ABSTRACT
Rape, sexual enslavement, forced sterilization and other forms of sexual violence were extremely widespread during the Second World War. In the late 1930s, the spree of violent rapes against the Chinese population of Nanking by the Imperial Japanese Army was later coined ‘the Rape of Nanking’ due to the horrific numbers of women raped during the six-week invasion. Susan Brownmiller argues that rape played a pivotal role in the Nazi quest to conquer, humiliate and destroy ‘inferior peoples’ in the overarching aim of creating a master, Aryan race. International humanitarian law regulates the rules of armed conflict and thereby purports to protect civilians and combatants against the scourge and savagery of warfare. There was potential scope for the prosecution of rape crimes under the categories of crimes against humanity and war crimes, but rape was not considered a characteristic Nazi crime since rape violated the Nuremberg racial laws that forbade sexual intercourse between Gentiles and Jews.
