires among the known prostitutes in recognized brothels, which were perfectly legal. If men contracted VD, they could find a doctor to cure them. Brothels, in the mind of the Bel- gian government, offered a buffer zone between sol- diers and good Belgian girls; if men could be diverted into the houses of “doubtful character,” the purity of the clean Belgian female body could be preserved.
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The Belgian government’s approach to the VD problem, as a public health measure, left much to be desired. Al-

lied experience in southern Italy in 1944 had shown that closing brothels, cracking down on clandestine prosti- tution, and insisting that soldiers with VD be treated not by local doctors but within the Army, where they could be monitored, worked effectively to contain the spread of VD.
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In Belgium, by contrast, VD rates soared in 1944–45 precisely because soldiers were having sex with many partners in an uncontrolled environment with little regulation of prostitution. But the legal tus- sle over the issue sheds light on a key theme of libera- tion: that Belgians saw their liberated territory, its so- cial and moral values, and indeed its young bearers of feminine virtue, as vulnerable to subversion by foreign occupation. Soldiers, one report declared, had brought to Belgium “morals [moeurs] to which we are not ac- customed.” In mid-March 1945, over a dozen mayors around Verviers, a town near Liège with a heavy foreign troop concentration, signed a public appeal, aimed not at the soldiers but at Belgian youth, especially girls. “ This spring,” it began, “our young people face great dangers. We do not refer to the youths who have ral- lied to the flag and responded to the call of their coun- try, for whom to die in battle would be a great honor. Rather, [we refer to] the youth that have been seized by a frenzy of pleasure. While so many others suffer on the battlefield or in the deportation camps, these young people have thrown themselves into a sentimen-

tal adventure where they risk losing their moral dignity and physical health.” The appeal praised the “valiant young boys who have brought us liberty,” but asked parents if they did not fear that their “young, impres- sionistic girls were being manipulated by the prestige of the uniform.” The mayors chided in particular the young girls of the area who, they felt, were too eager to consort with Allied soldiers: