The riddle of the Second World War: why did the Germans at the front change into women's clothes

It sounds strange, but the soldiers of the Third Reich, which was an openly homophobic state, often sinned at the front by dressing up in women's clothes. There are a lot of photos and memories of eyewitnesses about such "transgender shows", but nowhere is there a clear explanation for such behavior of German soldiers and officers. Let's try to understand this issue.

For the first time, the Germans themselves started talking about the passion of the Wehrmacht fighters for dressing up as women. The popular publication Der Spiegel conducted its own small investigation and told the world about its results. Journalists found hundreds of evidences of such strange behavior, especially on the Eastern Front, but could not name the official motivation.

A large number of photographic materials were provided to Spiegel by Berlin photographer and artist Martin Damman, known for his passion for collecting retro wartime photographs. It turns out that the Nazis, who mercilessly exterminated thousands of people of non-traditional orientation in Germany and in the occupied territories, saw nothing shameful in spending their leisure time in women's underwear and makeup in the conditions of the front.

Many believe that the journalists of "Spiegel" could not solve this riddle because it lies in the field of human psychology and it was necessary to involve psychologists and sexologists in the work. Martin Damman is not an expert in sexual matters, but he systematized and studied a lot of photos and film materials, which allowed him to draw certain conclusions.

Damman claims that in the war, dressing up in women's clothing was encountered in the armies of many participating countries, but the Germans succeeded in this most of all. It is worth mentioning separately that the Berlin artist and collector did not find a single photo fact that Red Army soldiers dressed up as women.

But the journalists of "Spiegel" and Damman himself are sure that there is nothing perverse, pathological in such extravagant behavior of military personnel.

Damman shared this assumption on the pages of the magazine, clarifying that this is only a hypothesis and he still does not have reliable information about the reasons for such behavior. But there is another thought on this topic, more difficult for readers inexperienced in psychology to understand.

The reason for the change in the gender image could be transvestism of a dual role. This is a psychological consequence of the eugenic policy of the Reich, which took away a man's status by forcibly defining options for sexual intimacy. Men, being fanatically devoted to their country, could not influence the future of these relationships, which led to a kind of psychological castration.

The special psychological attitude of the soldiers of the Reich took away from them the responsibility for their behavior and took it upon themselves. Stress caused by the constant fear of death and the effect of psychostimulants, with which the Reich generously regaled its soldiers, played a big role in such not quite adequate behavior.

It can be assumed that under the influence of all these factors, the German soldier psychologically turned into a "disliked embittered woman", seeking to compensate for her inferiority at any cost. Dressing up in women's clothes could be one of the forms of this negative energy coming out.

It is obvious that the Wehrmacht soldiers had other reasons to try on women's clothes, least of all related to complexes and psychological traumas. Often, the Nazis used dressing up in women's clothes as a way to get out of the encirclement and escape captivity. This is exactly the case described by Mikhail Zoshchenko in the story "The Teacher" from the cycle "Soldiers' stories".

Well, the last reason that explained the special interest of the Germans in women's clothing, especially warm, was on the Eastern Front. The harsh Russian winters proved to be a serious obstacle for the enemy and the Nazis froze and died by the thousands in the snow-covered fields and forests of Russia.

In order to survive and escape frostbite, all means were good and the occupiers shamelessly took away any warm clothes from the local population. Well, since almost all the men were at the front, the enemy's prey was mainly women's coats, sweatshirts, boots and sheepskin coats. Martin Damman has a lot of photos of Germans in shawls, shawls and other items of women's wardrobe.