IMHO I wouldn't think that these are GI's but french. From what I remember reading it seems the US soldiers did not participate in this type of activity, especially in the formally occupied territories.
Paris was liberated by French troops equiped with US equipement. I highly doubt that those two soldiers are Americans.
This behaviour was indeed a real shame, and these days when I do interviews with old french civilians, most dont talk about it, as if it never happened. A few talk about it very energeticaly though, saying it was unfaire, and that some inocent girls were shaved, while other not so inocent ones were not shaved because they were from the right famillies.
I guess it just makes you to see the women going out with enemy troops responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of your country men.
I have a couple of photos found on the web, but not accessible at this moment. I will try to remember to post them later on.
Here are a couple (from a book) which I have always found quite sad, especially as it's not that long since something similar was happening here in Belfast.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
" You have to take also in count that many GI's were Prisoners who got sent into war to earn money and get a free ticket out.
Actually the most US Soldiers weren't volunteers like Germans, but people who needed money."
Very few GI's were prisonners, and very, very many Germans were conscripted.
"Veterans and people from my family told me stories of US-Soldiers also raping german women."
You will not Michael specificaly wrote the words "in the occupied territories", thus not including Germany.
The picture I know for sure was taken by a American soldier, I seen other pics
in the album with American soldiers also. Very interesting photos though. I could only acquire this photo and it ran me 55 usd. Little spendy, but, it an original.
Any kind of power over others, anger, revenge or other strong emotions tends to make individuals do things they may not consider proper or doing in different circumstances. That is human nature. Many studies have shown that people that would normally not be considered sadistic or evil, can easily become so under the right circumstances. The classic example of this was the Stanford prison experiment. This makes an interesting read.
Richard V
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