German childhood in World War II
"[7] The concept is unquestionably aimed at a generation that spent part of its childhood in Germany during the Second World War, "for whom – without necessarily being threatened by organized annihilation – experiences of violence, separation, and loss were, at least to some degree, impacting their life".
Even though the authors were primarily focusing on adults, they provided an impetus for later research on war children where the symptoms described by the Mitscherlichs were also found.
Ermann recalls "feelings of guilt [...] as a result of the Holocaust"[9] and the "refusal to remember during the years of the Wirtschaftswunder", the economic miracle after the war.
[22] And the author Alexandra Senfft,[23] the granddaughter of the war criminal Hanns Ludin, recalled the taboos: "To deal with the crimes of one's own relatives hurts, it makes you afraid and sad."
[24] "Politically more volatile" was probably the feared "accusation by Shoa survivors" that "looking at war children" could lead to "relativize the murder of the Jews".
The answer clarified that "it was not a matter of opening up a ‘victim competition’ but, on the contrary, classifying one's own differentiated experiences into the European memory, as well as identifying the suffering due to the silencing of the ‘deeds’ by the parent generation.
Bode noted that while 70 years after the end of the war an "academic review" had taken place – by representatives of various scientific disciplines – but that only recently an "emotional process" had begun.
[29] For Raed Saleh, a German politician, the discussions about the term revolve around a question that "remains unresolved": "How does Germany define its national identity"?
On February 18, 2017, during a radio program titled There must be an end to it – Remembrance Culture in Germany – Ulrich Gineiger published a report about the pros and cons of this issue.
In 1934 one of the most powerful publishing houses of that period released a guidebook by Johanna Haarer – one of the well-known women in Nazi Germany – on the topic of infant care.
[32] In her critical analysis of this and another book on child-rearing by Haarer, Sigrid Chamberlain concludes that child-raising and education in Nazi Germany and the early post-war years are characterized by coldness, harshness, and indifference.
While Chamberlain had investigated the question of how it was possible to carry the ideology of the time into the nurseries, Hans-Peter de Lorent has been researching the socialization in the educational systems since the 1980s.
"[36] In 2016, after years of research, using the city of Hamburg as an example, de Lorent published an 800-page book[37] on the profiles of those teachers who taught war and post-war children in the schools of Germany.
"The so-called De-nazification had largely failed in the school system", wrote journalist Uwe Bahnsen in his discussion of de Lorent's book.
It was linked to the "ideology of heroism in National Socialism" which in an "unspoken way resonated in the processing of the Second World War, the Nazi period, and in post-war Germany.
Through the media they learned about the Nuremberg trials and were also witnessing societal efforts to restore a kind of normality which looked very different in the two parts of the country after the division of Germany.
In addition to Bode, Ermann considers the war children to be a "generation of the inconspicuous" that has "produced only a small number of significant personalities".
As a pioneer and one of the most important representatives of Psychohistory – a theory which is considered controversial – he connected the individual experience of the war children to the consequences that have broader societal impact.
Andrea Bauer summarized the results of various studies and concluded that "children between 5 and 9 years of age experience the greatest vulnerability as they are very aware of the events, but do not yet have sufficient coping strategies".
[53] On December 7, 2014, a documentary film by Ina Held,[54] titled Journey Into an Intact World: German War Children in Switzerland was broadcast.
And being startled by something banal, like the sirens of fire trucks passing by, or the creeping discomfort when a lonely plane flies over a dark blue sky in September.
In this context, she pointed to protective factors: "Most of the war children succeeded in keeping their memories of fright at bay, especially by immersing themselves in work.
[58] At the Frankfurt Congress in 2005, psychoanalyst and author Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber [de] spoke about a long-term study in which several scientists participated, stating that it had shown "a higher than expected" number of patients suffering from consequences of the war: "Long-term physical damage due to poor nutrition, problems with self-care, psychosomatic complaints, loneliness, escape into achievement, empathy disorders, identity, and relationship disorders.
"[59] Ermann's research showed that war children today are much more likely to suffer from psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression and psychosomatic complaints than the population at large.
‘These people suffer from recurrent, relentless war memories, anxiety attacks, depression and psychosomatic complaints,’ says Ermann, and very frequently cramping, accelerated pulse rate, and chronic pain.Besides Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) – which many authors view as a possible consequence of war – Ermann added "latent symptoms" which he had identified in preparation for his research project: "Many still have nightmares of attacks, traps, violence, struggle, escape.
Age-related helplessness, but also 'retirement' – and therefore less distraction due to work issues – can bring the unprocessed trauma back closer to the surface of consciousness and lead to symptoms.
There is, however, the risk that the post-traumatic symptoms are not recognized and misinterpreted as age-related depression or somatic symptoms.Radebold, as Ermann, has researched war children and specializes in the psychotherapy of the elderly.
[52] He reminded "professional groups working in psycho-social and old-age related fields" of the urgent need to "provide updated knowledge and information".
The woman bites and screams and lashes about, re-experiencing sexual assault.In 2013, German broadcaster ARD presented a documentary by Dorothe Dörholt about war children in old age.
The project Old People and Traumata – Understanding, Testing and Multiplication of Interventions and Training Opportunities, was funded by the Ministry of Health, Emancipation, Care and Old Age of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, between 2013 and 2016.
