Children as a Tool of Occupation in the French Zone of Occupation of Germany, from 1945 to 1949

K H Adler

doi:10.3366/nfs.2020.0284

Abstract

This article explores the rather unusual establishment, by the French army of occupation in the French Zone of Occupation in south-west Germany, of holiday camps for French children, from 1945 to 1949. The camps catered for tens of thousands of French children who were brought from France to devastated Germany. The article argues that the army's major investment of time, personnel and material resources in these holiday camps, starting in the summer of 1945 immediately after the liberation of Nazi Germany, stemmed not only from concern for children's welfare, but from several ideological concerns that played out in occupied Germany and back in metropolitan France. It is based on extensive archival research in both France and Germany.

Highlights

This article forms part of my ongoing work on the French zone of occupation (Zone Française d’Occupation, ZFO) in Germany after the Second World War, to which I bring a gendered, intersectional, social and cultural historical approach
Rather than taking the perspective of the child, here I explore the endeavour from the point of view of the military, and will suggest that the establishment of a special military sector to run these holidays for children indicates more than simple benevolence on the part of the French army of occupation in Germany
One might read the welcoming of children into Germany, as part of the reinvigorated imperial project that General de Gaulle, among others, was insisting would form an important context for the re-establishment of a greater France on which the rest of the victorious world would bestow its admiration

Summary

Introduction

This article forms part of my ongoing work on the French zone of occupation (Zone Française d’Occupation, ZFO) in Germany after the Second World War, to which I bring a gendered, intersectional, social and cultural historical approach.

Results

Conclusion