The Second World War fuelled a maelstrom of death and destruction on an unprecedented scale, leaving millions homeless and hungry in its wake. By mid-1945, after Germany was partitioned into four occupation zones, the military authorities and UN mandated humanitarian organizations entrusted with the care and maintenance of refugees and displaced persons began the difficult task of reconstructing a continent that was in moral and physical ruin. This task proved especially difficult in postwar Germany, where tens of thousands of unaccompanied children were left displaced, orphaned, and abandoned by the harsh realities of war. Mandated to clothe, feed, rehabilitate, repatriate and resettle refugees and displaced persons found on German soil, the military authorities and humanitarian agencies introduced children's policies that ushered in a new spirit of humanitarianism, one which regarded the unaccompanied child as a new category of postwar 'refugee'.

[No Keywords available]

resettlement policy Germany policy approach post-war policy implementation refugee Child Welfare planning history social history