Occupation Children Shunned in Post-War Germany and Austria
... Christa is one of 30,000 children thought to have been fathered by Allied soldiers in Austria in the decade after World War Two. Meanwhile it is estimated that about 400,000 children in Germany were fathered by the occupying soldiers, who came from United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. Germany and Austria were occupied by troops from the US, Britain, France and the Soviet Union after WW2. In German, these children were often described as "Besatzungskinder" - or "Children of the Occupation". They were born as the result of love affairs, short flings, "survival prostitution" and rape, says historian Barbara Stelzl-Marx, the author and editor of a new book Besatzungskinder: The children of Allied Soldiers in Austria and Germany. Many of the children - and their mothers - faced discrimination and social exclusion.
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