Missing, Lost, and Displaced Children in Postwar Germany

The Great Struggle to Provide for the War's Youngest Victims

Bibliographic Data

ID9644285
AuthorsMichelle Mouton (0000-0002-3324-4808, University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume48
Issue1
Pages53-78
Publication date2015-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCentral European History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0008-9389 • E-ISSN: 1569-1616
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0008938915000035
OpenAlexW1975524916
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited17

In the final months of World War II, more than a million German children took to the roads in search of family and home. Although the majority returned home with little institutional support, hundreds of thousands of other German children could not. Some were orphaned; others remained in camps, children's homes, or foster families in areas that no longer belonged to Germany. Most challenging for authorities were those who were alone and too young to know their own names. This article explores the struggle to locate, identify, and provide for missing, lost, and displaced German children after 1945. It argues that despite a general agreement that children were in peril, Allied denazification policies and the decision by the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) not to help “enemy children” compromised care for children. The division of Germany and the onset of the Cold War further handicapped efforts to aid children by preventing the creation of a unified search service. Yet, despite the many postwar impediments, the effort to care for these children was remarkably successful in the end

Adversary · Cold war · German · Military service · Political science · Politics · World War II · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · European history and politics · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · History · Law · Medicine

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