„Mass detective operation“ im befreiten Deutschland: UNRRA und die Suche nach den eingedeutschten Kindern nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg

Abstract

“Mass Detective Operation” in Liberated Germany: The UNRRA and the Search for Germanized Children after the Second World War Abstract The largest transnational organization after the war was the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). It established a Child Search Section within its Central Tracing Bureau as a central clearing point for all matters regarding the surviving children of Europe. As of 1946, the tracing of Germanized children from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and ex-Yugoslavia stood at the centre of its activities. These children had been kidnapped by Lebensborn e. V. and the National Socialist People’s Welfare (Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt), raised as ethnic Germans, and eventually lost their native identity. Many of them had become attached to “their” German families. This article illuminates the UNRRA’s methods for locating Germanized children and shows how the UNRRA attempted to renationalize them. Finally, the author argues that many of these children were confronted with a “second traumatisation” after the Second World War. ----- Bibliographie: Buser, Verena: „Mass detective operation“ im befreiten Deutschland: UNRRA und die Suche nach den eingedeutschten Kindern nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, JB historie, 1-2016, S. 347-360. https://doi.org/10.3224/jbh.v8-9i1.30