In 2022, with the start of the SMO, the Ukrainian forces that moved into Donbass were on many occasions seen plundering homes of the residents they were supposedly protecting. The Ukrainian postal office was overworked with the parcels being sent from Donbass to the Western Ukraine, containing plundered goods. During the Ukrainian occupation of the small portion of Kursk region, a similar scenario unfolded, with plundered goods and abducted people being sent to the Ukraine.
That is nothing new, as the German Nazi occupiers were doing wholesale plundering of the Soviet land at all levels – taking away both material goods and people.
Presenting an extended article from the publication at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”.
On Friday, November 13, 1942, in issue №267 of the newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star), Ilya Ehrenburg published an article simply called “Gretchen”, telling about the driving force and the psyche of such plundering.
The original print of Ilya Ehrenburg’s «Gretchen» in Красная Звезда. Source
⭐️ Red Star is the newspaper of the armed forces of the USSR and now, Russia. During the Great Patriotic War, it reached the soldiers at the fronts with the field post, thus binding together the whole fighting Soviet Union and contributing to building a united spiritual front.
Ilya Ehrenburg as well as many other gifted Soviet writers such as Konstantin Simonov, Mihail Sholohov, Aleksey Tolstoy, Andrey Platonov, Iosif Grossman worked as war correspondents embedded with the troops at the fronts.
After the war, the most significant of Ehrenburg’s articles and pieces were published in the book Война (War). It was translated to many languages and published under different titles.
«War» contains shocking testimony of atrocities committed by the fascists in the USSR and of the strength and endurance of the Soviet peoples. It is a warning to the future; a soul-wrecking imperative to all anti-fascists!
«Gretchen will no longer receive parcels»
The 1943 drawing by Yulij Ganf may have been inspired by the article «Gretchen».
This poster is one of many on the display at the digital exhibition of the Nekrasov library, “The Artists of Victory”
Gretchen
I’ve seen a lot of Fritz’ wallets. In one section there are naked girls and addresses of brothels, in the other (Fritz is careful, he will not confuse) there is a photo of a blonde German woman with round porcelain eyes. This is Fritz’s wife, Frau Muller or Frau Schmidt. Sometimes Fritz has a bride instead of a wife. This bride may have half a dozen children, but since Fritz did not marry her, he calls her “the bride.”
Gretchen looks like a harmless blonde lady. In fact, it’s a real shark. Without Gretchen, Fritz would not have known what to do in Paris — Gretchen inspired him: “Loot!” Gretchen is the muse of robbery. Fritz, who “organises” the sausages in Krasnodar, dedicates his production to Gretchen. When Hitler glorifies robbery in a Munich pub and boasts that the Germans robbed Ukraine, the blonde, loose and insatiable Gretchen speaks through his mouth.
Who knows what Frau Kwachke dreams of in Swinemunde? German women’s letters are full of the most unexpected requests. One fool living in Cottbus writes to her husband: “If possible, get me a Russian boyar’s dress with beads — I saw it in the Illustrateur, I’ll wear it instead of a hood.” The other needed a “Russian Cossack’s hood for our baby.” They demand bird’s milk, but they don’t disdain anything, they write admiringly: “Your parcel was tied with a beautiful rope, please always tie parcels with a good Russian rope now.”
These blue-eyed dreamers have a fabulous appetite. Marta Simmel writes to the groom: “I left the chocolate for the baby, and I ate the bacon and honey in one sitting, without even noticing.” A charming creature that is capable of devouring lard with honey “without even noticing”!
Frau Trey mentors her husband: “I also went through a difficult winter. Although you write that you have a tropical heat wave, think about winter, about me. Find me something woolen.” What is war, blood, and death to such a female? Her husband was killed a long time ago near Voronezh, and she still dreams of a wool jacket. Another Gretchen, Frau Salneter, demanded that her husband send her an “elegant bathing suit” from Stalingrad. This person wrote: “Frau Kuchenreuter gave me a large package from you. There was a rubber band. I was very happy. It’s good that you sent granulated sugar, we can make a cake. Keep in mind that I need summer shoes, size 38. I received the package with the silver coffee set and hid it in the closet. Today I’m wearing a new dress made of Russian material and a blue straw hat. Here’s your little wife, whom you found so charming…” The fool – her husband is rotting in the Russian land, and she coquettishly whispers: a dress, a hat, a wife. After all, she’s still counting on an “elegant bathing suit.”
They love to babble. Gretchen calls Fritz “hubby”, “my treasure”, “my little treasure”, she refers to herself as “your baby”, “your wife”, “your doll”. There is a soulless and cruel creature hidden behind these sweet words. Frau Anna Sieger writes from Prentilau: “You can kill Russians without any remorse, and even children, because every Russian kid will grow up to be a brutal Bolshevik.”
The German Friedrich Schmidt tortured innocent people in Budennovka and sold clothes of the executed. Friedrich Schmidt’s wife, Christina, viewed her husband’s “work” as a lucrative business. Her husband wrote down how many girls he tortured and how much sausage he ate. Christina also kept score: “We have received parcels numbered 159, 160 and 161. Thanks a lot for them, especially for the sausages… This means that parcels up to No. 161 have been received, but the next ones, up to 166, have not yet been received. We hope they will arrive soon. I’m listing the parcel numbers that didn’t arrive.: 69, 70, 71, 98, 125, 134, 139, 154, 155… The girls are terribly glad that they got the shoes…”
Special courses have been opened in Germany “for the training of managers in Ostland.” The courses train German women to massacre the peasants of Ukraine and Belarus. Officially, the program includes innocent subjects: dairy farming, nursing, gardening. But one of the upcoming “leaders”, Gilda Grimm, writes to her fiance: “So, in three weeks I will see mysterious Russia. A lot has been explained to us here. Everyone with weak nerves doesn’t belong there. I know that I can handle my task. It doesn’t matter that I’m twenty years old and that for you I’m just your “poor baby”, I’m a good shot, and the Russians, these bearded animals, will tremble before me.”
They don’t like anyone, not even their own Fritzes. Gerden Hupp writes to her husband: “Of course, I don’t want to reproach you, but keep in mind: what I sent you, I took away from myself. As a husband, you should know that.” There is nothing to say — love! “Wifey” sent “hubby”, “treasure” three tortillas, and she is in a hurry to add: I took that away from myself, so that he could eat and feel all the nobility of Frau Hupp. Ella Meyer reports to her husband: “I hid from my mom that I had received a package. No need to spoil her!” And here’s how Gretchen responds to Fritz’s complaints: “You write that you have a real hell. You always see only what concerns you. It’s not easy here either.” Hitler said that he had raised a generation of Germans who looked like young animals, devoid of conscience. Like the Fritzes, so is Gretchen. There is no other word for these selfish, stupid females — unscrupulous.
Of course, they love to sing romances about “German love” and “German loyalty,” but they get along with the first person they meet. German newspapers are full of exhortations: “We must not forget about the purity of the German race.” But Gretchen was raised like a thoroughbred cow, and the world has not yet known a cow that cares about the purity of its race. Fraulein Gustel Bonn writes: “Yes, my dear, who was it who invited your Gustelle to swim at such a late hour? An interesting railroad worker, but not my type.” This Gretchen is still picky, but soldier Hans Klein, who has been on vacation, tells his friend: “Sleeping with the wife of a front—line soldier is the easiest thing to do, you don’t even have to treat or persuade.” SS Wilfred Rabe, who was killed near Leningrad, learned what Gretchen’s loyalty was; shortly before his death, he received a letter from his colleague: “Your ex-fiancee got together with a Frenchman. She told me that it was completely pointless to wait for the German, because there was a better way out.” Gretchen writes from Koblenz to Corporal Raugaus: “I know eight pregnant women among the wives of front-line soldiers, and one got together with an official who provides benefits, and the other managed to get mixed up with two Italians, so she doesn’t know who the father is.”
They’re just whoring, these blue-eyed fairies, and they’re cowardly. They have not seen either the enemy army or the partisans, but still they are shaking with fear. Who are they afraid of? Unarmed prisoners, foreign slaves. Gilgerd, who lives in Zichelberg, complains to her fiance: “Yesterday I suffered from fear. I woke up at night and heard someone screaming terribly. It was a Pole… I’ll never go out alone again in the evening…” Gilgerd is not even comforted that the Germans hanged a Pole in Zichelberg. She writes that she did not have time to look at how they were hanged — “there was no time,” and adds: “It is dangerous to walk down the street.” Johanna Roche is also afraid: This one is not for Poles, but for Russians. She writes from Weisenfels: “Every week there are runaway Russians here. I’m afraid to even go for hay. They were caught, and how they were beaten with rubber truncheons!.. In addition, two eight-year-old Russian children escaped.” And Johanna repeats: “It’s scary.” Yes, this stupid and evil creature is afraid of eight-year-olds! And Erica Kratzer screams: “Today three women went to the forest to pick berries and saw runaway Russians. The women ran after the police… One woman went to the garden in the evening, suddenly someone’s hand stuck out and grabbed her leg. The woman went mad with fear, abandoned everything and ran away…”Aren’t there ghosts chasing German women at night, aren’t they the shadows of the tortured ones in whose Gretchen rags they dressed up?
It’s easy to imagine how German women behave during aerial bombardments. Here is a letter to Sergeant Hans Lingling from his wife in Cologne: “My only, beloved, good and faithful treasure! I beg you, my love, don’t be afraid! It’s really more than terrible! Treasure, this is just a nightmare. This is the last reckoning! I can’t believe I even exist. You won’t believe it, but when I think, I can cry and cry and cry again. My dear husband, it is impossible to understand how your wife is still alive!.. Just imagine, Ganzi, my Silver Fox has become a victim of the war! Also, the new piece, which was at the dressmaker’s, burned down… Yes, my dear husband, that’s the way things are with us! If you come now, I won’t even be able to meet you at the train station, because the train station is gone… Oh, treasure, if only you could be here! After all, I have to go through such horror alone… Who knows, maybe you’ll get a telegram from me soon that I’m homeless! Then you should definitely come. Yes, my dear, such things must be reckoned with! Now I’m happy that I saved my life…” That’s how the cowardly and selfish bitch howls over the dead silver fox among the ruins.
We finally saw the German women crying. They’re not crying out of grief, they’re crying out of fear. German radio prays to Gretchen: “Women should be able to suppress tears when they appear for one reason or another. Evil tongues say that the less reason a woman cries, the more she cries. Major actresses are known to cry at any moment. It says that we can control our tears. German women shouldn’t cry.”
The bad comedian urges Gretchen not to make faces. But Gretchen doesn’t make a face. They are crying because no one will send lard with honey anymore. They are crying because the footsteps of an unknown slave were heard near the house. They whine over burnt dresses. They roar in terror when the siren roars: they cover the sirens with their roar. They’re losing their heads. These are not actresses, these are females who are screaming because the hour of reckoning is approaching.
They washed the blood off the children’s clothes. They did not wash the children’s blood off their hands — the masterminds of thieves, the assistants of executioners, the concubines of vile murderers.
A woman is a great word. It has tenderness and pride, it has the purity of a girl, it has the dedication of a friend, it has the feat of a mother. Can these vile females be called women? Is Frau Schmidt a woman with her hundred and sixty parcels? No, it’s a beast. This is the retribution of history: in Germany, who created an army of executioners, an army of robbers, there is no longer that exalted, noble woman who is waiting for a friend fighting for freedom.
The purity of the Russian woman is great. Her sacrifice, her spiritual strength are praised by our great writers. Tanya Larina, Turgenev’s heroines, Anna Karenina, Grunya — who hasn’t fallen in love with these sublime images? We know the courage of the Soviet woman, the heroism of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, the fighting deeds of our partisans, the selfless labors of the nurses and signalers. We are fighting for women’s honour against the vile Germans.
November 13, 1942