War children

A war child refers to a child born to a native parent and a parent belonging to a foreign military force (usually an occupying force, but also soldiers stationed at military bases on foreign soil). Having a child with a member of a belligerent foreign military, throughout history and across cultures, is often considered a grave betrayal of social values. Commonly, the native parent is disowned by family, friends and society at large. The term "war child" is most commonly used for children born during World War II and its aftermath, although it is also relevant to other situations, such children born following the widespread rapes during the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities associated with the war of liberation. The discrimination suffered by the native parent and child often ignored widespread rapes by occupying forces, or the relationships women had to form in order to survive the war years.

The following article has extensive coverage of issues in Norway during and after World War II.

Discrimination
Children whose either parent was part of an occupying force or whose parent(s) collaborated with enemy forces are innocent of any war crimes committed by parents. Yet these children have felt condemned by descent from the enemy and, sometimes, by the crimes revealed in the subsequent prosecution of a parent's acts. As such children grew to adolescence and adulthood, many harbored the feelings of guilt and shame.

One example is children born whose fathers were World War II occupying soldiers. These children claim they lived with their identity in an inner exile until the 1980s, when some of them officially acknowledged their status. In 1987 Bente Blehr refused anonymity; an interview with her was published in Born Guilty, a collection of 12 interviews with persons whose parent(s) had been associated with German forces in occupied Norway. The first autobiography by the child of a German occupying soldier and a Norwegian mother was The Boy from Gimle (1993) by Eystein Eggen; he dedicated his book to all such children. It was published in Norway.

For women to have a voluntary relationship with a soldier of an occupying force has historically been censured. Women who became pregnant would often take measures to conceal the fact that the father was a foreign soldier, if possible.

The choices available to them usually were:
 * Arrange a marriage with a local man, who would take responsibility for the child
 * Claim the father was unknown, dead, or had left, and bring up the child as a single mother
 * Acknowledge the relation; bring up the child as a single mother
 * Acknowledge the relation; accept welfare from the occupying force (see the German Lebensborn)
 * Place the child in an orphanage, or give the child up for adoption
 * Emigrate to the occupying country, and claim that identity
 * Have an abortion

After the war it was common for both mother and child to suffer repercussions from the local population. Such repercussions were widespread throughout Europe. While some women and children suffered torture and deportation, most acts against them fell into one or several of the following categories:


 * Name calling: German whore and German kid were common labels
 * Isolation or harassment from the local community and at schools
 * Loss of work
 * Shaving the heads of the mothers, which was frequently done in the immediate aftermath of the war
 * Temporary placement in confinement or internment camps

While repercussions were most widespread immediately after the war, sentiments against the women and their children lingered into the 1950s, 60s, and beyond.

War children of World War II
Estimates of the number of war children fathered by German soldiers during World War II are difficult to gauge. Mothers tended to hide such pregnancies for fear of revenge and reprisal by male family members. Lower estimates range in the hundreds of thousands, while upper estimates are much higher, into the millions.

Lebensborn program
Lebensborn was one of several programs initiated by the Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler to secure the racial heredity of the Third Reich. The program mainly served as a welfare institution for parents and children deemed racially valuable.

In Norway a local Lebensborn office, Abteilung Lebensborn, was established in 1941 to support children of German soldiers and their Norwegian mothers, pursuant to German law (Hitlers Verordnung, July 28, 1942). The organization ran several homes where pregnant women could give birth. Facilities also served as permanent homes for eligible women until the end of the war. Additionally, the organization paid child support on behalf of the father, and covered other expenses, including medical bills, dental treatment and transportation.

In total, between 9 and 15 Lebensborn homes were established. Of the estimated 10,000–12,000 children born to Norwegian mothers and German fathers during the war, 8,000 were registered by Abteilung Lebensborn. In 4,000 of these cases, the father is known.

During and after the war, the Norwegians commonly referred to these children as tyskerunger, translating as "German-kids" or "Kraut kids", a derogatory term. As a result of later recognition of their post-war mistreatment, the more diplomatic term krigsbarn (war-children) came into use and is now the generally accepted form.

Post-war years
As the war ended, the children and their mothers were viewed as outcasts by many among the general populace in formerly occupied countries. They grieved and resented the losses of the war and everything that had to do with Germany. The children and their mothers were often isolated socially, and many children were bullied by other children, and sometimes by adults, due to their origin.

For instance, immediately after the peace, 14,000 women were arrested in Norway on suspicion of "collaboration" or association with the enemy; 5,000 were, without any judiciary process, placed in forced labor camps for a year and a half. Their heads were shaved and they were beaten and raped. In an interview for the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, war children claim that, while living at an orphanage in Bergen, they were forced as children to parade on the streets so the local population could whip them and spit at them.

In a survey conducted by the Norwegian Ministry of Social Affairs in 1945, the local government in one third of the counties expressed an unfavorable view of the war children. The same year the Ministry of Social Affairs briefly explored the possibility of reuniting the children and their mothers with surviving fathers in post-war Germany, but decided not to.

Five hundred children who were still living in Lebensborn homes at the end of the war had to leave as the homes were closed down. Some children were left to state custody, during a time when such care was marked by strict rules, insufficient education, and abuse. Approximately 20 children ended up in a mental institution in 1946, due to lack of space in other institutions and unsuccessful adoption attempts, where some remained past their 18th birthday.

Due to the political attitudes prevailing after the end of the war, the Norwegian government made proposals to forcibly deport 8000 children and their mothers to Germany, but there were concerns of the deportees having no livelihood there. Another option was to send them to Sweden. Australia was also considered after opposition from the Swedish government; the proposals were later shelved.

Financial and legal issues
In 1950, diplomatic relations made it possible for the Norwegian government to collect child support from those fathers living in West-Germany and Austria, and as of 1953 such payments were made. Child support from fathers living in East-Germany was kept in locked accounts until diplomatic relations between the two countries was established in 1975.

Some of the war children have tried to obtain official recognition for past mistreatment, which some claim equates to an attempt at genocide. In December 1999, 122 war children brought a claim before the Norwegian courts; only seven signed the claim, which was a case to test the boundaries of the law. The courts have ruled such suits as void due to the statute of limitations.

However, an arrangement in Norway allows citizens who have experienced neglect or mistreatment by failure of the state to apply for "simple compensation" (an arrangement is not subject to the statute of limitations). In July 2004 the government expanded this compensation program to include war children who had experienced only minor difficulties. The basic compensation rate is set to 20,000 NOK (€2,500 / $3,000) for what Norwegian government terms "mobbing" (bullying). Those who are able to produce evidence of abuse can receive up to 200,000 NOK (25,000 € / $30,000).

On March 8, 2007, 158 of the war children were to have their case heard at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. They demanded reparations of between 500,000 SEK (≈ 431,272 NOK) and 2,000,000 SEK (≈ 1,725,088 NOK) each for systematic abuse. The Norwegian government contested the claim that the children were mistreated.

Medical experimentation
In conjunction with the claim brought before the Norwegian courts by the war children in 1999, a motion was filed in September 2000 alleging that 10 war these experiments were approved by the government and financed by the CIA, the American intelligence agency.

Medical staff in several European countries, as well as the US, conducted clinical trials or experimental treatment involving LSD, most of them at some point between 1950 and 1970. In Norway, trials involved volunteer patients under a protocol after traditional medical treatments had proved unsuccessful.

Acknowledgment and apology
Since the mid-80s, the fate of the war children has become well known, and the government has admitted neglect. The Prime Minister of Norway apologized publicly in his New Year's Eve speech in 2000. As adults, the 150 former Lebensborn Children are suing for reparations and damages from the Norwegian government for failing to protect them and discriminating against them.

The most famous of Norway's war children is Anni-Frid Lyngstad, a former ABBA singer and now Princess Anni-Frid Reuss of Plauen.

Norway
German forces invaded Norway in 1940 and occupied the country until 1945. At the end of the war, the German forces stood at 372,000. It is estimated that between 10,000 and 12,000 children were born to Norwegian mothers with German partners during the occupation. As Nazi ideology considered Norwegians to be pure Aryans, German authorities did not prohibit soldiers from pursuing relationships with Norwegian women.

After the war these women especially, but also their children, were mistreated in Norway.

Denmark
German forces occupied Denmark between 1940 and 1945. German soldiers were allowed to fraternize with Danish women, also considered Aryan. The government has estimated between 6,000 and 8,000 children were born to Danish mothers with German partners during or just after the occupation. The Danish government has 5,579 such children in their files.

In 1999 the Danish government allowed this group access to parenthood archives, exempting them from the country's normal secrecy period of 80 years for such records.

France
German soldiers were forbidden from having relationships with French women by the Nazi regime at the beginning of the Occupation. Due to difficulties of enforcement, fraternization was tolerated. This was an intermediate situation between the encouragement of similar relationships in Denmark and Norway, and strict prohibition in Eastern Europe; the different regulations were based on Nazi racial ideology.

The number of war children born to French women in France in the years 1941-1949, whose fathers were German soldiers, is estimated to be 75,000 to 200,000. After the expulsion of German troops from France, those women who were known to have had relationships with German soldiers, were arrested, "judged" and exposed in the streets to hatred. Having their heads shaved in public was a common punishment. Such descendants have formed a group to represent them, Amicale Nationale des Enfants de la Guerre.

Netherlands
The Nazis considered the women of the Netherlands to be Aryan and therefore acceptable for fraternization by German soldiers. The Dutch Institute for War Documentation originally estimated that around 10,000 children were born to German fathers during the occupation. However, recent figures based on records at the archives of the German Wehrmacht (name of the German armed forces from 1935–45) indicate that the real number could be as high as 50,000.

Fathered by Allied Forces in Germany
The Allied forces occupied Germany for several years after World War II. The book GIs and Fräuleins, by Maria Hohn, lists 66,000 children as born to soldiers of Allied forces in the period 1945–55:


 * American parent: 36,334
 * French parent: 10,188
 * British parent: 8,397
 * Soviet parent: 3,105
 * Belgian parent: 1,767
 * Other/unknown: 6,829

American
According to Perry Biddiscombe, more than 37,000 illegitimate children were born to American fathers in the 10 years following the German surrender. Relations between the occupation forces and German and Austrian women were considered suspect by the locals. Not only were the Americans the recent enemy, but the residents feared the American fathers would abandon the mothers and children to be cared for by the local communities, impoverished after the war. A majority of the 37,000 illegitimate children ended up as wards of the social services for at least some time. Many of the children remained wards of the state for a long time, especially children with African-American fathers, who were seldom adopted in what was then a more homogeneous country.

The food situation in occupied Germany was initially very dire. By the spring of 1946, the official ration in the US zone was no more than 1275 calories per day (much less than the minimum required to maintain health), with some areas probably receiving as little as 700. Some US soldiers used this desperate situation to their advantage, exploiting their ample supply of food and cigarettes (the currency of the black market) as what became known as "frau bait". Each side viewed the other as the enemy, but exchanged food for sex anyway. The often destitute mothers of the resulting children usually received no alimony.

Between 1950 and 1955, the Allied High Commission for Germany prohibited "proceedings to establish paternity or liability for maintenance of children." Even after the lifting of the ban, West German courts had little power to gain child support from American soldiers.

The children of black American soldiers, commonly called Negermischlinge ("Negro half-breeds"), were particularly disadvantaged. Even in the cases where the soldier wanted to marry the mother of his child, he was prevented by the US Army which, until 1948, prohibited interracial marriages.

In the earliest stages of the occupation, US soldiers were not allowed to pay maintenance for children they admitted having fathered, since to do so was considered as "aiding the enemy". Marriages between white US soldiers and Austrian women were not permitted until January 1946, and with German women until December 1946.

The official US policy on war children was summed up in the Stars and Stripes in 8 April 1946, in the article "Pregnant Frauleins Are Warned!": "'Girls who are expecting a child fathered by an American soldier will be provided with no assistance by the American Army... If the soldier denies paternity, no further action will be undertaken other than to merely inform the woman of this fact. She is to be advised to seek help from a German or Austrian welfare organization. If the soldier is already in the United States, his address is not to be communicated to the woman in question, the soldier may be honorably discharged from the army and his demobilization will in no way be delayed. Claims for child support from unmarried German and Austrian mothers will not be recognized. If the soldier voluntarily acknowledges paternity, he is to provide for the woman in an appropriate manner."

British
After the end of the War in 1945, British troops remained in what later became West Germany. Fraternisation between soldiers and local German women was frowned upon by British authorities due to war propaganda portraying Germans as "the enemy". Marriage was only legally allowed during the 1960s. In recent times, especially during the later years of the Cold War, such intermarriages have become more common.

Notable examples include Lewis Holtby, Kevin Kerr, Maik Taylor and David McAllister.

Canadian
Canada declared war on Germany in 1939, following Britain's war declaration the week before. During the war Canadian forces participated in the allied invasions of both Italy and Normandy. Prior to the invasion of continental Europe, significant Canadian forces were stationed in Britain.

An estimated 22,000 children were born to British mothers and Canadian soldiers stationed in Britain. In continental Europe, it has been estimated that 6,000 were born in the Netherlands, with smaller numbers born in Belgium and other places where Canadian forces were stationed during and after the war.

A famous example is Eric Clapton.

Netherlands
On liberation, many Dutch women welcomed liberating troops in a way that resulted in babies; these are called 'Liberation babies'. It is estimated that about 4,000 "liberation babies" were fathered by Canadian soldiers before they left the area in early 1946.

Austria
In Austria, Russian war children („Russenkind“) were discriminated against, as well as their mothers.

Common unfavourable expressions for those women who were on friendly terms with allied soldiers were 'American girl' (»Amischickse« or »Dollarflitscherl«) and, in the case of those who had relations with black soldiers, 'chocolate girl' (»Schokoladenmädchen«). In April 1946, the Stars and Stripes newspaper stated that there was no hope for assistance by military authorities for "pregnant Fräuleins". The paper stated that a ""Strength Through Joy" girl who ate from the forbidden fruit should accept the consequences."

An Austrian welfare program was started after the war in coordination with American groups, in which African-American/Austrian babies were sent to the United States for adoption by African-American families. The children ranged in age from 4 to 7 years.

Amerasians
Probably more than 100,000 children have been born to Asian parents and U.S. servicemen in Asia. This chiefly occurred during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Children fathered by US servicemen were also born to mothers living near the several U.S. military bases in the region since World War II. These children are known as Amerasians, a term coined by the author Pearl S. Buck.

Cases of rape
Numerous war children were born because of their mothers being raped by soldiers during World War II and in other conflicts, including many conflicts in Africa, where rape of women has been widespread in the Congo and Sudan, for instance.

Former Yugoslavia
Attention in the 1990s was drawn on violence against women as among the war crimes in former Yugoslavia. Muslim women in Bosnia who were raped in Serbian camps got help by looking for assistance from humanitarian organizations. Also Serbian and Croatian women in Bosnia were raped accordingly by Muslim (especially) Wahhabis or Croatian soldiers.

Prevention
The recognition that violence against women in the form of rape was a deliberate military strategy and human rights abuse led in 1989 to the approval of Convention on the Rights of the Child. Since 2008 United Nations Security Council bans sexual violations as a war crime. The German weekly Die Zeit said this was an historical milestone.

Integration
Integration into a new family might be a solution to prevent war children from growing up as unwanted and mobbed by people in a hostile environment.

War children's ignorance of origins
Often the war children wondered why they were treated unjustly and learned to know of their father's identities late in life or by chance:
 * by comments of their class mates, relatives or neighbours
 * when they needed official documents e. g. family register or
 * when their mothers had died.

In most cases, the delayed search by war children for their biological fathers was difficult and often in vain.

Fathers unknown
Occupation forces after the war strictly interdicted fraternization with people of the occupied territories. Couples who became involved tried to hide their relation because of these interdictions and the unfavourable mood of the occupied population. Fathers of war children were generally excepted from actions for alimony.

Communication with the mothers of war children often ceased when the soldiers suddenly got movement orders, without a chance to say good bye. Some of the soldiers were killed in action. In the post-war period, soldier fathers were prevented by conditions from returning to their former girl friends and war children even if they wanted to. Others had surviving wives and families to return to at home, and denied having war children, or may not have known when children were born.

Mothers traumatized
At the end of war, mothers with war children were prosecuted as criminals and punished in humiliating ways for their relations with the enemy. They were isolated socially and economically. Many of them could only rehabilitate and become respected by marrying a fellow countryman. Persecution of a former girlfriend of a German soldier who evaded the immediate punishment (forced head shaving) is documented in a book by ANEG; she was traumatized for the rest of her life

Some of the mothers gave their war child to a home of public welfare. Others tried to care for the child with their new partner and their common children (step family). Some of the mothers died during the war.

Children in search for their fathers
A network of European war children, "Born of War — international network," was founded in October 2005. They meet every year in Berlin to assist each other, make decisions about searching for parents, and find out new positions.

Changing opinions
Now reaching retirement age, many war children from World War II have begun to look for their full identity and their roots. Often the children of the German father are also interested to get in contact with the unknown war children of their father. Public opinion is more compassionate toward the past generation of war children. Few of the biological fathers are still alive. Many of the mothers never told their children about their foreign fathers, as they were subject to bullying and humiliating procedures by their family members and neighbours.

Norway
People trying to do research should gather the complete birth documents, including the birth certificate (not only parts of it). The Norwegian archive at Victoria Terrasse in Oslo burned down in the 1950s, and many of these important documents were lost. The Norwegian Red Cross has some records. It is often easier to trace the Norwegian mother first by Church records as an example.

Belgium
Further proceedings are to find out whether there are documentary evidence from Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt, Auslandsorganisation – Amt für Volkswohlfahrt und Winterhilfswerk (1941–1944) about alimony payments. Valuable are also old photographs with greetings on the back or private letters.

France
Since 2005 the society, Amicale Nationale des Enfants de la Guerre (ANEG), has worked in both France and Germany to help descendants of parents of mixed nationalities, whether German father in France or French father in occupied Germany. Another French organization searching for family members of French children whose fathers were German soldiers during the occupation is Cœurs Sans Frontières/Herzen ohne Grenzen.

Since 2009 the German government has granted German nationality on application for war children born in France to French mothers, from German soldier fathers of World War II.

Search in German Archives
Several central files are part of the German archives:
 * At Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt), military movements of German soldiers of World War II can be traced. Children in search of their German fathers (soldiers, prisoners of Second World War) get their answers as much as possible.
 * German Federal Archives-Military Archives (in German: Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv) in Freiburg im Breisgau has some copies of personal documents and, for each unit of the former Wehrmacht, the so-called "Kriegstagebücher" (reports of daily events) where movements, and losses per day and unit were recorded.
 * Archives of former Berlin Document Center contained details on personal membership in Nazi party and organisations of the German Third Reich. These archives were transferred to German Federal Archives, branch Berlin-Lichterfelde. Search for persons concerned are possible 30 years after death. Details needed are name, prename, date of birth, as well as occupation and range of activities.
 * At Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge there exists a direct access file of all known German war graves of World War I and II.

Post-war children
Post-war war children often search in vain as their fathers' personal data are vague, archives closed or data lost.

Search for US fathers
War children from American soldiers searching for their natural father and for their roots are assisted by the organization GITrace. Since 2009 the German-based association, GI Babies Germany e.V., tries to find out as well the roots of children of postwar GIs and their German girl friends.

Search for Canadian fathers
Organization Canadian Roots UK helps war children in Great Britain to trace their Canadian father. Vice versa it helps Canadian veteran fathers to trace a child born in the UK during or shortly after WW2.

Psychological assistance
Psychological assistance and help to find lost family members by publishing on the Internet is granted by the German association, "kriegskind.de e. V."

Second World War

 * (de) Ebba D. Drolshagen: Nicht ungeschoren davonkommen. Das Schicksal der Frauen in den besetzten Ländern, die Wehrmachtssoldaten liebten. Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-455-11262-5.
 * (de) Ebba D. Drolshagen: Wehrmachtskinder. Auf der Suche nach dem nie gekannten Vater. Droemer Knaur, München 2005, ISBN 3-426-27357-8.
 * (de) Alexandra Stiglmayer (Hrsg.): Massenvergewaltigung. Krieg gegen die Frauen. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-596-12175-2 (Fischer 12175 Die Frau in der Gesellschaft).
 * (de) Marc Widmann, Mary Wiltenburg: Kinder des Feindes. In: Der Spiegel, 22. Dezember 2006 (online-URL)

American war children

 * (de) Charlotte Wiedemann: "Der Zwischenmensch", Frankfurter Rundschau, 31. Oktober 2003 (Rudi Richardson, a war child now unwanted in the USA).
 * (de) Ika Hügel-Marshall: Daheim Unterwegs. Ein deutsches Leben. Orlanda Frauenverlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-929823-52-7 (Die Autobiographie eines „Besatzungskinds“, einer schwarzen deutschen Frau).
 * (de) Ika Hügel-Marshall: Daheim Unterwegs. Ein deutsches Leben. Orlanda Frauenverlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-929823-52-7 (Die Autobiographie eines „Besatzungskinds“, einer schwarzen deutschen Frau).

Canadian war children

 * (about Canadian war children).

War children in Belgium

 * (nl) Gerlinda Swillen: Koekoekskind. Door de vijand verwekt (1940–1945). Meulenhoff u. a., Amsterdam 2009, ISBN 978-90-8542-188-7 (Reports from 70 Belgium-German war children).

War children in France

 * . Time witnesses: discrimination and disadvantages, course of life, research for the unknown father.
 * (fr) Roberte Colonel, Où es-tu maman ?, Éditions Grand Caractère, 2005
 * (fr) Annette Hippen-Gondelle, Un seul jour, un seul mot. Le roman familial d'une enfant de Boche, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2011. (ISBN : 978-2-296-56161-8)
 * (fr) Suzannne Lardreau, Orgueilleuse, Éditions Robert Laffont, Paris 2005
 * (about French war children).
 * (translation of French original).
 * (fr) Francois Pairault: Un amour allemand. Geste Éditions, La Crèche 2011.
 * (fr) Nadia Salmi: Des étoiles sombres dans le ciel. OH Éditions, Paris 2011.
 * (fr) Francois Pairault: Un amour allemand. Geste Éditions, La Crèche 2011.
 * (fr) Nadia Salmi: Des étoiles sombres dans le ciel. OH Éditions, Paris 2011.
 * (fr) Nadia Salmi: Des étoiles sombres dans le ciel. OH Éditions, Paris 2011.

War children in Norway

 * (the authoritative resource on Lebensborn in Norway and available in Norwegian).
 * Eystein Eggen, The Boy from Gimle, 1993.
 * (no) Borgersrud, L.: Staten og krigsbarna: en historisk undersøkelse av statsmyndighetenes behandling av krigsbarna i de første etterkrigsårene, 2004
 * (no) Ellingsen, D.: Krigsbarns levekår: en registerbasert undersøkelse, 2004
 * (no) Borgersrud, L.: Vi ville ikke ha dem: Statens behandling av de norske krigsbarna, 2005
 * (no) Ericsson, K. & E. Simonsen: Krigsbarn i fredstid, 2005
 * (no) Ellingsen, D.: Krigsbarns levekår: en registerbasert undersøkelse, 2004
 * (no) Borgersrud, L.: Vi ville ikke ha dem: Statens behandling av de norske krigsbarna, 2005
 * (no) Ericsson, K. & E. Simonsen: Krigsbarn i fredstid, 2005

French war children

 * . Shown by German TV: Phoenix on January 2, 2010, 14h–14h45. (Wehrmachtsauskunftsstelle Berlin, discrimination of mothers and children, French association of war children ANEG, family reunion of siblings with common German father, with corresponding French mother or corresponding German mother).
 * . Shown by regional German TV SWR/SR on December 2, 2009, 20h15–21h. Meeting of German-French children stemming from a German soldier stationed in France, or vice versa from a French father stationed in Germany, search for their fathers. Interview with the president of French association of war children ANEG.


 * A Woman in Berlin (2010), drama based on an anonymous journal, about German women struggling to survive during the Russian invasion and occupation