Die Frauen und Kinder deutscher Kriegsgefangener. Integriert, ignoriert und instrumentalisiert, 1941–1956

Abstract

With her book, Ann-Kristin Kolwes provides important new insights into the history of German prisoners of war (POWs) of the Second World War. Her study primarily emphasizes the history of the families of those who were taken captive. As Kolwes notes, ‘The absence of husbands and fathers was a mass phenomenon during the war, which characterized the everyday life of most German families, and even in the years after the war, the so-called incomplete family remained part of everyday life for many women and children’ (p. 8). Kolwes is quick to note, however, that conditions for families varied between the National Socialist, West German and East German states. Her work presents a comparative study between these three major political regimes across what would become the British and Soviet occupation zones. She organizes her work primarily around three chronological eras to explore what effect the status of a husband or father had upon their family during captivity. Across these three regimes, she gives insight into the welfare regimes for families of captives; societal attitudes towards the family, marriage and motherhood; and how politics and families dealt with the phenomenon of mass postwar captivity.