Until , there were around military brothels of this kind in German-occupied Europe. The Foreign Ministry of the Polish Government in Exile issued a document on May 3, , describing the mass kidnapping raids conducted in Polish cities with the aim of capturing young women for sexual slavery at brothels run by the German military.
One of the soldiers pulls out a pocket flashlight and shines it on one of the women, straight into her eyes. The two women turn their pale faces to us, expressing weariness and resignation. The first one is about 30 years old. Owner of the flashlight directs the light again on the faces and bodies of girls. The youngest is maybe 15 years old They open her coat and start groping her with their lustfull paws. In the Soviet Union , women were kidnapped by German forces for prostitution as well; one report by International Military Tribunal writes: "in the city of Smolensk the German Command opened a brothel for officers in one of the hotels into which hundreds of women and girls were driven; they were mercilessly dragged down the street by their arms and hair.
In one such instance, a group of Polish and Soviet women imprisoned at a German military brothel located in Norway escaped in They found refuge in the local Lutheran Church which offered them asylum.
The Wehrmacht was able to establish a thoroughly bureaucratic system of around new brothels already before , based on an existing system of government-controlled ones β wrote Inse Meinen.
In September , Field Marshal von Brauchitsch suggested that weekly visits for all younger soldiers be considered mandatory to prevent "sexual excesses" among them. The prostitutes had a scheduled medical check-up to slow the spread of venereal diseases.
