Allowing military families overseas aimed to solve fraternization and home-front anger

Evidence

Beyond improving relations with the occupied Germans, the 1945 decision to allow families to rejoin soldiers overseas was a response to growing demands in the United States to reunite families by bringing troops home. It was also a way to deal with the multiple problems associated with “fraternization.” GIs’ sexual relationships with locals not only created tension with German men, who were intent on maintaining patriarchal control over “their” women, but also left many women in the United States angry about continued deployments. “Thank you for telling us what fun it is to ‘fraternize,’” one woman wrote to Life magazine in August 1945. “Too bad there aren’t enough Nazi prisoners of war here in America for all of us wives with husbands in Germany to try it.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 121

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 121