ABSTRACT
Over the course of several weeks in 1945 in Berlin, anywhere between a few hundred thousand and two million German women were raped. This took place even in urban spaces, where cameras were present as the destruction of buildings was carefully recorded in numerous trophy photographs. Many of the publications that mention the mass rape in Berlin include a small collection of photographs. But rape is always absent from these collections. When the Allies walked into Berlin after heavily bombing it, smoke was often still hanging in the air, while the streets were carpeted with rubble, dead bodies of people and animals, and a few refugees on the run, carrying small bundles. These elements gradually disappeared from the city, and the degree of their presence in photographs can be used as a timeline of the rape that took place in this decor.
