Verdeckte Spuren deutscher Geschichte

Children of the Second World War are considered here as members of the age group born between 1939 and 1945. The development of these children was determined by coping with the early traumatization by war experiences. Many of them were left alone with their traumatization in the post-war period and obtained no support from the generation of the parents who were preoccupied with their own broken lives. As a consequence they have in common a strange split relationship to their own biographies lacking consciousness about the trauma. They became a self-alienated generation. They borrowed their identity from being concerned about others. By this they fulfilled the delegation given by their parents whose own lives were broken down. As long as the identification persisted, the trauma of the war period remained hidden and was transmitted to the next generation, to the children of the war children. When this dynamic can be detected in psychoanalysis and worked through there is a chance to assimilate emotionally this fate and to reach a positive war child identity. This thesis will be demonstrated by a case study.