Recommended Reading – Post-war children

Sabine Bode: “Nachkriegskinder, die 1950er Jahrgänge und ihre Soldatenväter”, 2011, Verlag Klett-Cotta ISBN 978-3-608-94678-9. (Translation: Post-war children, born in the 1950s and their soldier fathers.)

(DE) In this book, the author deals with childhood in post-war Germany, with upbringing by parents who were “forward-looking” and preoccupied with building up the country and its prosperity. Parents who were themselves influenced by the educational goals of the National Socialists and their ideals. But also and above all, these parents were severely traumatised by war, persecution, and flight. Many were severely injured in body and soul. Victims and perpetrators, often in one person. Supposedly, the only way to continue living, surviving and forgetting was to remain silent. And yet the parents’ trauma shaped the entire lives of the post-war children and even the lives of their children. In today’s world, this book is for me a powerful plea for the exclusively peaceful resolution of interstate conflicts. (SRG)