Content area
Full Text
The Sexual Behavior of American GIs During the Early Years of the Occupation of Germany*
IN a review essay about three books describing the American occupation of Austria, Germany, and Japan during the years which immediately followed the conclusion of World War II, Akira Iriye wrote:
If a theme unites the three books, it is the importance of the first years (1945-1947) of military occupation in establishing the basic orientation of postwar United States relations with these countries. Not simply in denazification, demilitarization, and democratization, but in many other areas such as food relief and cultural entertainment, Japanese, Germans, and Austrians felt the presence of American Occupiers and by and large developed favorable views of the latter. Memories of those formative years . . . survived the occupation and undoubtedly contributed to pro-American orientations of these countries.1
There is no doubt much truth to this argument. Anti-Americanism certainly is a feature of political life in most of Europe and Asia, but, by and large, the occasional expression of pejorative opinions about the United States people or its government has not affected the pro-American foreign policy of countries which experienced American occupation after World War II. Nor is there much compelling evidence that the majority of citizens of Germany or Japan consider the continued American military presence in their countries as either unwelcome or a serious violation of national sovereignty.
The one latter-day exception to this claim might be the recent upsurge of hostile opinion in Okinawa in the wake of the rape of a young teenage girl by three American soldiers. This event is causing a difficult restructuring of U.S. armed forces in Japan in order to reduce the presence of military personnel in Okinawan society. Such events indicate that the continued ability of the American military to project its power abroad depends on more than geopolitical calculation. The establishment of a far-flung base system also relies on the acquiescence of non-- American populations to the existence of these facilities. For this reason, ensuring the appropriate behavior of the hundreds of thousands of young men in uniform has become one important prerequisite for the successful execution of American foreign policy in postwar Western Europe and Japan.
Conditions in Germany during the first two years...