French-German romance during occupation...

[L. Kafka]

I read years ago that with the Normandy invasion in 1944 a good many romantic relationships between German soldiers and French women were disrupted, often terminated. I'm speaking of genuine relationships here, not the pay-per-use type. I believe it was historian John Keegan who mentioned this in an Esquire magazine article and spoke of the four years of German occupation that made possible romantic relationships in small town settings where occupation often settled down to a daily reasonable interaction between said parties.

Curious if much has been written about this...

[Michael N. Ryan]

I heard about that, but there's not available on the subject. Just as there's not much written about it in Holland and Belgium though somebody in Fieldgrau wrote a string covering the subject of how the Wehrmacht covered pregnancies fathered by their soldiers with local women. There's a lot available about the relationships between German soldiers and women of the Channel Islands though.

There's more written about how local resistances mistreated women who fraternized with German soldiers after the allies took over.

[Simon Orchard]

Not just French women of course but wherever you found soldiers billeted in a country relationships would form. Nationality mattered little.

The most famous result of such a relationship must surely be Annafried the dark haired girl from 70s supergroup Abba. Her mother came from a north Norwegian village and her father was a German officer stationed there.


Happened to me too. I met my wife whilst on deployment to Norway with the British Army.

[Dackel Staffel]

Hi,

We have a joke about that in France :
A french woman said that during the war, she resisted but after six months she had to give up....Hans was too handsome
About the fraternization :
When there are a lot of young men and a lot of young women, don't be surprised, mother nature always find a way. It works everywhere whatever the nationality.
Don't forget too than more than 1 million of german POW were in France during 3 years after the war. A lot of them were employed in the farms and lived there. So some of them have found the rest of the heart and the soul with a farmer's daughter.

So long.

[Marc Binazzi]

Such romances often were NOT terminated after D-Day and last year, on the occasion of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the allied operations in Normandie the medias paid more attention than usual to the fate of some 50.000 children born from a German father to a French woman around the year 1944. Unfortunately many of these children had a very hard time in their youth because of the resentment against the German invader but now, these people, who are about 60 year old, are getting out of the closet and many of them have atttempted, and succeeded to get in touch with their German relatives and globally these unexpected French step-sisters or brothers are pretty well accepted there. And they have come over the shame of their origins. One of these children, Gerard Lenormand, was a famous singer in the years 60/70 and he stunned his audience once when referring to his German father in a song.

Incidentally, I am surprised that the French/German romance stuff seems kind of recurrent on this forum, like there had been nothing of the like in the other countries occupied by German troops. I just wish to mention as an example that in the Channel Islands, the German authorities had to advise the troops against being too friendly with the natives because of the large number of relationships that developed.

And I will say nothing about German women having affairs with French POW during the war.....

[L. Kafka]

Most societies seem to have trouble accepting outsiders as romantic interests or spouses. Even in America in the not so distant past marrying a Britisher would be cause for some degree of derisive humor and quips.

A German war veteran bringing home a French woman or whatever I suspect would have caused a good bit of concern among his family and friends, especially if she didn't speak German.

[Michael N. Ryan]

I have a book, WAR BRIDES by Elfrieda Shukert and Barbara Scibetta, which is about the war brides American soldiers braughthome from Europe and Asia. It is interesting reading, especially the interviews of German and Japanese women who married American soldiers. They seem to have integrated into American society quite well.

I don't know how a German family might have reacted to a son bringing home a bride from a country that was once an enemy. But in the time Life book war time Germany I have read an acount of a German family whose daugher married a Danish worker during the war. They got along with him quite well.

Still accounts of these tings are hard to find.

[max painless]

What about German soldiers and Italian or Greek woman? I'm getting excited just thinking about it. The bedroom dialogue would have me rolling ~sMiLe~

[Hans]

My mother brought home an ex Polish POW. No one in the family said a word against him, including the ex German soldiers in the family. These became his best friends (says something about REAL soldiers). The family was devastated when we left for Australia, I think not so much for losing us, but losing their Polish brother in law etc.

Interestingly he even got along with my fathers' (KIA) side of the family, including my mothers' ex mother in law.

Don't forget divisions amongst nations are CREATED by politicians, not the people.

- Hans

[L. Kafka]

In America I have notice something of an ethno trend where Italian-American men are married to Polish-American women. What tends to be the ethno trend in Europe is this regard?

[max painless]

I have not noticed that trend? I think Italians tend to marry Italians or anglo's/germans. I need to have an Italian wife, in order to keep the gene pool diverse. Either that, or marry my girl friend who is every color of the rainbow. cherokee/black foot, Irish, African. She's hot though. 36 C's, killer ass, and a smile that melts the snow off my car.

[Alex Dekker]

To repeat what I did post (many times) before: My (Dutch) grandmother got pregnant by a German Unteroffizier. He never came back after the war, though he did survive. It never was a real problem within our family.

The only book which covers the story in German is Ebba D. Drolshagen, 'Nicht ungeschoren davonkommen Die Geliebten der Wehrmachtssoldaten in bezetzten Europa' (München 2000, ISBN 3-612-26709-04). She mentiones a few books from Norway and France. As for Dutch literaute: nothing, except a few stories of children who's parents did join the NSB.

It's estimated that about 20,000 to 25,000 children were born, who's father was German, while the mother was Dutch.

ALex

[sid guttridge]

Hi L Kafka,

The following might be useful to remember in this connection: The Germans held nearly a million male French prisoners of war into 1945 and hundreds of thousands of French workers were conscripted as labourers in Germany. As a result there was a massive deficit of prime male manpower in France over 1940-45.

By contrast the Germans continuously deployed over a million mostly young men of their own in Western Europe, mostly France.

In these circumstances masses of amourous liaisons were inevitable.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Ada]

AFAIK the most known proGerman Frenchwoman was Coco Chanel.

[Andre]

I know that the fate of French women who had relationships with the occupying Germans was very varied after the war, usually depending on where they lived.

In certain areas, usually where the Resistance movment was particulary strong and active, these women were often harshly treat after the war. It was known for women to be dragged into the streets and have their hair shaved off and to be humiliated and verbally assualted. Life was made pretty miserable for themand often they would leave the area.

From what I can gather though this was not the case everywhere, and sometimes it literally varied from village to village.