{{Short description|Collaboration and intimate relationships between French women and Nazi occupiers}} [[Image:This girl pays the penalty for having had personal relations with the Germans. Here, in the Montelimar area, France... - NARA - 531211.jpg|thumb|A woman's head is shaved as punishment for ''collaboration horizontale''. Montélimar area, August 1944.]] '''Horizontal collaboration''' (French: '''''Collaboration horizontale''''', '''''collaboration féminine''''' or '''''collaboration sentimentale''''') referred to the romantic or sexual relationship that many women in France actually or allegedly had with members of the German occupation forces after the Fall of France in 1940. The existence of those liaisons had been a major reason for young men to join the French Resistance.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Crowdy |first=Terry |title=French Resistance Fighter: France's Secret Army |year=2007 |page=8 |publisher=Osprey Publishing |location=Oxford |isbn=978-1-84603-076-5 |url=https://the-eye.eu/public/WorldTracker.org/World%20History/World%20War%20II/Osprey%20-%20Warrior%20117%20-%20French%20Resistance%20Fighter%20France%27s%20Secret%20Army.pdf |access-date=2020-09-14 |archive-date=2018-07-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180719024641/https://the-eye.eu/public/WorldTracker.org/World%20History/World%20War%20II/Osprey%20-%20Warrior%20117%20-%20French%20Resistance%20Fighter%20France%27s%20Secret%20Army.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> After the Liberation of France from German occupation, such women were often punished for collaboration with the German occupiers.

After the war, throughout France, women accused of collaboration had their heads shaved.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Les "tondues" à la Libération :le corps des femmes, enjeu d'une réaproppriation |author=Fabrice Virgili |journal=Clio. Femmes, genre, histoire |year=1995 |issue=1 |doi=10.4000/clio.518 |url=https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00687374/file/clio-518-1-les-tondues-a-la-liberation-le-corps-des-femmes-enjeu-d-une-reaproppriation.pdf|doi-access=free }}</ref> These women were referred to as "femmes tondues" (shaven women) and were easily identifiable.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Virgili|first=Fabrice|date=1995-04-01|title=Les « tondues » à la Libération :le corps des femmes, enjeu d'une réaproppriation|url=https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00687374/file/clio-518-1-les-tondues-a-la-liberation-le-corps-des-femmes-enjeu-d-une-reaproppriation.pdf|journal=Clio. Femmes, Genre, Histoire|language=fr|issue=1|doi=10.4000/clio.518|issn=1252-7017|doi-access=free}}</ref> In many of the 20,000 cases, the women in question had performed only professional services for the occupying Germans, rather than being engaged in sexual relationships with them.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Marc Bergère |title=Tous les milieux sociaux ont été visés |pages=56–60 |journal=Historia |issue=693 |location=Paris |date=September 2004}}</ref> The head-shaving in public spaces being used to punish women thought to be collaborators and the presence of many foreign photographers in post-war France have caused thousands of photos to exist of women being subjected to that punishment.<ref>Alison Moore, History, Memory and Trauma in Photography of the Tondues: visuality of the Vichy past through the silent image of women. Gender and History 17 (3), November 2005, 657-681.</ref>

"''Collaboration horizontale''" is believed to have produced 200,000 French babies with German fathers.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324577304579056743505809208 |title=Book Review: 'Brave Genius' by Sean B. Carroll|author=Shapin, Stephen|date=20 September 2013|newspaper=Wall Street Journal}}</ref> Since 2009 Germany has offered these children of "the other bank of the Rhine" citizenship, after French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner lobbied for their recognition.<ref>{{cite news |title=Les "enfants de la guerre" reconnus par Berlin |newspaper=Libération |date=20 February 2009 |url=http://www.liberation.fr/monde/2009/02/20/les-enfants-de-la-guerre-reconnus-par-berlin_311336}}</ref> The same phenomenon and later punishments occurred in other parts of Europe that were occupied by Germany during the war.

== Outside France == Horizontal collaboration was also seen and condemned in other countries occupied by Germany during World War II, such as in Serbia,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Škodrić|first=Ljubinka|date=2015-12-31|title=Intimate Relations between Women and the German Occupiers in Serbia 1941-1944|journal=Cahiers balkaniques|language=fr|volume=43|doi=10.4000/ceb.8589|issn=0290-7402|doi-access=free}}</ref> the Netherlands<ref>{{Cite web|title=Wat gebeurt er met 'moffenmeiden' na de oorlog?|url=https://npokennis.nl/longread/7784/wat-gebeurt-er-met-moffenmeiden-na-de-oorlog|website=NPO Kennis|access-date=2025-11-28|language=nl}}</ref> and in Norway, where the so-called Norwegian ''tyskertøser'' (German sluts) included thousands who actively participated in the ''Lebensborn'' program and others, such as the mother of ABBA member Anni-Frid Lyngstad, who independently had children with a German soldier.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ericsson |first=Kjersti |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dnG1CwAAQBAJ&dq=norwegian+%22german+girls%22&pg=PA187 |title=Women in War: Examples from Norway and Beyond |date=2016-03-09 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-77632-0 |language=en}}</ref> Rather than shaving their heads, women accused of horizontal collaboration in Norway were subjected to public exile and even arrest or internment. Any child that came from relationships between the local women and German soldiers was also considered part of the betrayal and so was equally exiled and considered illegitimate or bastards; Lyngstad's mother sent her to Sweden to avoid that. In both Norway and Serbia, horizontal collaboration was seen as a betrayal of one's own country during the war and was often treated as an act of aggression.

In October 2018, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg publicly apologized to the ''tyskertøser'' and their children for the treatment that they received following the liberation.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Minister|first=The Office of the Prime|date=2018-10-23|title=Official apology to girls and women who had relationships with German soldiers during the Second World War|url=https://www.regjeringen.no/en/aktuelt/app/id2616005/|access-date=2021-04-26|website=Government.no|language=en-GB}}</ref>

== In popular media == In ''Hiroshima mon amour'' (1959), the female protagonist is revealed to have been shaven as punishment for ''collaboration horizontale'' as a result of her relationship with a German soldier.<ref name="Cusack2015">{{cite book|author=Carmen M. Cusack|title=HAIR AND JUSTICE: Sociolegal Significance of Hair in Criminal Justice, Constitutional Law, and Public Policy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9czbCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA64|date=3 November 2015|publisher=Charles C Thomas Publisher|isbn=978-0-398-09096-8|pages=64–}}</ref> The film visually linked the suffering of women forcibly shaved after D-Day with the loss of hair experienced by survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.<ref name="AmirehMajaj2014">{{cite book|author1=Amal Amireh|author2=Lisa Suhair Majaj|title=Going Global: The Transnational Reception of Third World Women Writers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZpN9AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA298|date=1 May 2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-95409-5|pages=298–}}</ref>

The phenomenon also inspired the 2010 film ''Collaboration horizontale'', a documentary exploring what happened to the baby shown in the photo of ''The Shaved Woman of Chartres''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1782412/|title=Collaboration horizontale|publisher=IMDB}}</ref>

In the 2000 film ''Malèna'', a woman in wartime Sicily is punished for her beauty and her liaisons with German soldiers by the local women ripping off her clothes, beating her and shaving her hair.<ref>{{Citation |title=Malena (2000) - IMDb |url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0213847/plotsummary |access-date=2022-11-12}}</ref>

In the fourth episode of the 2001 series ''Band of Brothers'', multiple Dutch women can be seen shaved with a black swastika on their forehead for collaborating with the Nazis.<ref>{{Cite web |title= In the show Band of Brothers we are shown numerous woman who had slept with German soldiers while their heads are being shaved after a Dutch town is liberated by American Soldiers. Similarly, we are shown women whose head was shaved with a baby. What happened to these women and their children?|date=3 February 2019 |url=https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/amrrl3/in_the_show_band_of_brothers_we_are_shown/ }}</ref>

The 2019 graphic novel ''Horizontal Collaboration'' tells the story of a liaison between a French woman and a German soldier in wartime France.<ref name="Navie2019">{{cite book|author=Navie|title=Horizontal Collaboration|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AaUctwEACAAJ|date=May 2019|publisher=Korero Press|isbn=978-1-912740-01-7}}</ref>

The 2023 film ''Lee'' includes a scene in which the titular character, during the Liberation of Paris, photographs women being publicly humiliated for working with the Germans. <ref>{{Citation |title=Lee (2023) - IMDb |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5112584/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_stry_pl#synopsis}}</ref>

==See also== * ''The Shaved Woman of Chartres'' (1944 photograph)

==References== {{reflist}}

Category:Aftermath of World War II in France Category:French collaboration during World War II Category:Women in World War II Category:History of human sexuality Category:Sexism in Europe