Wolf Child (Second World War)

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As Wolf Children are referred to in the northern East Prussia at the end of World War II by the effects of war and consequences temporarily or permanently without parents become homeless children who, to survive in the early postwar years, in the Baltic fled or were taken there. In Lithuania they were called vokietukai , which means "little Germans".

Situation: encirclement of northern East Prussia

Physical map of the Kaliningrad Oblast, formerly northern East Prussia with the historical German place names (before 1938)

With the East Prussian Operation , the area in northern East Prussia around Königsberg was surrounded by the Soviet army in mid-January 1945. For the German population, it was only possible to flee via the Fresh Nehrung until the end of January 1945 , then via the Baltic Sea from Pillau until April 1945 . In the Potsdam Agreement , northern East Prussia was assigned to the Soviet Union. The border with southern East Prussia, which fell to Poland, was closed in the summer with wire barges and watchtowers.

Parentless children

The fathers were used as soldiers, died or later became prisoners of war. In 1945, numerous Germans from northern East Prussia fled the Red Army , but were sometimes sent back to the area or overrun by the approaching front because they were not advancing quickly enough. Tens of thousands more Germans, including women and young girls, were deported to the interior of the USSR for forced labor in 1945. Civilians died in shootings and violent attacks, as well as from forced labor, malnutrition and various epidemics. Numerous children were orphaned or separated from their parents and had to survive the post-war period without parents and fend for themselves. In view of the catastrophic food supply in East Prussia and especially in Königsberg (Prussia) , today Kaliningrad , that was very difficult. The Germans who remained in this area were initially not allowed to emigrate to the Soviet occupation zone .

Concept of wolf children

The term wolf children did not come into use until the 1990s. In the saga of Romulus and Remus , the elements of the situation of abandoned children can be seen. The children became independent, ran wild and formed emergency communities. In Lithuania they had to assert themselves as individuals in order not to attract attention and to find shelter with helpful farmers.

The Wolfskinder-Geschichtsverein e. V. defines Wolfskinder as "unrelated German children and adolescents who tried to escape starvation in northern East Prussia in the spring of 1947, for this reason came into non-German contexts in Lithuania and as a result had to conceal their origins temporarily or even permanently with the help of a new identity ".

Causes of famine

The local population was no longer allowed to go back to the farms or to cultivate them. There were epidemics and a severe second winter after the war. Supplying the Soviet military had priority, new settlers from the Soviet Union came to East Prussia and had to be supplied.

Survival of the wolf children

Begging and working in Lithuania

Where the parents and grandparents died of hunger and illness after the Soviet occupation, the children had to save themselves from starvation by “begging, slaving and stealing”. Lithuanian farmers who sold groceries in East Prussian cities recruited children and young people as workers in 1946. As a result, numerous children regularly drove to Lithuania to trade for food, to work or to beg or to stay there permanently. Exact figures are not available. Estimates assume that around 5,000 German children and young people were in Lithuania in 1948.

“Most of them were orphans as children and young children through the war and the flight. They had to get by on their own, had to see how they survived. Many ended up in Lithuania, where they earned a living from farmers. Most of them were unable to go to school, and the majority can neither write nor read. As a rule, the children were given new Lithuanian first and last names and became Lithuanians. You had no choice, it was forbidden to identify yourself as German. "

- Wolf Children: Life Between Worlds

Soviet children's homes

The German orphans who could still be found were later admitted to Soviet children's homes in East Prussia. East Prussian orphans were also adopted by Soviet families. Documents relating to this cannot be viewed. The Germans who fled to Lithuania had to register. Until the beginning of the 1950s, they came to the Soviet occupation zone, later the GDR, by freight trains.

Children's and youth homes in the GDR

From autumn 1947 to 1949, the remaining known Germans were gradually expelled to the GDR . There were also pure children's transports. The orphaned children were taken in in the GDR in children's and youth homes, z. B. in Kyritz and Chemnitz-Bernsdorf. Children who found shelter in Lithuania mostly went undetected there. In May 1951 3,300 children and young people were brought to the GDR. A number that has not yet been ascertained was reached between 1956 and 1991. The orphans who were young at the time could not always remember their identity, details in the tracing service files were vague, and career development opportunities were poor.

Reception camp of the Federal Republic

Wolf children who did not feel at home in the GDR went to West Germany and were placed in reception camps there. Because of unemployment in West Germany, they were not given a permit to move to larger cities. Integration was only made easier with the Federal Expellees Act of 1953. Wolf children who did not feel at home in the Federal Republic of Germany immigrated to Switzerland, Great Britain, the USA and Australia.

Reports from surviving contemporary witnesses

Journalist Sonya Winterberg published a comprehensive history of the fate of the wolf children to this day in her book We are the wolf children. Left in East Prussia . In it, the supposed failure of German policy towards the wolf children since 1990 is also discussed in detail.

There are contemporary witness reports of children whose mothers were caught by the Soviet army while fleeing East Prussia, who found their old apartments destroyed on their return to their hometowns in East Prussia or were expelled from them and then died from hunger, cold and typhus. The orphans then had to fend for themselves and became wolf children.

Another five orphans born between 1930 and 1939 describe their survival story in Ruth Leiserowitz's book. These wolf children ended up in a children's home in the GDR. In an obituary notice for an East Prussian woman who was born in 1939 and died in late 2009, reference was made to the most difficult living conditions as a homeless orphan in East Prussia and Lithuania.

Reports

The story of a survivor is described in the book by Evelyne Tannehill. Evelyne and her family were separated on their farm in East Prussia when the Red Army marched across the Baltic Sea. It was only after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that she was able to return to East Prussia to visit the country of her childhood again.

A very special wolf child fate is that of Liesabeth Otto (* 1937). She first fled to the west. After her mother died of starvation in Danzig in 1945, she and her two siblings returned to their hometown of Wehlau . Her siblings found work there. After an argument with her siblings over a piece of butter, she was traveling on a freight train to Lithuania, was pushed down during the journey and was left seriously injured. She was taken in for a short time by a Lithuanian peasant woman and changed her name to Martije. In the summer of 1945, she was almost hanged by a group of young people, but was saved by a stranger. In 1946 she was raped by a farmer, thrown into the Memel and rescued by two fishermen. Until 1953 she got by working and begging. In 1953 she was sent to a children's prison for stealing food and clothing and was released after two years. After another theft, she was taken to an adult detention center. In 1976 she contacted the German Red Cross and found father and brother in West Germany, moved there for a year and then back to the Soviet Union.

Joseph S.'s father fell in 1942. After the Russians had marched into Tilsit, Joseph S. (born May 5, 1936) marched with his mother across meadows to the east. His mother was forced into board by the driver of a military vehicle, Joseph S. was left alone and never saw her again. A Lithuanian woman took him in, passed him off as her nephew and got him Lithuanian papers. He was trained as a craftsman. In 1994, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he moved to Potsdam and was able to prove his German identity from old German archives.

The parents of Gertrud B. (born February 15, 1940) moved to Memelland in 1939. The father, a fisherman, fled with his wife and youngest child in early 1945. Gertrud B. and her older brother were supposed to be caught up and stayed in Memel. Three days later, the two siblings were discovered by Russians and abandoned in a forest. They were taken into a farm and the older brother was able to work there. After half a year they were tracked down by the Russians and taken to a children's home in the GDR. Her older brother had to help rebuild buildings. Her father discovered her in 1948 when he asked the orphanages.

Siegfried Gronau's father (born August 5, 1936) died in 1943 of the wounds he received during the war. Siegfried Gronau fled with his mother and siblings on a trek west, and they were overrun by the Soviet Army. Siegfried Gronau, his sisters and his mother went back to Königsberg, could no longer go into their apartment and lived in a small cellar room. Two of his sisters died of starvation and another from rape. His mother was also at risk of dying of exhaustion. In search of something to eat, he took the train to Kaunas as a stowaway , was taken in by a young woman, and then moved from farm to farm. In order not to attract attention, he had to discard his name, origin and identity and was able to train as a crane operator in 1956. He received a Soviet Lithuanian passport. He then did his military service in the Red Army and married a Lithuanian. In 1973 he was able to travel to West Germany with his family with the help of an aunt. He learned to speak German again and found work with a shipping company.

Gerhard Gudovius (* 1932, Königsberg) grew up with his grandparents from 1937. His mother died in an operation, his father unknown. After the death of his grandparents, he immigrated to Lithuania in 1947. At first he begged, was then taken in by a peasant family, took on the new name Gerhardas and was forced to leave the GDR in the early summer of 1951. In the mid-1950s he left the GDR and moved to Reutlingen. Through the Red Cross he found his uncle, fell out with him and started a family.

Manfred Schwaak (* 1941, † 2014), his mother and three siblings had to leave their home in Heiligenwalde in February 1945. His father was a soldier in World War II. His mother and youngest brother died of malnutrition. In April 1946 he took a freight train to Kaunas in Lithuania with his older brother and older sister. They found accommodation with three different farming families in the area around the village of Romanavas. All three were discovered by Soviet troops in the spring of 1951 and deported to the GDR. Through the International Tracing Service they found their father in Augsburg and were placed in a children's home in Augsburg. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he and his brother managed to visit his former foster parents in Lithuania. Out of his great gratitude to the Lithuanians, he founded the Lithuanian Children's Fund and supplied schools and kindergartens with donated aid.

The fate of Friedel Schäfer (born September 23, 1940 in Skrodeln, Tilsit district, Memelland). Her mother Gertrud and her two children were evacuated to Liesken (Bartenstein district) in autumn 1944. Her father was taken prisoner by the Soviets in March 1945. The mother died of tuberculosis in Liesken in November 1946. In December 1946 the two siblings came from southern East Prussia (under Polish administration) to a Polish children's home, and in 1950 they moved to a Polish girls' home. She lived in Danzig and was integrated in Poland. Her father was released after Skrodeln in 1946 and was deported to Siberia with his new family. He was only able to leave for Germany in 1958 and found his children through an application to the Red Cross with the help of the Polish Red Cross. Friedel Schäfer left for Espelkamp (Westphalia) in 1965, learned German, worked and married. Her brother also emigrated to West Germany in the mid-1960s and died in 1968.

Biographies

Helmut Komp tried to survive in Königsberg, hid on a freight train to the east, traveled through Lithuania, found accommodation with a farming family, was tracked down and expelled by the Soviets and was then able to build a life of his own.

Location of the wolf children in Lithuania

Help from Lithuanians

“The aid the Lithuanians are giving to the starving East Prussians cannot be quantified. All the stories tell of new incidents over and over again and contain other facets. Every mention of this time and history always implies a thank you to the Lithuanian people of that time. "

- Ruth Leiserowitz

Remaining wolf children in Lithuania

Of the remaining wolf children in Lithuania, some were able to emigrate to the Federal Republic as repatriates in the 1970s, some were able to emigrate after independence from Lithuania due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, others chose Lithuania as their new home.

society

Several hundred “wolf children” became known in Lithuania after its separation from the Soviet Union, of which in 2010 almost 100 were still living there.

In Vilnius there is the Edelweiß-Wolfskinder association , which is also supported by the German side. Free meeting and association service for members is possible here, which also takes place in a meeting place in Klaipėda (Memel). Only a few of the old victims who are still alive today speak the German language.

Since the beginning of the nineties, the "Wolfskinder", who have been involved in an association since September 1990, have been fighting for recognition as German citizens. The Federal Office of Administration insisted long on the view that the appropriate people have dispensed with leaving the Konigsberg area after the war, their nationality without considering that this abandonment occurred not really voluntary, and it was among those affected children where possible consequences of Moving away could hardly be known.

Goals of the wolf children today are u. a. Finding family members, granting German citizenship, family reunification, emigration to Germany, maintaining German culture.

Economic situation

Since January 1st, 2008, the group of wolf children in Lithuania has been included in the law of the Lithuanian government on compensation for people who suffered from the Second World War and the occupation and can now benefit from a small supplementary pension. The “wolf children” are not mentioned in federal German legislation. For more than 20 years, the former CDU member Wolfgang Freiherr von Stetten has been looking after the "wolf children", which is why he is also called the father of the wolf children .

In the 1990s, von Stetten primarily took care of removing bureaucratic hurdles for those willing to return to Germany who had come together in the Edelweiß association with around 350 members. In addition to donations in kind, he was able to collect and distribute considerable sums of money.

In 2007 there were still 96 “wolf children” living in Lithuania. They had stayed there because of family connections or because they were unable to submit appropriate applications. After the German state had not provided any help despite all attempts, von Stetten started a new initiative 100 litas per month , with 350 litas or 100 euros per month was requested. The only 76 remaining "wolf children" received 500,000 euros, over 5,000 euros per person. In 2013, around 80 wolf children were still living in Lithuania. They only receive a small pension because of their undetectable or low-rated jobs. Only those who can prove their birth in East Prussia receive a grant of 180 litas (a good 50 EUR).

This puts them on an equal footing with the compensation victims of the German state (Holocaust survivors, prisoners of war and foreign workers). "This donation will be continued and after the difficult fate of childhood and life enables a dignified retirement." ( Wolfgang von Stetten ) Donations, foundations and bequests make this possible through the Stauder Foundation, which administers these funds at no cost and increases them 1: 1 the "wolf children" passes on.

Perception in Germany

In 1996 Ruth Leiserowitz, b. Kibelka on the wolf children. An article in the Spiegel drew its readers' attention to the fate of the wolf children and the publication of the book about the wolf children. In May 1999, the Federal President Roman Herzog spoke to wolf children on his trip to Lithuania. Federal President Christian Wulff received a group of so-called wolf children from Lithuania on May 10, 2011. The chairman of the group of expellees, resettlers and German minorities of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group, Klaus Brähmig , called for research on wolf children to be intensified: "With the reception of the wolf children, the Federal President is sending an important sign of solidarity with the former East Prussian children, whose fate is still too little known in Germany. It is very gratifying that politics and the media are increasingly addressing the issue of these orphans, many of whom to this day do not know that they are of German origin. The Union continues to advocate that the scientific processing is intensified and that the topic of wolf children is dealt with in the Federal Expellees Foundation, for example. "

Search for family members

The German Red Cross helps those who have lost contact with their family members while fleeing East Prussia (including the wolf children) with identification and searches. (See also under missing person )

Commemoration

Five kilometers north of Tilsit near Mikytai (Mikieten) on the Lithuanian side, at the intersection of the A12 Tauragė (Tauroggen) -Tilsit with the 141 from Šilutė (Heydekrug), the “Wolf Child Memorial” commemorates those who were killed and starved to death in East Prussia between 1944 and 1947 People and thus also to the orphaned children who remained behind. In Mikytai (Mikieten) the house of the wolf children with a permanent exhibition on the fate of the wolf children was set up on the A12. This is done by historians from the Wolfskinder.Geschichtsverein e. V. in Berlin.

Wolf children who have not survived due to hunger, cold, torture and deprivation can be buried as war victims on war cemeteries. It is unlikely that their graves can still be found and reburied. In this respect, the memory of her remains present only through the memory of her fate.

The Litauen Children's Aid Association was founded by the former wolf child Manfred Schwaak (1941–2014). The association has been supporting schools, children's homes, kindergartens and hospitals in Lithuania since 1994 out of gratitude for the earlier human kindness of the Lithuanians for the wolf children.

Exhibitions

  • March 12 - May 29, 2016 in the East Prussian State Museum , Lüneburg : Wolf children. Left between East Prussia and Lithuania. Joint project with the “German Cultural Forum Eastern Europe e. V. “in Potsdam.

Processing in the film

  • Wolfskinder feature film, Rick Ostermann (director), Germany and Lithuania 2013. Awarded the young talent award of the Peace Prize of German Films 2014
  • Wolfskinder documentary, approx. 120 min., Eberhard Fechner (director), Germany 1990, ISBN 3-939504-09-2 . The film tells of an East Prussian refugee family whose children had lost each other on the treks from their homeland and miraculously found themselves together again. Eberhard Fechner describes the exciting experiences of these siblings between the private and the historical. Eberhard Fechner - born in 1926 in Liegnitz (Silesia), died in Hamburg in 1992 - played a decisive role in shaping German TV culture as a director, author and actor. In addition to films and TV movies like Tadellöser & Wolff , a chapter in itself or Winterspelt he created especially its own, award-winning documentary style ". Should the artist not judge, but just be dispassionate witness" As an extra is the documentation flight and expulsion - Inferno to be seen in the east . (German) (from VÖBB.de)
  • Somewhere begged, somewhere stolen… A wolf child on the hunt for clues Report, 30 min., Ingeborg Jacobs (director), Hartmut Seifert (camera), first broadcast May 5, 1994 ZDF / Documentary Award of the 11th World Television Festival in Nagasaki, Japan 1995 / German Camera Award 1996.
  • Die eiserne Maria Documentary, 60 min., Ingeborg Jacobs (director), Hartmut Seifert (camera), first broadcast March 13, 2002 ARTE / Documentary Film Festival Nyon 2002. (Biography of the wolf child Liesabeth Otto)
  • The children of the flight. Part 2 wolf children. Shown in Phoenix on December 1, 2009, 9:00 p.m. - 9:45 p.m. Editorial management Guido Knopp. Directed by Hans-Christoph Blumenberg. Production by Cinecentrum i. A. des ZDF, 2006. (Cinematic reconstruction based on reports from contemporary witnesses. Wolfkind fates from April 1945–1948. Search for siblings in 1955.) PhoenixDokus from March 1, 2017.
  • The story: Wolf children - children's fates in the post-war period. In: Kontrovers, Bayerischer Rundfunk from May 24, 2017 on YouTube
  • Russia's wolf children , Deutsche Welle (2018)

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: Wolfskind  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tobias Goy, Tom Meyer, Paul Prager, Björn Schaal, Richard Schneider: The historical background. Flight and expulsion of the Germans from the East. In: Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (Ed.): In the back of the story. The fate of East Prussia's wolf children. A book project of the advanced course history (Abitur class 2017) of the Friedrich-Dessauer-Gymnasium Frankfurt am Main. GGP Media, Pößneck 2017, ISBN 978-3-9817711-5-2 , pp. 23-37.
  2. ↑ a b Christopher Spatz: “A pure struggle for survival.” A conversation with Christopher Spatz about the East Prussian wolf children. Interviewers Maximilian Ilg, Lydia Kidane, Franziska Reinhardt and Leo Weiß Campollo. In: Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (Ed.): In the back of the story. The fate of East Prussia's wolf children. A book project of the advanced course history (Abitur class 2017) of the Friedrich-Dessauer-Gymnasium Frankfurt am Main. GGP Media, Pößneck, 2017, ISBN 978-3-9817711-5-2 , pp. 39-54.
  3. ↑ Wolfskinder-Geschichtsverein e. V .: Definition of the term on the homepage, accessed on February 26, 2015.
  4. ↑ a b Sabine Bode : The forgotten generation . The war children break their silence. Expanded and updated paperback edition. Piper Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-492-26405-1 , p. 141.
  5. ↑ Quote on survival strategy. ( Memento from December 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: Wolf children: Life between the worlds. In: The Ostpreußenblatt. September 15, 2009.
  6. ↑ Sonya Winterberg: We are the wolf children: Abandoned in East Prussia.
  7. ↑ Sabine Bode : The forgotten generation . The war children break their silence. Expanded and updated paperback edition. Piper Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-492-26405-1 , pp. 142-143.
  8. ↑ a b c d e f Soukaina Ettouzani, Linda Grezda, Honey Minn, Elisabeth Schwarze: How life went on. What became of former wolf children. In: Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (Ed.): In the back of the story. The fate of East Prussia's wolf children. A book project of the advanced course history (Abitur class 2017) of the Friedrich-Dessauer-Gymnasium Frankfurt am Main. GGP Media, Pößneck, 2017, ISBN 978-3-9817711-5-2 , pp. 87-94.
  9. ↑ Ruth Leiserowitz: From East Prussia to Kyritz. Wolf children on the way to Brandenburg. Brandenburg Center for Civic Education, Potsdam 2003, ISBN 3-932502-33-7 , pp. 26–35, political-bildung-brandenburg.de ( Memento of the original from July 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ; PDF; 897 kB) Info : The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.politische-bildung-brandenburg.de
  10. ↑ Sabine Bode : The forgotten generation . The war children break their silence. Expanded and updated paperback edition. Piper Verlag, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-492-26405-1 , p. 142.
  11. ↑ a b Sonya Winterberg: We are the wolf children: abandoned in East Prussia. Piper Verlag, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-492-05515-4 .
  12. ^ Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. (Hrsg.): Flotsam of the war - evidence of flight and expulsion of the Germans. (Contemporary witness reports about flight, expulsion, wolf children). Pp. 120-128. Publishing house Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V., Kassel. Kassel 2008.
  13. ↑ Ruth Leiserowitz: From East Prussia to Kyritz. Wolf children on the way to Brandenburg. Brandenburg Center for Political Education, Potsdam 2003, ISBN 3-932502-33-7 , pp 48-106 politische-bildung-brandenburg.de ( Memento of the original on 16 July 2011 at the Internet Archive PDF; 897 kB) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.politische-bildung-brandenburg.de
  14. ↑ Obituary in the Hamburger Abendblatt from December 19, 2009, p. 27.
  15. ↑ Evelyne Tannehill: Abandoned and Forgotten: An Orphan Girl's Tale of Survival in World War II. Wheatmark, 2007, ISBN 978-1-58736-693-2 .
  16. ↑ Ingeborg Jacobs: Wolf Child. The incredible life story of the East Prussian wolf child Liesabeth Otto. Propylaea, Berlin 2010, ISBN 3-549-07371-2 .
  17. ↑ a b Semin Kurtanovic, Oliver Stolorz, Denis Turano (Interviewer): If children superhuman succeed. Contemporary witnesses report on their experiences. In: Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (Ed.): In the back of the story. The fate of East Prussia's wolf children. A book project of the advanced course history (Abitur class 2017) of the Friedrich-Dessauer-Gymnasium Frankfurt am Main. GGP Media, Pößneck 2017, ISBN 978-3-9817711-5-2 , pp. 73-75.
  18. ↑ Büsra Bozkurt, Almina Pucurica, Branden Weber: “Damned to survive.” Childhood and youth of the wolf child Siegfried Gronau. In: Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (Ed.): In the back of the story. The fate of East Prussia's wolf children. A book project of the advanced course history (Abitur class 2017) of the Friedrich-Dessauer-Gymnasium Frankfurt am Main. GGP Media, Pößneck 2017, ISBN 978-3-9817711-5-2 , pp. 77-86.
  19. ↑ Oliver Stolorz: The "great gratitude" of a wolf child . Manfred Schwaak and the Lithuanian Children's Aid Association. In: Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (Ed.): In the back of the story. The fate of East Prussia's wolf children. A book project of the advanced course history (Abitur class 2017) of the Friedrich-Dessauer-Gymnasium Frankfurt am Main. GGP Media, Pößneck 2017, ISBN 978-3-9817711-5-2 , pp. 95-100.
  20. ^ Björn Schaal: Meeting again after a long separation. The Odyssey of Friedel Schäfer and the Tracing Service of the German Red Cross. In: Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (Ed.): In the back of the story. The fate of East Prussia's wolf children. A book project of the advanced course history (Abitur class 2017) of the Friedrich-Dessauer-Gymnasium Frankfurt am Main. GGP Media, Pößneck 2017, ISBN 978-3-9817711-5-2 , pp. 101-115.
  21. ↑ Ruth Leiserowitz: From East Prussia to Kyritz. Wolf children on the way to Brandenburg. Brandenburg Center for Civic Education, Potsdam 2003, ISBN 3-932502-33-7 , p. 104, Politik-bildung-brandenburg.de ( Memento of the original from July 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ; PDF; 897 kB) Info: Der Archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.politische-bildung-brandenburg.de
  22. ↑ Ruth Geede: The East Prussian Family. In: Das Ostpreußenblatt (supplement in the Preußische Allgemeine Zeitung) , April 17, 2010, p. 14
  23. ^ Association of Wolf Children in Lithuania "Edelweiss", called in Wolf Children History Association. V.
  24. ↑ Wolfskinder: A life between the worlds ... ( Memento of the original from December 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: The Ostpreußenblatt , September 15, 2001 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.webarchiv-server.de
  25. ^ Foreword by Rita Süssmuth in Sonya Winterberg: We are the wolf children . 2012.
  26. ↑ Monika Griebeleit: The forgotten wolf children
  27. ↑ Ruth Kibelka: Wolf Children. Cross-border commuters on the Memel . BasisDruck, Berlin 1996
  28. ↑ "No language, no home" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 3 , 1996, p. 62-68 ( online ).
  29. ^ Letter to the editor from Ruth Leiserowitz dated November 18, 2012 to the Die Welt editorial team
  30. ↑ Klaus Brähmig: Research on wolf children must be intensified. CDU / CSU, May 10, 2011, accessed May 3, 2013 .
  31. ↑ Child Search Service. German Red Cross, accessed on May 3, 2013 .
  32. ↑ The Wolf Child Memorial. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 18, 2012 ; Retrieved May 1, 2013 .
  33. ↑ Permanent exhibition on the wolf children, supervised by Wolfskinder.Geschichtsverein e. V.
  34. ↑ Judith Sucher: How do you remember? The wolf children and the possibilities of remembrance and educational work in the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. In: Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (Ed.): In the back of the story. The fate of East Prussia's wolf children. A book project of the advanced course history (Abitur class 2017) of the Friedrich-Dessauer-Gymnasium Frankfurt am Main. GGP Media, Pößneck 2017, ISBN 978-3-9817711-5-2 , pp. 117-122.
  35. ↑ What is Children's Aid Lithuania doing? kinderhilfe-litauen.de
  36. ↑ Oliver Stolorz: The "great gratitude" of a wolf child . Manfred Schwaak and the Lithuanian Children's Aid Association. In: Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (Ed.): In the back of the story. The fate of East Prussia's wolf children. A book project of the advanced course history (Abitur class 2017) of the Friedrich-Dessauer-Gymnasium Frankfurt am Main. GGP Media, Pößneck 2017, ISBN 978-3-9817711-5-2 , pp. 95-100.
  37. ↑ Description of the film Wolfskinder in the wayback archive