Inside the mystery of the ‘lost German girl’ and what REALLY happened: Haunting footage of a bloodied and bruised woman captured after the Nazi surrender 80 years ago today has sparked a myriad of theories
For years, ever since the footage appeared in TV documentaries and online, the identity and fate of the so-called ‘Lost German Girl’ has proved captivating.
Dressed in a nondescript uniform and with a swollen face betraying that she had been savagely beaten, she was seen walking down a road in liberated Czechoslovakia.
The date was May 7, 1945, the very day that Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies after the suicide of Adolf Hitler in his Berlin Bunker.
As captured German troops fled in the opposite direction of Russian soldiers, the US Army were on hand to witness the chaos.
The footage featuring the woman was shot by US Army captain Oren W. Haglund on a road towards Pilsen, around 50 miles from Prague.
‘Lost German Girl’ – or LGG has she has become known – has inspired works of art, poems, guitar compositions and an entire blog dedicated to tracking her down.
But even now, nearly 20 years on from the first attempt by internet sleuths to find her, the identity and fate of this woman remains a mystery.
Some claim she was as described by Captain Haglund in the footage’s original short cards – an ‘SS girl’.
For years, ever since the footage appeared in TV documentaries and online, the identity and fate of the so-called ‘Lost German Girl’ has proved captivating. Above: The woman was filmed by US Army captain Oren W. Haglund on a road towards Pilsen on May 7, 1945
Others say she was an innocent victim of the wave of mass rape that advancing Russian troops inflicted on hundreds of thousands of women.
But no definitive proof of what happened to ‘Lost German Girl’, or who she was, has ever emerged.
Captain Haglund’s clip – 25 minutes of which can be found on the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum – starts by showing captured Germans, including fresh-faced teenagers, milling around while being guarded by American troops.
Some are eating, others are sitting on grass in the rural area.
Later, the clip shows locals cheering and waving white handkerchiefs. More German troops are then seen, marching under guard.
But the clip then takes a dark turn, with scenes of dead and gravely wounded Germans strewn around.
What exactly happened to them remains unclear, but the scenes of death and grave injury are not the reason Captain Haglund’s clip took the internet by storm.
Just over 17 minutes into the clip, Hoglund’s camera settles on the woman who the world now knows only as ‘Lost German Girl’.
She sweeps her matted hair to the side, revealing more of her swollen black eye.
Just over 17 minutes into the clip, Hoglund’s camera settles on the woman who the world now knows only as ‘Lost German Girl’
The camera pans down to the woman’s trousers, with suspenders hanging down to her feet
Around 40 seconds later, after the footage has cut to show a bloodied, naked man in a blanket lying on the ground, the woman appears again
She is seen sitting with a group of male captives, holding what appears to be a cloth in her hands. Despite her battered appearance, she gives a half smile as she talks to one of the men
Photos purporting to show a woman called Lore / Lara Bauer, who some have claimed was the woman in the footage
It is known that she had been with the fleeing German troops. But her nondescript uniform does not give any hint of what role, if any, she had in the military.
There is no evidence to back up Captain Haglund’s description of her as an ‘SS girl’.
She could have once been a medic, or an aide, or something else entirely.
A few more seconds into the sequence, the mystery woman stares at the camera, with one hand in her pocket and the other resting around her chest area.
In almost drunken fashion, she steps forward, still staring intently. She then clasps her hand to her swollen eye and tilts her head down.
As a consequence, her hair flops over her face. The footage then cuts again to focus just on her face.
The woman, who is holding what appears to be a pack of cards, looks as though she is going to cry as the camera continues focusing on her.
As if embarrassed, she brings her head down towards her clasped hands.
Members of what appear to be the Hitler Youth are seen in the American video
Bodies of soldiers and others are also seen strewn around
The camera then pans down to show her trousers and suspenders, which are hanging around her waist.
Around 40 seconds later, after the footage has cut to show a bloodied, naked man in a blanket lying on the ground, the woman appears again.
She is seen sitting with a group of male captives, holding what appears to be a cloth in her hands.
Despite her battered appearance, she gives a half smile as she talks to one of the men.
That is the last we see of the woman who has captivated online sleuths for years.
Captain Haglund, who was born in 1905 and had been a filmmaker before joining the army, stayed in Germany until the end of the war in Europe.
He was discharged in December 1945 and became a production manager of TV shows.
He died in 1972 aged 66 and is not known to have commented on or discussed the ‘Lost German Girl’.
Oren W. Haglund was discharged in December 1945 and became a production manager of TV shows. He died in 1972 aged 66. Above: With his fiancee, the actress, Priscilla Lane in 1939. The couple divorced in 1941
Some have claimed that the woman was called Lara or Lore Bauer. Born in 1921, she was said to have been a helper for the German air force, the Luftwaffe.
Photos of a woman who is said to be Bauer do bear similarities to the woman in Captain Haglund’s video, but there are no known documents to back up the theory that they were the same person.
German man Carlos Xander spent nearly two years documenting his attempts to find the identity of ‘Lost German Girl’ on his blog of the same name.
He recounts how the first attempt to trace her in the internet era was in 2006.
Mr Xander then expands on the theory that Bauer was the Lost German Girl.
Bauer was allegedly born in Austria in 1921. She was said to have survived the war and gone on to work for American airline Pan Am, retiring in 1985 and passing away in 1994.
Mr Xander pointed out that there were no records of the described Lore or Lara Bauer in German or Austrian archives.
The blogger also recounted a 2013 post from a man claiming that the Lost German Girl was his grandmother and that she was called Mathilde.
Berlin fell to Russian troops on May 2, 1945. Pictured: Soldiers planting the Soviet flag on the roof of the Reichstag
He promised to send photos and documents but the vow allegedly did not amount to anything.
Sleuths have also traced the road that the woman was walking down – between Pilsen and Rokycany – and have returned to the site to take their own photos and videos.
A horrifying hint at what may have happened to the mystery woman is laid out in historian Philip Kaplan’s book Fighter Pilots of the Lufwaffe in World War II.
Having described how American troops felt forced to hand over captives in the area to Soviet soldiers, he writes: ‘The first thing the Russian troops did was to separate the German women and girls from the men.
‘What followed was a brutal and savage orgy of rape and debauchery by Red Army soldiers.
‘When the greatly out-numbered American guards still present tried to intervene, the Russians charged towards them, firing into the air and threatening to kill them all if they intervened.’
The brutality of the advancing Russian military at the end of the war has been well documented.
In Berlin alone, as many as half a million women – out of a female population of 1.4million – could have been raped, according to some estimates.
Wreckage and debris fill Frankfurter Allee near Lasdehner Strasse in a working district in the eastern section of Berlin
And there were between 70,000 and 100,000 more rapes in Vienna; up to 200,000 in Hungary and thousands more in Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.
One invader noted in a letter home: ‘They do not speak a word of Russian, but that makes it easier.
‘You don’t have to persuade them. You just point a revolver and tell them to lie down. Then you do your stuff and go away.’
German journalist Marta Hillers, who was among those who were raped, described her ordeal in her diary.
She said: ‘I need a wolf who will keep the wolves away from me.
.An officer, as high as possible, Kommandant, General, whatever I can get.’
Hillers was fortunate to find such a man. Hillers’ story was turned into 2008 film A Woman in Berlin.
Stalin dismissed the sexual crimes of his troops, saying that people should ‘understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometres through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle’.
When told that Red Army soldiers had sexually abused German refugees, he said: ‘We lecture our soldiers too much; let them have their initiative.’
Soviet police chief Lavrenti Beria was a known serial rapist. He defiled more 100 girls and young women after drugging them.
In his 2008 book World War Two: Behind Closed Doors, historian Laurence Rees noted that this horrifying fact meant that, ‘if reports of Red Army soldiers raping women in eastern Europe were sent to the NKVD in Moscow, they finally reached the desk of a rapist himself.’
Russian troops justified their crimes in strange ways. One wrote: ‘It’s absolutely clear that if we don’t really scare them now, there will be no way of avoiding another war in future.’
Artist Leonid Rabichev recounted the sexual abuse of fleeing German refugees in Eastern Europe, writing: Women, mothers and their children, lie to the right and left along the route, and in front of each of them stands a raucous armada of men with their trousers down.
‘The women who are bleeding or losing consciousness get shoved to one side, and our men shoot the ones who try to save their children. Cackling, snarling, laughing, screaming and moaning.
‘And their commanders, their majors and colonels stood nearby, one of whom was directing— no, he was regulating it This was to make sure that every soldier without exception took part.’
