The Pittsburgh Press (April 4, 1946)
Yank says ‘wolves’ keeping GIs’ wives out of Germany
NUERNBERG, Germany – In an indignant letter to the U.S. Army newspaper Stars and Stripes, an anonymous staff sergeant said today that married men in the Army were afraid to bring their wives to Germany because many American soldiers behaved like “supercharged wolves” toward women in public.
“Personally, I want my wife over here as badly as anyone,” the sergeant wrote. “But if the higher-ups wonders why more officers and enlisted men have not requested travel and quarters for dependents, then headquarters should just watch the average GI on the street.
Ashamed of ‘wolves’
“I’m damn proud of the uniform I wear or I wouldn’t be in the Regular Army. However, I’m certainly ashamed of supercharged wolves in OD who consider that the way to prove to the Germans that our way of life is superior to theirs is to insult their women.
“Wise up, men. The hardest part of the war is now being fought, not with guns, but with personalities. Let’s show the Germans we are men, not pigs.”
Whether he knew it or not, the sergeant aired a subject which long has been a sore point with American – and other – women in the European theater. There was a time in Paris when many American girls refused to go out on the streets alone at night for fear of having to do some adroit wrestling to avoid “propositions” from insistent GIs.
Girl writer raps Yanks
Ask almost any woman correspondent who has been around Europe at all and she will tell you reluctantly that the conduct of the average American soldier in public toward women is “disgraceful” compared to the reserve and discipline of his British, Russian and French allies.
“GIs seem to think that the standard approach to a girl, any girl, is to insult her and use foul language,” one of these correspondents said. “During combat a soldier would do almost anything for you and even if he was a little aggressive, you could forgive it. But now that the war is over, his rudeness, is unspeakable and I don’t see any excuse for it.”
Now that spring has come to Bavaria, one of the favorite pastimes of GIs in Nuernberg seems to be to drive slowly along the curb in jeeps and reach out and pat the posteriors of startled frauleins.