Leave without authorization or escape was punished by death.[1] The Nazis issued a ban on sexual relations between Germans and the Easterners.[18] On 7 December 1942 Himmler called for any "unauthorized sexual intercourse" to be punishable by death.[19] In accordance with these new racial laws; all sexual relations, even those that did not result in pregnancy, were severely punished as Rassenschande (racial pollution).[20] During the war, hundreds of Polish and Russian men were executed for their sexual relations with German women,[21][22] even though the main offenders by far – wrote Ulrich Herbert – were the French and Italian civilian workers who were not prohibited from social contacts with them.[17]