Horizontal collaboration

Finally, the relationships between local women and German soldiers must also be given some attention. Prostitution increased to a hitherto unknown level. It was often a means of survival for women without work. Punishment was relatively mild; the military police were responsible for classifying cases and were generally content with issuing a warning and an obligation to undergo health monitoring. In Belgium, incidents of shaving women’s heads were much more common than in France, although Maxence Van Der Meersch describes one such event in Roubaix, and a few lynchings did take place. (See the file on women in 1916).