War Child (Germany)

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School enrollment during the war (1940)

In Germany, a child of war is an adult whose childhood was directly or indirectly shaped by the Second World War and the experiences that went with it. The term has established itself in Germany through a large number of scientific and popular scientific publications that have appeared since the 1990s in particular. They describe the same phenomena from different perspectives, each using different methods and with different stylistic devices. So far, the literature on this topic has not been able to produce a generally applicable and binding definition. However, there is agreement in the belief that the consequences of the war childhood continue to be felt for many decades, increase partly with age again and often "silent" to succeeding generations passed are.

Term war child

“War doesn't stop when the guns are silent.” This is the simple formula that Sabine Bode used to sum up the consequences of war for people's health when she was invited to the Phoenix television station in 2015 on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the liberation , using the example of the war grandchildren To speak of the question "how we feel the war to this day". In this round of talks - along with Bode, Katrin Himmler , Randi Crott and Jens Orback took part - none of the participants gave a definition of the two main concepts of war children and grandchildren . However, Katrin Himmler named an important characteristic of the "vast majority" of war children in Germany when she mentioned that they were shaped "not only by the war", but "also by the National Socialist upbringing ". Matthias Lohre tried to find a definition back in 2014: “For those born between 1930 and 1945, the term 'war children' has become established: too young to be deployed directly at the front, but old enough to suffer hunger, displacement and bombing, the loss of relatives, separations and fear of death. "

Berlin Children Playing in Ruins (1948)

It is undisputed that the term is aimed at a generation who spent part of their childhood in Germany during the Second World War, "for whom - without being threatened by organized extermination - experiences of violence, separation and loss were in some cases life-long". The various authors do not agree on the birth cohorts affected. Some authors also want to include the children born shortly after the war, because as recently as 1950, writes the journalist Sabine Bode, “nine million children lived in West Germany 'inadequate, often inhumane'” and years later the war children and their younger siblings in many places War ruins played. But there is also no agreement at the other end of the scale of the birth cohorts to be considered. While Matthias Lohre and others include the children born in 1930, Michael Ermann defines the term more narrowly for his studies and relates it to the "fate of the generation of non-Jewish Germans [...] who were born in the Second World War." Those who were neither deported nor murdered are generally not included under this term - the term survivor is usually used for them - because they were exposed to further and very specific burdens due to the necessity of having to live hidden at additional risk. Anne Frank reported on this in her diary , which had been published in German translation in 1950.

"It is characteristic of the generation of the so-called 'war children of the Second World War' that until the beginning of the 1990s they received neither scientific research nor public awareness and not even from those affected themselves with regard to their specific development background."

- Christa Müller : Dissertation 2014

It cannot be assumed that the term is filled with comparable content in the national languages ​​of other European countries. For example, the English war children and the French enfant de la guerre grasp the term more narrowly and use it as a synonym for child of the occupation . The focus of the consideration is the fact of being the child of a native mother and an occupying soldier and the associated implications.

In Germany too, in addition to the occupation child, other terms for the war child generation have developed, each of which focuses on different aspects of experience. These include, for example, the children of Lebensborn , the children of the forced laborers or the so-called wolf children who, without parents, grew up in the Baltic States and had to hide their origins there. Other priorities are set when specifically looking at war orphans or children who were the result of war-related rape of their mothers. The war children of married parents, who often grew up fatherless and who lost their father in the war and some of whom had never met him, represent a further group with specific characteristics, as do those children whose fathers only had their fathers after the end of the war or after being released got to know from captivity .

A now extensive literature deals with the Holocaust successor generation , in particular with the Kindertransporte to Great Britain, the rescue of Jewish children by the child and youth alijah or their care by the Swiss relief organization for émigré children . In her book Everyone Has His Own Holocaust, the psychologist Sandra Konrad described the consequences of the traumatization of Jewish women especially for their daughters and granddaughters.

Finally, another group of war children should be mentioned, who are usually not referred to as war children because of their special affiliation with the displaced persons . In contrast to the war children in general, the displaced persons as a whole were “an unmistakable public topic in the west of the divided country” in the post-war period. In addition, the war children of the First World War are regularly not subsumed under this term in the relevant literature, although they too should be designated as such in the actual literal sense.

After years of efforts to collect common ground for the war children , the psychoanalyst Michael Ermann comes to the following conclusion in his farewell lecture on the occasion of his retirement in March 2009: “There are no 'the' German war children. The fates are far too different. […] All of this requires an individual approach and can hardly be generalized. ”But if there is something that“ connects the different fates with one another - those in the east and those in the west, those in the north and those in the south, the bomb night children and the refugee children ", then it would be a blatant" lack of horror and dismay about their own fate! "

history

Erman, who describes himself as a "typical war child", brought in 2003, almost 60 years after the war, at the Munich University which - accompanied by an international and star-studded Scientific Advisory Board - Project war childhood on the way in 2009 with a Series of scientific publications has been completed.

"In view of the overwhelming number of war children who have received psychotherapeutic treatment over the decades, there is hardly any noteworthy specialist literature that deals with the traumatizations and the identity problems of war children, and the existing one has hardly been received."

- Michael Ermann : Lecture on Südwestrundfunk, November 2003

The consequences of the war experience among Germans found widespread public attention in the book The Inability to Mourn , published by Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich in 1967 . Even if they primarily focused on adults, they were the impetus for later research on children of war, in whom the symptoms named by the Mitscherlichs were found again. The inability to mourn, they wrote, has produced behavior that has been "denial-driven", making "self-confidence more insecure than it could be."

Another 20 years passed before childhood during the war became a topic of public discourse in the late 1980s. The reasons why so much time had to go into the country are attributed to various factors. Ermann recalls "feelings of guilt [...] as a result of the Holocaust " and the "refusal to remember during the years of the economic miracle ". Finally, the “trauma-specific defense must be taken into account”. The journalist Hilke Lorenz spoke of the war children having "fallen into a gap in history". And the author Alexandra Senfft, granddaughter of the war criminal Hanns Ludin , recalled the taboos: “It hurts to deal with the crimes of your own relatives, it makes you afraid and sad.” “The worst thing to think was a taboo in my family. "

“Politically more explosive” is likely to have been the dreaded “accusation by Shoah survivors” that “looking at the war children” could lead to “relativizing the murder of the Jews”. The representative of the Jewish community “protested” against such a project in 2005 at the first interdisciplinary congress in Frankfurt, which was dedicated to the children of war. In the answer it was made clear that “it was not about opening up a 'victim competition', but on the contrary, classifying one's own experiences in a differentiated manner in the European memory and naming the suffering from the parents' generation not mentioning the 'deeds'” In her book about the war grandchildren, Sabine Bode later asked the question “How perpetrators became victims” in a separate section.

“It is a serious challenge, when exploring the German childhood at war, never to forget that the horror and chaos are based on decisions and developments that were brought about by the German people themselves. Enduring this tension, however, harbors the chance for inner growth. "

- Michael Ermann : Südwestrundfunk, 2003

With regard to abstinence from psychodiagnostics , it was pointed out that the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was not included in the diagnosis manual DSM III until 1980 . With a delay of almost another 10 years, publications on the psychological consequences of childhood at war began to increase. Since then, numerous authors have reported very personally about their own childhood during the war, taken up this topic more generally, or even started to publish scientific studies.

70 years after the end of the war, however, Bode found that an "academic reappraisal" had now taken place - by representatives of various scientific disciplines - but only now was an "emotional reappraisal" beginning. Katrin Himmler is also convinced that “we haven't come to terms with that in the families”. Those who make an effort will sooner or later be confronted with the question of their own identity. Christa Müller pointed out that the "path to a mature national and individual identity [...] presupposes a self-critical examination of the far-reaching influences of the events in National Socialist Germany, in World War II and in the post-war period". For Raed Saleh, the discussions about the term revolve around a question “that has remained unanswered”: “How does Germany define its national identity”? We have to "redefine" them, he suggested:

“We are the country that stands for diligence and hard work. For a social market economy and social balance. For Prussian tolerance and for diversity. We are the country that faces the abyss of its history. "

- Raed Saleh : FAZ , February 18, 2015

"AfD politicians are calling for the end of the culture of remembrance in Germany and they are not the only ones." Ulrich Gineiger talked about the question of pros and cons on Deutschlandfunk under the title "It must be over" - culture of remembrance in Germany on February 18 In 2017 published a report in which representatives of both positions had their say. The focus was on "old people [...] who reported about their traumatic experiences from the Nazi era" and their late memories. In addition, the heads of various cultural institutions and memorials spoke about their experiences with the audience. The project Stolpersteine ​​by the artist Gunter Demnig , which is attracting international attention, was also featured in the report.

National Socialist education

The education in National Socialism was the basis, not all, but most of the war children were confronted in Germany with the war and its impact on the. In 1934, Johanna Haarer's baby care guide was published in one of the most powerful publishers of the time , the tenth edition of which was published by the end of the war: The German Mother and Her First Child . With changes that obscure origin and ideology and do not reveal the year of its first publication, it reappeared later; in 1987 in the last edition. In her nuanced analysis of this and another educational book by Haarer, Sigrid Chamberlain comes to the conclusion that the upbringing in the time of National Socialism and in the early post-war years , which was marked by coldness, harshness and indifference, was simply a "seamless integration into ideology and the institutions of the Nazi state ”. It is “time” to grapple with the fact “that the majority of those born in the Third Reich and in the post-war years were released into life with early National Socialist influences, without ever being aware of this fact and its possible consequences. "

While Chamberlain had investigated the question of how it was possible to carry the ideology of this time into the nursery, Hans-Peter de Lorent had been researching school socialization since the 1980s. Already as a school pupil politically active - "In 1968, for example, as the head of the school, I called on people to take part in the star march against the emergency laws in Bonn" - as "Editor in Chief of the Hamburger Lehrerzeitung" in 1981 "he started a series with the title ' School under the swastika 'to publish ”. She preferred to deal with teachers "who offered resistance". In 1991, the educational scientist Reiner Lehberger noted in a review of Lutz van Dijk's book about the teacher opposition in the Nazi state that in 1936 97 percent of teachers were members of the Nazi teachers' association and 32 percent were members of the NSDAP.

“'It is the teachers paid by the German republic that are primarily responsible for the contamination of young people with the Nazi spirit of violence. History will judge them harshly ... '- it was said in May 1933 in a magazine in exile of social democratic teacher emigrants in Czechoslovakia. "

- Reiner Lehberger : Time Online

Van Dijk's differentiated view of the twelve years of the Nazi era makes it clear, according to Lehberger, that in the early years "expressions of displeasure [...] were mostly punished with reprimands [...]" while "in wartime they were considered to be ' undermining military strength '" and "not were rarely given the death penalty ”.

In 2016, after years of research using the example of the city of Hamburg, de Lorent published an 800-page book about the profiles of the teachers who taught war and post-war children in schools in Germany. As a former senior high school supervisor, he was able to fall back on previous contacts that were very helpful in the research. Using 42 teacher profiles, De Lorent not only described in general how “Nazi teachers made careers after the war”, but also using the example of a Hamburg gymnastics teacher how he set fire to synagogues during the Nazi era and beat his students after the war. The fact that pupils were beaten by their teachers for a long time in the post-war years was not the exception, but the rule. “In the school system too,” the so-called denazification “largely failed”, wrote the journalist Uwe Bahnsen in his review of de Lorent's book.

Further information on the socialization conditions of children during the Nazi era can be found in two online portals. In addition to the National Socialist Documentation Center, the city ​​of Cologne has put its youth project online and in this way is making the richly compiled contemporary historical material available to a wider audience, including on the Second World War. On the page Youth in Germany 1918–1945 , the various efforts to exert influence on children of war - such as in schools, camps or the deportation to Kinderland  - are compiled and each has its own chapter. The collaboratively operated portal Lebendiges Museum Online (LeMO) provides thousands of pages, images, audio and video files, not only, but also about the war and the post-war years of the Second World War. This includes, for example, the poster Youth Serves the Leader . For the post-war years, there is talk of a "collapse society", which is documented under the title Life in Ruins .

The term black pedagogy , which the sociologist Katharina Rutschky had established in 1977 with her book of the same name, was and continues to be incorrectly associated with the educational methods of the Nazi era, although Rutschky essentially related to the period between 1748 and 1908 and did not even mention Haarer's work, which was so influential in Nazi educational methods.

War experience

“What percentage of those who experienced bad experiences and those who were lucky?” Asked Bode in 2009, four years after the Frankfurt Congress. Since this congress, the experts have "largely come to the conclusion that half had a normal childhood and the other half did not." For the latter group, it is assumed that 25 percent " [experienced] a short-term or one-off trauma , others 25 percent were exposed to prolonged and multiple traumatic experiences. "

According to Bauer, "many war children themselves seem to strive to trivialize their wartime experiences and declare them normal." There is almost consensus on this, in the media as well as in science and research. “That's how it was back then” or “That's what everyone experienced” - are, according to Matthias Lohre, “typical sentences” with which one's own experience is regularly played down. Ermann calls it the “speechlessness” of the war children. You have found "a counterpart in the low interest" that the public showed towards this fate ".

“Many Germans counted their own suffering against that of Jews, prisoners of war and other victims of German barbarism. If at all, the older people reported on their experiences in formulaic terms: 'Others had it worse than us.' "

- Matthias Lohre : Zeit Online

In this context Ermann refers to a “myth of the inviolability of children”. It was linked to the “heroic ideology of National Socialism ”, which “was implicit in the processing of the Second World War and the Nazi era in post-war Germany. 'German' children are born to hardship, and these children are not vulnerable. But if they are damaged, then they are not seen in their pain and suffering, but in the bravery with which they survive the injuries. "

Reality was different, as the psychoanalyst Luise Reddemann reported in great detail in her lecture in Bad Krozingen in 2006. And it was different for each of the war children. They each brought with them individual requirements and lived in different places in Germany, which were not all affected by the war in the same way. While some cities were reduced to rubble, others were spared. If children were hungry in one place , there was enough to eat elsewhere. Have some survived firestorms , others did not know what it is. Not everyone knew the nights in the air raid shelter, not all of them were bombed, buried or lost their physical integrity. Those who experienced this had different conditions when they were surrounded by family than those who were left on their own after losing loved ones. Some children have witnessed their own mother or sister being raped. And those who retained their homeland could not imagine the needs of the displaced. Countless children who were not spared the fear of death. “That's just how it was back then.” Close your eyes and go through - was the motto.

Consequences of childhood at war

After the war, the war children were confronted with their growing insight into the culpable involvement of their parents' generation. Questions that arise met with denial or responses of guilt and shame. They learned about the Nuremberg trials through the media and at the same time witnessed social efforts to restore a kind of normalcy, which, however, turned out to be very different in both halves of the country after the division of Germany .

In addition to Bode, Ermann also considers the war children to be a “generation of inconspicuous people”; they “produced only a few significant personalities”. Beyond this and usual look at the individual consequences of childhood at war, some authors also focus on the question of what kind of consequences it could have for society. One of these authors is Lloyd deMause . As a pioneer and one of the most important representatives of the - albeit not undisputed - psychohistory , he spanned the arc from the individual experience of the war children to the collective consequences. In several publications he has analyzed the "acting out of childhood trauma in politics [...]" and dares to come to the following conclusion:

“The re-enactment as a defense against dissociated trauma is the crucial weak point in the development of the human spirit […] tragically in […] [its] impact on society, as it means that early traumas on the historical stage lead to war, domination and self-destructive social behavior. "

- Lloyd deMause : The Emotional Life of Nations, 2005

A blank space remains in the literature on the children of war. Because neither Ermann nor other authors make reference to the fact that the war children generation and the generation of the so-called 68 movement have a common intersection. Rudi Dutschke, as one of its most prominent representatives, was a child of the war.

Features of the war children

As much as there is a difference in what the war children brought with them when the war began and what they experienced under what conditions, they are just as different with all the similarities in those features that are characteristic of them. Age plays an important role in processing the experience. Andrea Bauer summarized the results of various studies and came to the conclusion "that children between 5 and 9 years of age have the greatest vulnerability because they are already very aware of the events but do not yet have sufficient coping mechanisms ". The children would also orient themselves “more to the direct reference person” “than to the event itself” - and to “how they explain the events to them and evaluate them for themselves”.

In addition to the phenomena already described, a distinction can be made between various characteristics or symptoms . However, there are subgroups of war children about whom “nothing” is still known, said the psychoanalyst Hartmut Radebold in an interview in 2010 and mentioned, for example, “the children who were sent across Europe to save them from war” or those "who were put in homes after the war". In 2014, the SWR also took on neglected facets of childhood during the war with the publication of two documentaries. On December 7th, a documentary was broadcast by Ina Held under the title Journey to the ideal world: German war children in Switzerland - for whom the term Swiss children was coined. Then the film Escape Routes - When Jewish Refugees Wanted to Switzerland was published by Gerd Böhmer, which he had made together with students from Lörrach in order to “deal with the topic and make it interesting for all generations”.

Quirks

Ermann sometimes speaks of "quirks" when he describes typical experiences or behaviors of war children that are not symptomatic and that for a long time were seen more as personal quirks than as a result of war experiences.

“If there is something conspicuous about us, it is most likely the little quirks: Hardly any of us can boldly throw away our clothes or food. For many, dealing with time reveals remarkable relics of flight and air raids: delaying goodbyes, making decisions, exploiting time until the very last second, indecision when traveling, the chaos before departure. Or strange, often unnoticed little phobias , for example when descending into the subway shaft. And the horror of the banal: the wincing at the howling of sirens, when the fire department drives past. Or the creeping discomfort when a lonely plane flies over the dark blue sky in September. Yes, moods in general, the sudden melancholy in a certain light, the touch in wide landscapes, the trepidation on some afternoons or on quiet evenings, with smells or sounds. "

- Michael Ermann : We war children

In addition, a number of “abnormalities” were found - also below the threshold that would allow people to see a doctor - such as “feelings of strangeness” or “relationship disorders” or a “feeling of great emptiness” and the “impression of not living their own life to somehow stand beside oneself. ”An“ early parentification ”is occasionally mentioned, as well as“ oppressive feelings of responsibility ”. Often the experiences of the war "buried themselves as gaps in the feeling of identity", as Sabine Bode noted. In this context she referred to protective factors : “Most of the war children succeeded, especially through tireless work, to keep their terrible memories at a distance.” In her lecture, Luise Reddemann also recalled factors that protect: “As true as it is, that trauma harms and leaves consequences, it is so true on the other hand that resilience can save people from suffering lifelong damage from trauma. ”These factors should no longer be ignored in the way“ as has long been the case . "

Radebold, who counts himself as one of the war children, recalled “the so-called I-syntonic behavior of the war children that we all know: be economical and hardworking, function, plan, organize, be altruistic, that is, take care of others and not around ". In addition, they "did not learn to be considerate of the body."

Symptoms and diseases

Some war children got sick. Some have been able to recover from this, others not, and still others only began to experience symptoms at an advanced age. According to Ermann, children of war are, “as adults, people who are generally more at risk of suffering from mental disorders than others.” Even if the conscious memory is lost, this does not guarantee protection against illness: “The body does not forget” - the headline Der Spiegel 2009 based on a remark by Ermann.

At the 2005 Frankfurt Congress, Leuzinger-Bohleber reported from a long-term study in which several scientists were involved that “unexpectedly often” patients were found “for whom the war had had consequences: long-term physical damage from malnutrition, problems with self-care, psychosomatic complaints , Loneliness, flight to performance, empathy disorders, identity and relationship disorders. "

“Ermann's study showed that children of war today suffer far more often from mental disorders such as anxiety, depression and psychosomatic complaints than the population average. Around a quarter of the war children surveyed by Ermann showed themselves to be severely restricted in their psychosocial quality of life, one in ten was traumatized or had significant traumatic complaints. 'These people suffer from recurring, intrusive war memories, from anxiety, depression and psychosomatic complaints,' says Ermann, with cramps, palpitations and chronic pain occurring particularly frequently. "

- Ulrike Demmer : Spiegel Online

In addition to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which many authors cite as a possible consequence of the war, Ermann added “secret symptoms” that he was able to collect in preparation for his research project: “Many still dream of attack, falling, violence, fighting , Escape. Others are roused from their sleep with an age-old feeling for which they have a very personal formula: 'The Russians are coming.' Others experience depression, low confidence, fears, somatization or conversion. Some of the symptoms are strange: feelings of coldness or recurring fever, excitement and restlessness or sudden panic, freezing or the feeling of being beside yourself. Today we recognize traces of flight and fight reactions in such symptoms, recurring memories that find their way through the body, memories of the incomprehensible. ”For decades, even before there was a“ trauma concept ”, all of these symptoms were traditionally called“ hysterical desire neurosis ”diagnosed or attributed to“ hereditary vulnerability ”.

A year after the Frankfurt Congress in 2005 , the psychoanalyst Luise Reddemann turned to the younger colleagues in her lecture about therapeutic consequences :

“Finally, I would like to ask the younger audience: Please remember when you work with people who were born between 1930–1945 that these people may have been traumatized as children. It could be that much of what these people are now bringing up to you as symptoms has its roots in the war. […] Consider that e.g. B. sleep disorders, memory disorders, somatization disorders can be consequences of war. Age-related helplessness, but also “retirement” and fewer opportunities to distract from work, can bring the unprocessed trauma closer to the surface of consciousness and lead to symptoms. In addition, many of the war children have suffered from these symptoms since time immemorial, they just did not take them seriously because of their internalized bravery. "

- Luise Reddemann : Bad Krozingen 2006

In 2015, her book on psychotherapy for war children and grandchildren was published, in which she dealt extensively and with case studies with the question of how the consequences of war childhood can be recognized and dealt with.

War children in old age

The fact that the topic will be “researched and discussed” 70 years later of all things, Ermann also attributed to the age of the war children. It comes to "neurophysiological processes" which, in old age, would ensure that memories "that had been buried for a long time" reappear. In addition, due to age, “the mental defenses collapse” and slowly everything “that has provided support for decades - the family, the job” is falling away.

Eight years after the first, the second interdisciplinary congress on the children of war took place in 2013, this time in Münster. Among the many topics discussed was the age of the war children. If "beyond all research, life experience" teaches that remembering characterizes old age, Insa Fooken confirmed this general knowledge once again from the perspective of developmental psychology. "The full extent of the consequences is often only visible in old age".

“In summary, it can be said that the late onset or worsening of existing post-traumatic symptoms in the mature age has been proven in various studies. However, there is a risk that the post-traumatic symptoms will not be recognized and misinterpreted as age depression or somatic symptoms. "

- Andrea Bauer : Dissertation 2009

Radebold, who, alongside Ermann, did research on war children and specialized in psychotherapy for the elderly, asked how the war children would fare "when they get older and then in need of care or help and thus have to give up their lifelong defended independence". He urged “professional groups who work in the psychosocial and elderly sectors” to “convey contemporary knowledge”.

"Take z. B. the retirement and nursing homes. There you experience the following situation again and again: An old woman is lying there in her room, being cared for by two young men at night - intimate hygiene, wet panties, etc. The woman bites and screams and kicks around and is rape again. "

- Hartmut Radebold : Interview 2010

In 2013, the ARD showed a documentary by Dorothe Dörholt about war children in old age. Thilo Wydra headlined in the Tagesspiegel on this occasion: "Unforgotten, unprocessed: The fear in the head". In 2015, Phönix did a repetition and centered on the return of traumatizing experiences in old age: “A third of German pensioners were severely traumatized during the war. Many of them are helplessly at the mercy of the images and war memories that reappear in old age. ”War trauma and frightening memories are now being discussed in old people's homes. “Historical knowledge” is necessary and “don't leave the elderly alone” - this is the creed of a geriatric nurse. An online platform that addresses "affected elderly people, their relatives and relatives, professionals and institutions" has developed under the name Age and Trauma - giving unheard of space for the trauma of old people in general and those who are now old War children who became war children of the Second World War are particularly accepted - in the knowledge that time does not heal all wounds after all. The offer is based on the project Old People and Trauma - Understanding, Testing and Multiplication of Intervention and Training Options , which was carried out between 2013 and 2016 , funded by the Ministry of Health, Emancipation, Care and Age of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia .

"The process of displacement, which worked for a lifetime, could no longer be sustained by dying people", it said in January 2016 on Deutschlandfunk on the occasion of a program on "Victims of political persecution in the Soviet occupation zone and in the GDR". Many old people do not come to rest in old people's homes, according to Anne Drescher , state commissioner for the records of the state security service of the former GDR in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Children of war children

Even in the generations that followed the war children, the shadows of the past can still be felt. Some of the descendants now call themselves war grandchildren , because they have long since noticed that something weighs on them, even though they were protected and grown up in prosperity. It is high time, according to Matthias Lohre, that the generations of war children and grandchildren “start talking about experiences of hardship, death and helplessness”, as the war children are gradually dying. "The Germans who survived World War II as children seemed almost indestructible."

In 2017, two war grandchildren spoke up who had sought a conversation with representatives of the previous generation. The Hatje Cantz published a bilingual book, with the portrait photographer Frederike Helwig and the journalist Anne Waak vorlegten the result of their joint project. It was prompted by the following questions: “What did my parents experience when they were as old as my son is today? What made them who they are today? ”In February 2018, an exhibition on the book and its genesis was opened in Berlin-Kreuzberg, providing the opportunity to talk to the authors and some of the contemporary witnesses they portrayed .

Clubs - groups - websites

The more the topic of war children became public, the more associations were founded in various parts of the Federal Republic to take up this topic. Some have since disbanded, others have been added. Everyone has an internet presence by now, but not every internet presence has an association. Some of the offers have the character of self-help groups , want to support, promote contacts or organize discussion groups. Some address only war children or war grandchildren , others direct their offer to both groups. However, the age groups from 1950 onwards are counted among the war grandchildren, although many of them are siblings of the war children and do not belong to the next generation. Other associations are primarily committed to supporting a scientific review.

Documentaries

  • 2006: Children of war remember . A film by Tina Soliman on behalf of the WDR
  • 2012: Children of War. Interviews with contemporary witnesses on YouTube . With Gisela May , Wolf Biermann , Peter Sodann , Hans Teuscher . On behalf of the Anne Frank Center
  • 2012: Father stayed in the war. Childhood without a father after World War II. Director: Gabriele Trost
  • 2013: We war children. How fear lives on in us. A film by Dorothe Dörholt
  • 2014: Journey to an ideal world: German war children in Switzerland. A film by Ina Held
  • 2014: Escape routes - when Jewish refugees wanted to go to Switzerland. A film by Gerd Böhmer
  • 2015: Hitler's generation betrayed. War children in Bavaria. Part 1. A film by Peter Prestel and Rudolf Sporrer
  • 2015: Hitler's generation betrayed. War children in Bavaria. Part 2. A film by Peter Prestel and Rudolf Sporrer
  • 2020: Children of War. Germany 1945. Shown in: Das Erste Programm des Fernssehen, May 4, 2020, 8:15 pm - 9:45 pm. Germany 2020.

Contemporary witnesses

As a prominent war child and contemporary witness in Germany, Wolf Biermann dedicated his autobiography, published in 2016, to -  Don't wait for better times!  - a separate chapter from his memories of the nights of bombing in Hamburg in 1943, which took place under the military code name Operation Gomorrah .

Ina Rommee, media artist and master student of Anna Anders , has been working with photographer Stefan Krauss since 2017 under the title War Children to document the memories of war children in the sense of oral history film recordings. They met with contemporary witnesses for three years and recorded the resulting interviews. Technically, the project was designed as a multi-channel video installation in HD . In addition to the documentation for research purposes, Ina Rommee uses the recordings to create video installations which, as part of exhibition projects, allow former Berlin war children to have their say about their experiences during World War II (2017 Volksbühne PLAY ! , 2018 Alte Feuerwache Friedrichshain , 2020 Museum Neukölln ).

literature

  • Ute Benz, Wolfgang Benz (ed.): Socialization and traumatization. Children in the time of National Socialism . Fischer-Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 978-3-596-11067-4 .
  • Peter Heinl: Cockchafer fly, your father is at war ... Mental wounds from childhood . Kösel, Munich 1994, ISBN 978-3-466-30359-5 .
  • Eva Jantzen, Merith Niehuss (ed.): The class register. Chronicle of a generation of women 1932-1976 . Böhlau, Weimar, Cologne, Vienna 1994, ISBN 978-3-412-12093-1 .
  • Roberts, Ulla: Strong mothers - distant fathers. Daughters reflect on their childhood under National Socialism and in the post-war period . Fischer-Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 978-3-596-11075-9 .
  • Sigrid Chamberlain: Adolf Hitler, the German mother and her first child. About two Nazi education books . Psychosocial, Giessen 1997, ISBN 978-3-930096-58-9 .
  • Wolfgang Schmidbauer: "I never knew what was wrong with father". The trauma of war . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1998, ISBN 978-3-498-06331-3 .
  • Michael Ermann : We war children . In: Forum of Psychoanalysis . No. 2 , 2004, p. 226-239 .
  • Sabine Bode: The forgotten generation - the war children break their silence . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-608-94800-7 .
  • Hartmut Radebold: The dark shadows of our past. Elderly people in counseling, psychotherapy, pastoral care and care . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 978-3-608-94162-3 .
  • Hartmut Radebold, Gereon Heuft, Insa Fooken (eds.): Childhoods in the Second World War. War experiences and their consequences from a psychohistorical perspective . Juventa, Weinheim, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-7799-1730-4 .
  • Götz Aly: Our fight in 1968 . S. Fischer, Frankfurt, M. 2008, ISBN 978-3-10-000421-5 .
  • Wibke Bruhns: My father's country. Story of a German family . List, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-548-60899-0 .
  • Lu Seegers, Jürgen Reulecke (Ed.): The "Generation of War Children". Historical backgrounds and interpretations . Psychosocial, Giessen 2009, ISBN 978-3-89806-855-0 .
  • Frederike Helwig, Anne Waak: Children of War . Hatje Cantz, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-7757-4393-8 (German, English).

Web links

Commons : Child soldiers in World War II  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Commons : Jungvolk  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Children as victims of the Holocaust  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

References and comments

  1. ↑ Although the children in the First World War were also children of war in the true sense of the word , the term is usually not applied to them because it was only established in connection with the children of the Second World War and focuses on them.
  2. ↑ Norbert Jachertz, Adelheid Jachertz: War Children: Only in old age does the extent of the traumatization often become visible . In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt . No. 14 , April 5, 2013, p. 110 ( aerzteblatt.de [accessed on January 2, 2017]): “But the countless wars in Vietnam, Ex-Yugoslavia, Rwanda, the Gulf region and Afghanistan, to name just a few, have their war children. There is little public talk about them [...] and their trauma. "
  3. ^ "War grandchildren - how we feel the war to this day" - phoenix round from May 7th, 2015 on YouTube . Visiting Alexander Kähler :
    • Sabine Bode (journalist and author of "Children of War. The Forgotten Generation")
    • Katrin Himmler (political scientist, great niece of Heinrich Himmler and author of "The Himmler Brothers")
    • Randi Crott (journalist and author of "Don't Tell Anyone! My Parents' Love Story")
    • Jens Orback (General Secretary of the Olof Palme Foundation in Stockholm and author of "Shadows on my soul. A war grandson discovers the story of his family")
  4. ↑ Hartmut Radebold, Werner Bohleber, Jürgen Zinnecker (eds.): Transgenerational transmission of war-torn childhoods. Interdisciplinary studies on the sustainability of historical experiences over four generations . Juventa, Weinheim, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-7799-1735-9 . Sabine Bode: grandson of war. The heirs of the forgotten generation . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-608-94550-8 .
  5. ↑ Angela Moré: The unconscious passing on of trauma and entanglements of guilt to subsequent generations . In: Journal for Psychology . tape 21 , no. 2 , 2013, ISSN  0942-2285 ( journal-fuer-psychologie.de [accessed on July 1, 2020]).
  6. ↑ Sabine Bode at "War grandsons - how we feel the war to this day" - phoenix round from May 7th, 2015 on YouTube (quoted at 12:30)
  7. ↑ Katrin Himmler on "War grandchildren - how we feel the war to this day" - phoenix round from May 7th, 2015 on YouTube (quote at 39:41)
  8. ↑ a b c d e f Matthias Lohre: The inability to trust. In: Zeit Online. October 2, 2014, accessed December 17, 2016 .
  9. ↑ a b c Lu Seegers: The generation of war children and their message for Europe sixty years after the end of the war. In: H-Soz-Kult. May 1, 2005, accessed January 6, 2017 .
  10. ↑ a b Michael Ermann: We war children. Summary. In: Forum of Psychoanalysis. 2004, accessed January 1, 2017 .
  11. ↑ Gabriele Rosenthal (ed.): The Holocaust in the life of three generations. Families of survivors of the Shoah and of Nazi perpetrators (=  psychosocial edition ). Psychosozial Verlag, Giessen 1999, ISBN 978-3-932133-08-4 (first edition: 1997). See also survival guilt syndrome
  12. ↑ Christa Müller: Shadow of Silence, Necessity of Remembering. Childhoods during National Socialism, World War II and in the post-war period (=  research psychosocial ). Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8379-2354-4 , p. 7 ( psychosozial-verlag.de [PDF; 2.7 MB ; accessed on January 1, 2017]).
  13. ^ Krzysztof Ruchniewicz, Jürgen Zinnecker (eds.): Between Forced Labor, Holocaust and Expulsion: Polish, Jewish and German Childhoods in Occupied Poland . Juventa, Weinheim, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-7799-1733-5 .
  14. ^ Ariane Thomalla: Jean-Paul Picaper / Ludwig Norz: The children of shame. The tragic fate of German occupation children in France. Deutschlandfunk, June 6, 2005, accessed on January 1, 2017 : “There are supposed to be 200,000 so-called 'German children' in France. Today they are 59 to 64 years old. At an age when people like to take stock of their lives, they look for the other half of their identity. [...] Nevertheless, there would still be consequential damage such as a lack of self-confidence and tendencies towards self-hatred and self-destruction [...] "
  15. ↑ Father stayed in the war. Childhood without a father after World War II. A film by Gabriele Trost
  16. ↑ Hartmut Radebold: Absent Fathers and War Childhood. Persistent consequences in psychoanalysis . Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 978-3-525-01472-1 . Matthias Franz, Jochen Hardt, Elmar Brähler: Fatherless: Long-term consequences of growing up without a father in World War II . In: Journal for Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy . tape
     53 , no. 3 , 2007, p. 216-227 .
  17. ↑ Ilany Kogan : The silent cry of the children: The second generation of Holocaust victims . Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89806-923-6 .
  18. ↑ Sandra Konrad: Everyone has their own Holocaust. The Impact of the Holocaust on Three Generations of Jewish Women. An international psychological study . Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89806-801-7 ( psychosozial-verlag.de [accessed on December 5, 2017] with table of contents and reviews).
  19. ↑ a b c Sabine Bode: grandson of war. The heirs of the forgotten generation . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-608-94550-8 , pp. 26 .
  20. ↑ Michael Ermann: Children of War in Psychoanalyses . Farewell lecture on the occasion of the dismissal as professor at the Ludwig Maximilians University. Munich March 20, 2009 ( m-ermann.de [DOC; 5.3 MB ]).
  21. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Michael Ermann: We war children. Lecture on Südwestrundfunk in November 2003 . ( online [PDF; 165 kB ; accessed on January 1, 2017]). We war children. Lecture in Südwestrundfunk in November 2003 ( Memento from June 15, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  22. ↑ childhood at war. Childhood in War. Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, accessed on December 18, 2016 .
    • The team. Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, accessed on January 1, 2017 .
    • Publications. Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, accessed on January 1, 2017 .
  23. ↑ Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich: The inability to mourn. Basics of collective behavior . R. Piper & Co., Munich 1967, p. 8 ( hu-berlin.de [PDF; 802 kB ]).
  24. ↑ Interview with Hilke Lorenz: Children of War - fallen into the historical loophole. Federal Agency for Civic Education, accessed on January 7, 2017 : “You don't leave the house without taking what you need with you; They cannot throw away food and they find it difficult to bear images of war on television: around 15 million people who grew up during World War II live in Germany. Fear, death and hunger are among her earliest childhood experiences. "
  25. ↑ Alexandra Senfft: Silence hurts. A German family story . List, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-548-60826-6 .
  26. ↑ Alexandra Senfft, Gottfried Gilbert: My grandfather, the criminal. In: Spiegel Online. December 17, 2007, accessed on January 9, 2017 : "He was a staunch Nazi, a war criminal - and a loving father: Hanns Elard Ludin"
  27. ↑ a b Norbert Jachertz, Adelheid Jachertz: Children of War: Only in old age does the extent of the trauma often become visible . In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt . No. 14 , April 5, 2013, p. 110 ( aerzteblatt.de [accessed on January 2, 2017]).
  28. ↑ Andrea Bauer: Childhood during the Second World War and today's psychosomatic stress due to post-traumatic and comorbid symptoms . Dissertation to obtain the doctoral degree in medicine. Munich 2009, p. 11 ( uni-muenchen.de [PDF; 1.3 MB ; accessed on December 31, 2016]): "Since the inclusion of post-traumatic stress disorder in the DSM III in 1980 and increasingly in the last twenty years, a number of studies have been carried out on the psychological consequences of war events in children."
  29. ↑ Sabine Bode in "War grandson - how we feel the war to this day" - phoenix round from May 7th, 2015 on YouTube (quote at 44:28)
  30. ↑ Katrin Himmler on "War grandchildren - how we feel the war to this day" - phoenix round from May 7th, 2015 on YouTube (quoted at 5:30)
  31. ↑ Christa Müller: Shadow of Silence, Necessity of Remembering. Childhoods during National Socialism, World War II and in the post-war period (=  research psychosocial ). Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2014, ISBN 978-3-8379-2354-4 , p. 11 ( psychosozial-verlag.de [PDF; 2.7 MB ; accessed on January 1, 2017]).
  32. ↑ Raed Saleh : Debate about national identity. When I hoisted the German flag. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine. February 18, 2015, accessed February 4, 2017 .
  33. ↑ Ulrich Gineiger: 'It has to be over' - culture of remembrance in Germany. Deutschlandfunk, February 18, 2017, accessed on February 19, 2017 .
  34. ↑ Haarer, Johanna: The mother and her first child . Gerber, Munich 1987, ISBN 978-3-87249-158-9 (original title: The German mother and her first child . First edition: JF Lehmanns ( http://d-nb.info/573960992 ), Munich 1934).
  35. ↑ Quotes from the booklet taken from the publisher. There are also detailed reviews there.
    Sigrid Chamberlain: Adolf Hitler, the German mother and her first child. About two Nazi education books (=  edition psychosocial ). 6th edition. Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2016, ISBN 978-3-930096-58-9 ( psychosozial-verlag.de [accessed on January 3, 2017] first edition: 1997).
  36. ^ Anne Kratzer: Pedagogy. Education for the leader . In order to raise a generation of fellow travelers and soldiers, the Nazi regime demanded that mothers deliberately ignore the needs of their young children. The consequences of this upbringing continue to have an impact today, say attachment researchers. In: Spectrum of Science . January 17, 2019, ISSN  0170-2971 ( Spektrum.de [accessed on March 24, 2019] (archive) ): “By the end of the war [Johanna Haarer's educational book], advertised by Nazi propaganda, had a circulation of 690,000 Piece. But even after the war - cleared of the crude Nazi jargon - it was bought again by almost as many Germans until 1987: in the end a total of 1.2 million times. These figures show how much popularity Haarer's worldview still found in the post-war period. "
  37. ↑ Kristina Festring-Hashem Zadeh: 'Thousands of teachers were entangled with the Nazis'. In: NDR.de. April 18, 2016. Retrieved January 15, 2017 .
  38. ↑ Lutz van Dijk (ed.): Teacher opposition in the Nazi state. Biographical reports on walking upright . Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt 1990, ISBN 978-3-596-24442-3 .
  39. ↑ a b c Reiner Lehberger: The troubles of the upright gait. In: Zeit Online. February 8, 1991. Retrieved January 15, 2017 .
  40. ↑ Hans-Peter de Lorent: perpetrator profiles. Those responsible in Hamburg's education system under the swastika . Ed .: State Center for Political Education Hamburg. Hamburg 2016, DNB  109557292X .
  41. ↑ Kristina Festring-Hashem Zadeh: How Nazi teachers made careers after the war. In: NDR.de. April 18, 2016. Retrieved January 15, 2017 .
  42. ↑ Uwe Bahnsen: When the denazification of teachers failed. In: World N24. April 13, 2016, accessed January 15, 2017 .
  43. ↑ Imprint. Promoter. Advancement. Project participants. In: Jugend in Deutschland 1918-1945. City of Cologne, accessed on January 15, 2017 .
  44. ^ History. Education during the Nazi era. In: Jugend in Deutschland 1918-1945. City of Cologne, accessed on January 15, 2017 .
  45. ↑ project. In: Living Museum Online. Retrieved January 15, 2017 .
  46. ↑ Youth serves the leader. Advertising poster for the Hitler Youth. In: Living Museum Online. Retrieved January 15, 2017 .
  47. ^ Post-war years. In: Living Museum Online. Retrieved January 15, 2017 .
  48. ↑ Life in ruins. In: Living Museum Online. Retrieved January 15, 2017 .
  49. ↑ Katharina Rutschky (ed.): Black pedagogy: Sources for the natural history of civil education . Ullstein, Berlin 1977, ISBN 978-3-548-35670-9 . Katharina Rutschky (ed.): Black pedagogy . Retrieved March 8, 2019 (Table of Contents).
  50. ↑ Florian Stark: Toilet without flushing for the bed-wetter from the home. In: The world. May 11, 2013, accessed March 8, 2019 . Structural degradation. Johanna Haarer's school. Black pedagogy. The Nazi education continues to this day. Retrieved March 8, 2019 .
  51. ↑ Sabine Bode: war grandson. The heirs of the forgotten generation . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-608-94550-8 , pp. 27 .
  52. ↑ Andrea Bauer: Childhood during the Second World War and today's psychosomatic stress due to post-traumatic and comorbid symptoms . Dissertation to obtain the doctoral degree in medicine. Munich 2009, p. 1 ( uni-muenchen.de [PDF; 1.3 MB ; accessed on December 31, 2016]).
  53. ↑ a b c Luise Reddemann: How do dissociating parents affect their children . Bad Krozingen 2006 ( luise-reddemann.de [PDF; 87 kB ; accessed on January 4, 2017]).
  54. ↑ Silke Wiegand-Grefe, Ulrich Lamparter, Dorothee Wierling (ed.): Contemporary witnesses of the Hamburg firestorm 1943 and their families. Research project to pass on experiences of war . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-647-45378-1 .
  55. ↑ Lloyd deMause: The Emotional Life of Nations . Drava, Klagenfurt 2005, ISBN 978-3-85435-454-3 , p. 72 (English: The emotional life of nations . Translated by Christian Lackner). Quoted from Heike Knoch, Winfried Kurth: War grandson - a late awakening? The children of the war children from the perspective of psychohistory . In: Heike Knoch, Winfried Kurth, Heinrich J. Reiss, Götz Egloff (eds.): The children of war children and the late consequences of the Nazi terror . Yearbook for psychohistorical research. tape 13 . Mattes, Heidelberg 2012, ISBN 978-3-86809-070-3 , pp. 4 ( gwdg.de [PDF; 126 kB ; accessed on January 5, 2017]).
  56. ↑ a b Andrea Bauer: Childhood during the Second World War and today's psychosomatic stress from post-traumatic and comorbid symptoms . Dissertation to obtain the doctoral degree in medicine. Munich 2009, p. 12 ( uni-muenchen.de [PDF; 1.3 MB ; accessed on December 31, 2016]).
  57. ↑ a b c d Jörg Matzen: It was not allowed to talk about that… Prof. Hartmut Radebold on childhood during the Second World War and the psychosocial consequences. In: The Interview. Ev. Bad Bederkesa Education Center, 2010, accessed on September 16, 2017 .
  58. ↑ Post-war era in the southwest - rescue in Switzerland. SWR, November 25, 2014, accessed on January 19, 2017 : "Two documentaries on SWR television on Sunday, December 7th, will be about how Switzerland became a place of refuge from persecution and hunger during and after the war."
  59. ^ Journey to the perfect world: German war children in Switzerland. A film by Ina Held
  60. ^ Escape routes - when Jewish refugees wanted to go to Switzerland. A film by Gerd Böhmer
  61. ↑ Dorothee Soboll: Escape to normality: Students from Lörrach are filming a documentary about the fate of refugees with SWR. Badische Zeitung, December 4, 2014, accessed on January 19, 2017 : “Not much was known about this part of history. In order to deal with the topic and make it interesting across generations, Südwestrundfunk shot a documentary together with high school students from Lörrach. "
  62. ↑ a b c Ulrike Demmer: How war children pass on their trauma. In: Der Spiegel. February 27, 2009, accessed December 31, 2016 .
  63. ↑ Ulrike Demmer, Alfred Weinzierl: "The body does not forget". Mirror conversation. In: Der Spiegel. Retrieved on January 7, 2017 : “If someone had to crouch in the air raid shelter all the time as a toddler, surrounded by falling beams, when someone was carried through burning cities, then this creates states of excitement that are no longer consciously remembered, the body forgets them but not."
  64. ↑ Bühring, Petra: The generation of war children: collective processing necessary . First interdisciplinary congress 2005 in Frankfurt. In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt . 2005 ( aerzteblatt.de [accessed on January 5, 2017]): "The interest was overwhelming, the congress was an interdisciplinary undertaking, in which doctors and psychologists, especially psychotherapists, contemporary historians and social scientists were involved."
  65. ↑ Luise Reddemann: War children and war grandchildren in psychotherapy. Recognize and deal with the consequences of the Nazi era and the Second World War. An approximation . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-608-89171-3 ( klett-cotta.de [accessed on January 7, 2017]): “The author shows how children and grandchildren of war gain access to the unconscious in psychotherapy Finding aspects of their family history and being able to grow psychologically in dealing with them. "
  66. ↑ Andrea Bauer: Childhood during the Second World War and today's psychosomatic stress due to post-traumatic and comorbid symptoms . Dissertation to obtain the doctoral degree in medicine. Munich 2009, p. 20 ( uni-muenchen.de [PDF; 1.3 MB ; accessed on January 5, 2017]).
  67. ↑ We war children. How fear lives on in us. A film by Dorothe Dörholt
  68. ↑ Thilo Wydra: Unforgotten, unprocessed: The fear in the head. World War II never stops. An ARD documentary tells of the trauma in German families. In: Der Tagesspiegel. May 6, 2013, accessed January 19, 2017 .
  69. ↑ We war children. How fear lives on in us. Phoenix, accessed January 19, 2017 .
  70. ^ Nils Husmann: War trauma in the nursing home. 'All villains!' In: Chrismon. The evangelical online magazine. May 27, 2015, accessed February 2, 2017 .
  71. ↑ Time does not heal all wounds. The consequences of traumatic experiences can also have an effect in old age. We offer understanding and support. In: Age and Trauma. Giving unheard of space. Retrieved February 2, 2017 .
  72. ↑ World War II in the living room. How the horrors of war and flight affect the elderly and what can be done. In: Age and Trauma. Giving unheard of space. Accessed on February 2, 2017 : "Those affected must be able to experience that they are no longer alone today as they were then."
  73. ↑ The project. In: Age and Trauma. Giving unheard of space. Retrieved February 2, 2017 .
  74. ↑ Silke Hasselmann: Inheritance of trauma down to the fourth link - trauma also shape children. In: Deutschlandfunk. January 26, 2016, accessed July 4, 2020 .
  75. ↑ Merle Hilbk: We are fine. Generation golf? The affluent children of the sixties and seventies reinvent themselves - as "war grandchildren". In: Der Tagesspiegel. April 7, 2012, accessed on January 6, 2017 : "What my mother told me was enough for me: that nothing really bad had happened to them in the war."
  76. ↑ Frederike Helwig, Anne Waak: Children of War . Hatje Cantz, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-7757-4393-8 (German, English).
  77. ↑ Jennifer Berndt: Memories of a Generation. War children. (PDF; 87 kB) November 23, 2017, accessed March 25, 2018 .
  78. ↑ Impressions. Opening of the exhibition for children of war. February 8, 2018, accessed March 25, 2018 .
  79. ↑ Heike Knoch, Winfried Kurth: Internet site “kriegsenkel.eu”. Accessed on January 6, 2017 : “We continue to operate our site in order to be able to provide information on events quickly, to maintain a bilingual website for war grandchildren, and to set our own priorities. We organize a bi-monthly discussion group for war grandchildren and post-war children in Göttingen. "
  80. ↑ Charlotte and Alf Schönfeldt: Internet site “kriegskind.de”. Accessed on January 6, 2017 : "We would like to [...] offer a placement agency for people who seek contact with others in connection with the topic of" Effects of the war time "."
  81. ^ Association Kriegsenkel e. V .: Internet site “kriegsenkel.de”. Accessed on January 6, 2017 : "It is the contact point for those affected and those interested in the topic, it bundles information, enables exchange and initiates cooperation on a national and international level."
  82. ^ Tom Baron: Internet site "Kriegskinder-Kriegsenkel.de". Accessed on January 6, 2017 : "We provide information on the aspects of the cross-generational transmission of traumatizing experiences and show you where you can find help and like-minded people in your area."
  83. ^ Kriegskinder eV: Internet site of "Kriegskinder eV - Research Teaching Therapy". Accessed on January 6, 2017 : “[…] is committed to scientific peace work. It supports research projects that serve the scientific interdisciplinary and international exchange. The association supports international attitudes, tolerance in all areas of culture and the idea of ​​international understanding and peace. "
  84. ↑ Wolf Biermann: English bombs, like heavenly gifts . In: Don't wait for better times! The autobiography . Propylaen, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-549-07473-2 , pp. 35–43 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed January 8, 2020]).
  85. ↑ Ina Rommee - About. Retrieved January 6, 2020 (American English).
  86. ↑ Talking about the trauma: video project is dedicated to the children of war. Retrieved January 6, 2020 .
  87. ↑ Ina Rommee: Children of War. Retrieved January 6, 2020 .
  88. ↑ New Germany editorial office: Berliner Kriegskinder (New Germany). Retrieved January 6, 2020 .
  89. ^ VHD: Exhibition: Children of War. Video installation, photographs Berlin. Retrieved January 6, 2020 .