Fraternization --- 11/15/09

The initial policies governing fraternization in the US occupied zone in Germany were ridiculous. At least, this was my first impression. I thought, why shouldn't soldiers be allowed to "fraternize" with native women within the zone? They are certainly going to be doing it anyway so why are you going to establish laws that are probably going to be ignored anyhow? Wouldn't this undermine your position as a governing, occupying body within Germany? One would think so, but apparently it would not underine their ability to govern effectively inasmuch as antifraternization movements by native German and Austrian men would have. The attacks that began to occur against native women for fraternizing with US soldiers was initially a moot point for me. These attacks that included cutting womens hair in public, marking their houses, and dumping trash on their porches, etc., seemed unimportant. I thought that these men, mostly returning soldiers, were upset by what they had come back to. The world in which they were now living was one in which they could no longer control; a world that is a far cry from the paternalistic days under the rising Nazi regime. They came to back to their women having relations, whatever the reason (chocolate, cigarettes, emotional), with their enemies. The same men to whom they had just lost the war. Of course, they would be upset, and damned justified in having these feelings. Yes, their actions were certainly extreme, but they were looking for some way to gain control in a Germany in which they had lost so much, and their women had changed so much. If I could not understand their feelings exactly, I could certainly empathize. So why are these actions so important? They directly undermine the US ability of control in their occupied territory. The number of attacks, at least reported, while small are significant because they could have turned in to larger opposition against US occupation in general. It could have turned into more than just an antifraternization movement, it could have become a larger outright antioccupation resistance. While perhaps these actions were being done on the fringes, all of these theoretical problems I have mentioned become especially amplified once the US starts returning weapons to the local police. What if these police, now armed, began to see a rise in antioccupation, no longer just antifraternization, and agreed with their fellow countrymen were doing? The issue could have gotten way out of hand. The US could have been completely undermined in what they were really doing there. Thus, it is important to understand why fraternization was such a big deal, especially in US occupied Germany.