Sex and World War II

by MysticLights

Hello!

I'm writing writing a paper on the view of sex during World War II in Europe. I have plenty of secondary source articles discussing various primary sources, but I can't find any to a source myself. I'm looking for things like leaflets, or flyers, or newspaper advertisements that I can clearly source as being published during World War II. A way to search for such items would be very helpful as well.

Thank you in advance! :)

thebroadwayflyer

Try Signal magazine - published by the Germans during this time. IIRC you will find some ads advising soldiers to avoid fallen or racially impure women. It was distributed to troops throughout occupied Europe and often had pieces on 'local culture'.

bettinafairchild

do a search for venereal disease pamphlets and posters and shorts that the army produced. Also, there's a bit of a blurb in the book Hitlerland, about Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. It talks about how the Nazis had a very pro-sex view, and their rallies whipped people into a frenzy of lust, with lots of women waiting outside to meet men, and the Nazis trying to de-stigmatize birth outside of wedlock, in order to encourage more births.

Bacarruda

It's a rather broad topic. People have literally written doctoral dissertations on this subject.

What specific issues were you interested in? Fraternization between soldiers and local women? Venereal disease? Rape? Prostitution?

Here's an example of a training filmed to teach American soldiers about VD, made by none other than the great director John Ford: https://archive.org/details/SEX.HYGIENE