Evacuation: Children in Germany

The bombing campaigns carried out in Germany by the Allies during the war led to largescale destruction of housing stock, factories and infrastructure, especially in the cities. Many people were injured or killed, despite air raid shelters and early warning systems.

Evacuation programmes were meant to protect the civilian population, especially the young. In Britain, up to 3 million children were evacuated to the (safer) countryside. In Germany, it is estimated that around 2.5 million children took part in the Nazis’ evacuation scheme, the ‘Kinderlandverschickung’ (KLV; literally: sending children to the countryside).

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In Germany, the true purpose of the evacuation programme was masked. Instead, the trips were called ‘recreational’. In KLV homes across the country, run by the Hitler Youth, children were exposed to Nazi propaganda and paramilitary drill. Many were very homesick.

The KLV evacuation programme did not always succeed in sheltering the children from the effects of the war. Toward the end of the war, German children were increasingly brought in to help with the war effort.

One such girl is Eleonore (aged 16), who had to help out at the train station in Sagan (Silesia), where many refugee trains carrying ethnic Germans from the East came through. In a school essay, she wrote: “We had to unload 30 children from the wagon who had hypothermia. They were all dead.”

Eleonores Essay

 

 

(Essay written by Eleonore, Nuremberg 1946. Stadtarchiv Nürnberg, Nachlass Barthel, E 10/1 Nr. 84/10. Translated from the German by Joy Winch, Emmanuel College, Gateshead, 2015).