Befreier und Befreite Teil 1 und 2
Documentary /D 1991/92 / 35 mm / color and b/w
90min/102 min / 4:3 / stereo

Helke Sander’s film is the result of many years of scientific research into rape in Berlin and several other places in Germany in 1945. The film maker pursued her goal of taking the concept of „mass rape“ current at the time, and – even after so many years – attempting to quantify it into reliable figures whilst also addressing some of the many ensuing political, medical, psychological and family consequences of the phenomenon. Accompanied by historian Barbara Johr, Helke Sander spent years doing research in national and international archives, hospitals, municipal district offices, various medical institutions, and in pharmaceutical factories, as well as interviewing private individuals. She thereby gathered remnants of testimonies relating to those events and rendered them more accessible.

During the first part of the film the women speak – often for the first time in their lives – about their experiences of violence, and the reaction of their families. Former Red Army soldiers, male and female, relate what they know about these events, or what they think or have heard about them.

The second part features the children born of these events. There are reports relating to the behaviour of the German Wehrmacht, and official estimations of the number of children begotten by Germans in the occupied zone. The film reports on the medical consequences an how the institutions dealt with rape. Dr. Gerhard Reichling, a statistician and expert on flight and expulsion, draws conclusions from this collected data.