Romantic relationships between girls and women and Wehrmacht soldiers in occupied Ukraine: the attitude of the state, society and the motivations of lovers

Abstract

The author sets the goal of investigating the romantic relationships between women and girls and Wehrmacht soldiers in occupied Ukraine during the German-Soviet war. Analyzes the attitude towards the respective couples of the war and post-war societies, Nazi Germany, the Soviet state, relatives. Also tries to trace the further fate of the respective relationships. Scientific novelty. For the first time, the focus is on the issue of romantic relationships between Ukrainian women and girls with Wehrmacht soldiers in a scientific, not a popular, plane. The work uses a number of scientific approaches and historical methods. In particular, the methods of scientificity, historicism, source studies, logic, historical comparation and analysis, analytical and deductive methods. The achievements of the scientific schools of everyday history, social history, military anthropology, psychology and gender studies are widely used. Their application made it possible to isolate relevant material from various sources, analyze it and compare the attitude towards such couples of society and state in different periods. Thanks to the methodology of oral history, it was possible to look at the problem not from the terms of dry documentation, but from the human psycho-emotional attitude, albeit after a considerable time after those events.

In the process of work, it was found out that the affairs between women and German soldiers in occupied Ukraine were not an uncommon phenomenon. The reasons that pushed the lovers to take such steps were diverse - from romantic to purely pragmatic. Further family life in the absolute majority had no future, although there were exceptions to the rules. The corresponding couples had to face misunderstanding from society, the state, and relatives about their choice, which affected their later lives and ultimately led to the end of their relationship.