Infantry in drag

While the Second World War was one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century, we would nevertheless celebrate the end of the year by writing about a relatively light-hearted element of the period: German soldiers in drag. Soldiers donning women’s clothes on occasion is nothing new. Frontline units or POWs putting on a stage show for some holiday had to make do without actual actresses. A little bit of gender-bending fun was bound to elicit hoots and cheers from the audience, becoming a way to blow off a bit of steam in the middle of the war. We will look at some old amateur photos that show a German soldier differing very much from that of depicted on propaganda posters.

What may be surprising is the frequency with which old German private photos show men in drag, suggesting the practice was much more widespread than in other armies.

It’s been suggested that the German soldier’s propensity for cross-dressing stemmed from his cultural background. In Germany, the carnival season before Lent had featured a gender-bending element for centuries. In the city of Cologne, a stock carnival mascot is “the virgin:” a pig-tailed maiden traditionally played by a man since the 1820s. In the Rhineland, the Weiberfastnacht (Women’s Carnival), a night when women take charge and can cut off men’s neckties on the street, goes back to the Middle Ages. It’s quite possible that soldiers far away from home would reach back to such folklore elements for comfort.

Not all cross-dressing photos were taken at specific events. Some suggest that soldiers in freshly occupied towns would sometimes just go through abandoned houses and put on whatever women’s clothing they found for a bit of ad-hoc fun.

It wasn’t just the men, either. There are also photographs of soldiers swapping clothes with young ladies, presumably romantic interests, to pose for photos.

Though many soldiers in drag probably weren’t gay, it should be added that the Berlin of the Weimar Republic in the interwar period was one of the most sexually liberal cities in the world before the Nazi rise to power. The collective memory of such times probably also made the soldiers more comfortable with their tomfoolery.

The apparent tolerance for cross-dressing soldiers contrasts sharply with the Third Reich’s official stance on such frivolities. The Nazi Party did have quite a few homosexuals among its founders, most notably the openly gay Ernst Röhm, co-founder of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the brownshirt Nazi paramilitary detachment, which itself counted many homosexuals among its leadership. The tolerance for homosexuality, however, came to an end on the Night of Long Knives in 1934, when Hitler eliminated his internal opposition in the Nazi Party through a series of extrajudicial executions and homosexuality became harshly persecuted in Nazi Germany at large, too. Some 50,000 men were officially sentenced for homosexuality; somewhere between 5,000 to 15,000 of them were sent to concentration camps, while others served time in prison.

In conclusion, let us wish you a Happy New Year again! You can learn more about the lesser-known aspects of soldiers’ lives during the war on our tours. We hope to take you on a memorable trip on the former battlefields of World War II in 2022. Please click on the banner below to browse our website and to choose your preferred tour.