The Children's War

Synopses

The Programme

The programme uses the reminiscences of adults who were children in wartime. It covers three main areas:

1. Youth organisations: the experience of children in Germany
2. Evacuation: the experience of children in the UK
3. Schooling in Germany and Britain

01:10 - 07:29
Youth organisations: the experience of children in Germany

Footage

• Hitler Youth Band
• BDM marching in countryside
• SS military camp for boys
• family party
• SS on streets
• German economic recovery
• Nazi rally
• Anschluss

Commentary

• experiences of Hitler Youth and BDM
• conflicts between children and parents
• reactions to rearmament and policies to reduce unemployment
• Anschluss with Austria
• treatment of Austrian Jews

The memories of Horst Schaefer and Ilse Rhode of Nazi youth organisations open the programme. Horst's recollections explain why the Nazis were fairly successful in generating a good deal of support among German youth. The footage of the girls of the BDM marching in the countryside shows that much of the Nazi youth activity was similar to movements such as the Scouts or the early Communists. Ilse's memories of the girls' section of the Nazi Women's Movement, the BDM (League of German Maidens), suggest a similar experience to Horst.

This enjoyment and camaraderie belonged to the environment in which Hitler Youth leaders could spread their political ideas to the young, and effectively prepare a generation for Hitler's vision of a war of expansion. The military-style training camp and Horst's description of a rigorous selection process demonstrate this. Remember that there were also those who refused to co-operate, such as the Swing Movement and the Edelweiss Pirates.

Viewing Activity

Consider and discuss the similarities and differences between the experiences of Horst and Ilse.

Ilse then points to the darker side of childhood in Nazi Germany. She describes the tensions between parents and children. This was one of the many contradictions of the Nazi regime. While they fostered the notion of the family, at the same time children were encouraged to inform if their parents showed 'politically unreliable' opinions. Just the mention of the concentration camp seems to have had quite an effect here, confirming historians' views that propaganda and fear of the threat of action were probably more effective tools in controlling the population than actual action by the SS, police or Gestapo.

This is further reinforced by the footage and commentary from Horst showing the upside of Nazi Germany: economic recovery. Historians generally believe that there was a good deal of consent among Germans for aspects of the regime. The scenes of busy workshops, agriculture benefiting from investment, and pride for the autobahns and construction projects, all help to explain this consent.

It seems that Germans were prepared to tolerate the harsher aspects of the regime in return for the restoration of prosperity and pride, especially as a result of rearmament. The darker side of the regime was ignored, or avoided through fear of the Gestapo, exaggerated by propaganda.

This darker side is further reinforced by the narrator's commentary on the experiences of Jewish children. Jewish children were initially humiliated in mainstream education and eventually barred. Lore Prankett's experiences could be complemented by extracts from the Diary of Anne Frank or a visit to one of the many websites on Anne Frank. Lore's arrival in England provides the link to the next section, on evacuation.

Viewing Activity

Discuss: As a German child who had grown up with a Jewish friend, what would you have done? If your friend had asked you to hide him/her from the authorities, what actions would have been open to you, what risks would you have been taking, and how would you have acted?

07:29 - 11:37
Evacuation: the experience of children in the UK

Footage

• preparing for evacuation
• boarding trains and setting out
• allocating evacuees to hosts
• family scenes including evacuee
• children roaming the countryside

Commentary

• description of the scale of the undertaking and its mechanics
• matching refugees and hosts
• relations between evacuees and hosts
• freedom from control of parents

Evacuation was one of the most extraordinary experiences in Britain's social history. In an amazing mass movement of thousands of children, rural families took in children from the cities, many of them completely unprepared for a countryside they had never seen. There were many bad experiences, with complaints of the town children being badly behaved, smelly or even a health hazard. Other accounts do little credit to the rural hosts. However, many children later looked back with fond memories on their time in the country.

Recent historical research has attacked the myth of the 'dirty evacuee' as a form of anti-evacuee propaganda generated by those who opposed the forcible billeting of outsiders on their communities. An interesting exercise might be to compare the experiences of Moira and Marion with the impression given in this short extract from the Reader's Digest Life On The Home Front:

'On arrival there were "pick your evacuee" sessions where hosts haggled over the most presentable children while the sicklier and grubbier were left until last [...] Complaints of thieving, swearing, bed-wetting and general smelliness were made time and again against the "townie" children who came in disproportionate numbers from the slums and backstreets of Britain's big cities. Genteel spinsters and quiet bachelors were expected to cope with streetwise urchins suffering, perhaps, from scabies or impetigo.'

The comments by Moira about extra independence also have some resonance with the experiences of youngsters in Germany. Although youth organisations were strictly controlled, they did separate families from parents and create a separate youth identity. There was a similar effect with the evacuees. It was the first glimpse of a social revolution which was to take place with the emergence of the independence and financial clout of the teenager in the 1960s.

Viewing Activity

If Moira Jones and Marion had met, how and why would their stories of evacuation have been different?

11:38 - 18:35
Schooling in Germany and Britain

Footage

• going to school
• activities at school
• German children playing soldiers, and in school
• Jewish children in Jewish schools

Commentary

• country schools overcrowded
• city and country teachers sharing workload
• many children returned home
• school activities in Britain geared to civil defence
• activities in German schools geared to Nazi ideals
• Nuremberg Laws: curriculum and conditions in Jewish schools

Veronica Ellwood fondly describes what appears to be good-natured chaos in the evacuee schools. The commentary and footage allow us to compare the curriculum in wartime with that of today.

Viewing Activity

Watch and note down:

1. How the curriculum was similar to and/or different from today's curriculum.
2. How war changed the curriculum.

Klaus Lobeck's memories reflect the turning of the tide in the war for Germany. Renate Teller's comments give an indication of Nazi policies towards women. This is a subject of much debate. Some recent historians have shown that some women gained from the regime, especially once the rearmament programme meant there was a shortage of workers. However, it seems that most women were sidelined from the decision-making process. While the boys were trained to work or to fight in the armies, the girls were trained to be home-makers.

Gad Beck and Inge Deutschkron's contrasting recollections provide different perspectives on the same terrible experiences. You could consider Inge Deutschkron's moving statement that 'youth was cancelled', and explain what she meant.