‘Children Are to Be Regarded as Propaganda’: Contradictions of German Occupation Policies in the Child Evacuations to Switzerland,1941–1942

In early 1941, Red Cross officials, under the watchful eyes of German occupation authorities, selected destitute and sickly children from Belgium and northern France and sent them on special trains to neutral Switzerland. After living with Swiss families for three months, the children returned to Belgium and France to resume their wartime lives. In this way, they were able to survive the war a little longer.

This massive operation was chiefly organized, funded and operated by a coalition of Swiss charities that, due to the increasing popularity and scope of the operations, merged with the national branch of the Swiss Red Cross in early 1942. This organization, Kinderhilfe des Schweizerischen Roten Kreuzes (Swiss Red Cross Children’s Help), evacuated over 60,000 French and Belgian children for three-month periods during the Second World War. By capitalizing on the existing Red Cross infrastructure in occupied territories, the political neutrality of the Swiss Red Cross and Swiss federal government, and the financial generosity of Swiss citizens, Kinderhilfe’s success extended into other wartime initiatives for foreign children. These activities included a large sponsorship programme (consisting of small monthly stipends to destitute families), the recuperation of tuberculosis-stricken children in sanatoria and preventoria in Swiss alpine resorts, and the establishment of various Swiss-run children’s homes in both France and Belgium. ¹ The three-month evacuation programmes continued into the post-war era, resulting in Switzerland hosting 100,000 additional children from various European nations until 1949.

Although Kinderhilfe’s initiatives are some of the most successful transnational humanitarian operations during Second World War, they are not well-studied aspects of European history. More recently, historians have examined Swiss humanitarian actions and are questioning the prevalent post-war historiographical condemnation of Switzerland’s strict refugee policies and its so-called ‘neutrality’ in light of its close financial collaboration with Nazi Germany. ² Some Swiss scholars, such as Antonia Schmidlin (1999) and Serge Nessi (2001), have explored how the Swiss government used many wartime humanitarian initiatives to serve foreign and domestic political purposes. However, these studies utilize only Swiss archival materials or interviews with Swiss Red Cross workers, thus contextualizing them within Swiss, rather than European, history. No study has yet examined German documents to determine the German occupation authorities’ reasons or motivations for allowing these initiatives, particularly the unusual child evacuations, to occur.

The most remarkable aspect of these wartime child evacuations from occupied France and Belgium was the fact that they were conducted with the full consent and authority of the Nazi occupying authorities. These children (unlike the millions who were evacuated throughout the German Reich) were not sent to Nazi youth camps for training and political indoctrination, but instead were dispatched to benefit from foreign assistance in a neutral country beyond Nazi control. Moreover, these foreign children were selected by Red Cross officials on the basis of health, rather than for their racial heritage, as became the case with other Nazi-endorsed evacuations. ³ Therefore, why would the Military Administration for German-occupied Belgium and Northern France allow such evacuation measures? Who authorized these evacuations? Why were they authorized? And, equally important, why were they terminated?

Conversations documented within a German Propaganda Ministry file found in das Bundesarchiv in Berlin-Lichterfelde reveal that the Propaganda Ministry, the Reich Transport Ministry, the Reich Party Office (on behalf of Hitler) and the Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France struggled to agree on the evacuations’ immediate impact upon the children and local populations. Although the evacuations from Belgium began in February 1941, it was not until January 1942 when various high-ranking officials in the Nazi elite began to oppose the evacuations. The significant differences of opinion within German departments attest to the controversy of the evacuations within Nazi circles, and eventually led to Hitler’s termination of the Belgian programme in May 1942.

This article will analyse these crucial discussions to highlight that the commanders of the Military Administration of Belgium and Northern France believed they were exerting more control over the local population through these evacuations and, in turn, were actively achieving Hitler’s goals for German supremacy. Ian Kershaw’s concept of ‘working towards the Führer’, whereby Nazi commanders had a wide scope to achieve what they perceived to be Hitler’s goals, allowed commanders in the outlying territories to implement contentious policies to deal with local conditions. Although this ‘drive from below’ has been used to partly explain the increased brutality in the eastern territories, ⁴ it can be similarly applied to these child evacuations, whereby the commanders in the western occupied territories interpreted that their orders could be best executed through other measures, even if they were, paradoxically, humane.

Moreover, throughout these conversations, a power struggle between the local commanders in Brussels and the Nazi elite in Berlin culminated in Hitler’s intervention. In May 1942, Hitler terminated the Belgian evacuations on the basis that child evacuees would become incited to commit acts of sabotage after they returned to Belgium and France. Although others, including Hitler’s personal doctor, refuted this argument on the basis of a lack of evidence, the argument itself is based upon the larger ideological belief that children possessed significant agency and autonomy. Considering the larger youth movement in Nazi Germany, Hitler’s justification aligned with the Nazis’ overall attitude towards children during this period, who were viewed as politically conscious and persuadable. This article will thus explore how the Nazis’ perceptions of children’s agency and power in these evacuations became another weapon of further exploitation and control.

Given the massive diplomatic and material challenges of the Second World War, it is surprising that many of Kinderhilfe’s initiatives, especially the large transnational evacuation of vulnerable, foreign children, were generally effective. This article takes the position that although Kinderhilfe’s evacuations may be shrouded in the historiographic baggage of Switzerland’s questionable ‘neutrality’ or politically-fuelled ‘humanitarianism’, and while bureaucratic consent was granted by one of the most brutal regimes in modern history, this merely underlines that the motivations behind ‘charitable actions’ are never apolitical. This article does not seek to morally redeem any particular party in this complex operation, but to highlight the contradictions within German occupation policy in western Europe. By doing so, it will, first, demonstrate that these child evacuations were one unique interpretation that (although eventually terminated) implemented the broad aims and policy objectives of Nazi ideology and, secondly, that children’s value became central to this bureaucratic struggle. Ultimately, regardless of the desperate local conditions that children faced, including intense hunger and disease, these evacuations were crudely and insensitively manipulated for political gain by both local commanders and the Nazi elite.

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After the German invasion in May 1940, Belgium and small portions of northern France (including Lille in the northwest, Valenciennes in the northeast and Arras in Pas-de-Calais), were placed under the command of the Wehrmacht. It is important to emphasize that French children were selected for evacuation within both occupied northern France (ruled through the administration in Paris) and the lesser-known Military Administration of Belgium and Northern France (headquartered in Brussels). For the purposes of transparency, this article will exclusively discuss the selection of children chosen from those portions of France and Belgium under Brussels’ control.

Belgium suffered considerably under German occupation. According to historian Martin Conway, the German authorities had three goals: to extract the maximum of both human and material resources to serve the German war effort, to ensure the maintenance of order within the country, and finally, to lay the basis of a more long-term Germanization of the nation. ⁵ The core issue immediately after occupation was to make Belgium self-sufficient so that it would not rely on precious German supplies. Also, reviving the national memories of 1914 to 1918, during which Belgium had been devastated by extreme loss of life and unrelenting food shortages, was to be avoided at all costs. Therefore, Germany recognized that maintaining a pre-war standard of living was essential. ⁶

In 1939, Belgium was the most densely populated country in Europe, with 8.39 million inhabitants within just 11,779 square miles of territory. Second only to Great Britain, Belgium was also the most industrialized country in Europe, with 48.9 per cent of its work force employed in industry and mining. Whereas the rural northern provinces, inhabited by Flemish-speaking Belgians, tended to be poorer and economically undeveloped, the south and east French-speaking areas under the Military Administration’s control were the most heavily industrialized outside Paris, providing the majority of France’s coal ⁷ . The poor restructuring of these industry-rich areas to produce self-sustaining agriculture in the early years of occupation resulted in thriving black markets, rising hunger and widespread food shortages. ⁸ According to one study, Belgium had the third lowest calorific value of normal rations in Europe in 1941 (1360), after Italy (1010) and Poland (845). ⁹ In 1942, Belgium had the second lowest weekly bread rations (1575 grams) of any occupied territory after famine-ridden Greece (1260 grams). ¹⁰ Such statistics suggest that Belgium had the lowest food rations of all countries in western Europe from 1941 to 1942.

Children were among the first to suffer. A report prepared by the Belgian Commission for the Study of Post-War Problems examined 15,000 boys and girls between the ages of three and 18 in Brussels in autumn 1940. This report determined that 38 per cent of children over the age of 14 were underweight and that 80 per cent of all children were debilitated and always hungry. ¹¹ Poor diet left many susceptible to disease and malnourishment. In Nord-Pas-de-Calais, two epidemics of typhoid in late 1940 and in the summer of 1943, and diphtheria during the winter of 1942–43, severely affected the population. Soap and hot water were difficult to obtain, resulting in a rise of dermatological diseases. Moreover, chronic malnourishment led to serious vitamin deficiencies amongst children. Children aged 6 to14 were at greatest risk, gaining only 9 kilograms on average between the years of 1938 and 1944, as opposed to the more usual 18 kilograms. ¹² As the occupation continued, reports submitted to the British Foreign Office in January 1941 conveyed the very grim food situation: ‘If no relief in the way of wheat or other substitutes arrives by February 15, there will be no grain of any kind in Belgium’. ¹³ Another report emphasized the regular struggle Belgians faced to locate adequate provisions; daily rations of only 125 grams of bread and 35 grams of meat were extremely difficult to procure regularly; vegetable provisions were sufficient but nearly 20 times their pre-war price; and potatoes had not been available for the previous two months. ¹⁴ By 1 June 1941, one report stated that the only issue which occupied the minds of Belgians was food – even the word ‘famine’ was used. ¹⁵

Despite these severe food restrictions, angry or violent reactions from Belgian parents and children were uncommon. Although resistance within Belgium and northern France took on various innovative forms, including thriving black markets and regular strikes in industries, the dire food situation actually contributed to rising anti-Allied sentiment. Mr Klecker claimed on 21 July 1941, ‘The people in Belgium have a growing grudge against the Americans for not ensuring the feeding of the civil population’. ¹⁶ Mr Van Damme pointed out ‘The situation gets worse every day – the people will not forget for a very long time that the blame for it rests on England and America’. ¹⁷ Despite the Belgian ministers (in exile in London) petitioning the British government for soup kitchens, milk shipments and basic necessities, the Allied blockade against German-occupied Europe was unyielding. ¹⁸ And although Belgian attitudes became more pro-Allied after Germany increased its persecution of Jews in mid-1942, such letters and actions reflect whom Belgians held most culpable for their suffering in the early stages of occupation.

The German commanders of Belgium and Northern France were Military Commander Alexander von Falkenhausen and, Head of Military Administration, Eggert Reeder. ¹⁹ Not only were these men unusual choices for commanding strategically-important Belgium, but historians claim their administration was more conciliatory than others. Von Falkenhausen was the son of a Baron and nephew to the commander of Belgium during the First World War, but his own accomplishments hardly recommended him for this role; he was a conservative and worldly diplomat, having been attaché in the Ottoman Empire, Japan and Chiang Kai-shek’s China, and was much older than his peers in other occupied territories. At the age of 62, von Falkenhausen was plucked out of retirement and sent to Brussels, alongside Eggert Reeder, a former Prussian civil servant who was immensely resourceful and had a reputation as a fair administrator in Catholic western Germany, where he had served in Aachen and Cologne in the 1930s. Reeder was wary of the Nazi Party, having only joined in 1933 (likely for careerist purposes), and was particularly protective of his own administration in terms of the Gestapo, whom he viewed as disruptive and fanatical. ²⁰

Von Falkenhausen and Reeder dominated Belgian policy implementation at the expense of other Nazi party departments. ²¹ Unlike the occupying regimes in Prague, Poland, Norway or Austria, which installed SS-dominated civilian governments, or even puppet governments, von Falkenhausen and Reeder successfully protected their military administration from SS intervention until mid-1944. At the core of the conflict between the Military Administration and Himmler’s SS were the interpretations of Belgium’s racial and political position in Hitler’s Europe. ²² For example, immediately after occupation, von Falkenhausen and Reeder initiated a close relationship with the pro-German Flemish nationalists, the Vlaams Nationaal Verbond, which stood in stark cultural contrast to Himmler’s favoured group, the right-wing Walloons who were willing to fight for the Germans and eventually formed an elite SS unit on the eastern front. From 1940 until 1944, the Military Administration and the SS, propped up by the internal nationalist movements and tensions, bickered relentlessly about Belgian policy. In July 1944, Hitler dissolved the Military Administration and installed an SS government and, by September 1944, Brussels was liberated by the Allies.

The infighting between the Military Administration for Belgium and Northern France and Nazi Berlin departments would not be limited to the SS, as will be discussed. Instead, this bickering extended into other local policies that von Falkenhausen and Reeder implemented in early 1941. Shortly after the food situation became very grim, negotiations began regarding the evacuation of Belgian and northern French children to Switzerland by Kinderhilfe. Similar Swiss-led evacuations from southern Vichy France had been successfully practised since November 1940. But the issue became about providing adequate resources for these war-stricken children, as the Swiss borders were too overwhelmed by 28,000 French POWs who had not yet been repatriated. Fortunately for Kinderhilfe, this crisis was short lived. ²³ In January 1941, the German and Swiss governments signed an accord to formalize the transfer of interned troops. In February, thousands of French soldiers returned to occupied and unoccupied France. In that same month, Odette Micheli, a well-connected Swiss delegate for Kinderhilfe working with the French Red Cross, was able to secure the necessary German authorization for child evacuations from occupied France. ²⁴ Kinderhilfe was then the first foreign agency allowed into blocked areas, such as Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne. ²⁵

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Although children from occupied France and Belgium had been regularly evacuated to Switzerland since February and May 1941, respectively, it was not until mid-December 1941 that a high-ranking Nazi, Erich Hilgenfeld, questioned the appropriateness of the evacuations. ²⁶ This marks the beginning of the documented dissention within Nazi circles about these child evacuations. ²⁷ Belgium’s second-in-command, Eggert Reeder, became embroiled in explicit discussions with Berlin to justify the Belgian evacuations and explain their reasoning on behalf of the Military Administration, and his boss, von Falkenhausen.

Erich Hilgenfeld had been a central figure in Nazi welfare activities since the early 1930s, when he had been appointed to lead the Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (National Socialist Welfare Association, or NSV). ²⁸ It is important to note for this discussion that Hilgenfeld himself was controlling and exploitive, and used his power to eradicate the competition, whether perceived as other rival organizations or specific Nazi officials. By absorbing smaller self-help charities (for the blind and deaf), expropriating the assets of rival socialist welfare organizations and displacing other Nazi-approved charities, such as the Protestant Inner Mission and the Roman Catholic Caritas Association, Hilgenfeld’s NSV ballooned into the second largest mass Nazi organization (after Ley’s German Labour Front). ²⁹ Jewish agencies were excluded from charitable councils and even the German Red Cross was purged of its elitist image through new civilian welfare responsibilities that were approved by the NSV. By 1938, the funds raised were only to be disbursed with Hilgenfeld’s approval; some charities only received 12 to 15 per cent of the funds requested and, by 1939, all funds were terminated on the grounds that the NSV had larger responsibilities in the new annexed lands of Austria and the Sudetenland. ³⁰ But Hilgenfeld’s controlling management structure proved successful. By 1939, the NSV had over 12.5 million members, or 15 per cent of the population, over 1.5 million volunteers and 80,000 paid workers. ³¹

During the war, the NSV (in conjunction with other Nazi departments, such as the Hitler Jugend (HJ, or Hitler Youth)) operated child evacuations to Reich territories less threatened by aerial bombardment. This initiative was called the Kinderlandverschickung (KLV) programme, or ‘Save the Children in the Country’. Although the goal initially was to protect child evacuees physically, this was modified as bombing increased in 1942 when the evacuations ‘provided a new avenue through which to integrate the physical protection of Germany’s children and their incorporation into the Volksgemeinschaft’. ³² Children under aged 10 were sent to host families, sometimes with their mothers, while children over aged 10 were sent to one of over 9000 KLV camps. ³³ Camps were located throughout the greater Reich, including Poland, Hungary and Denmark. Adolescents often went to HJ camps, which provided military training to prepare young people for service in the army. Although evacuees’ experiences varied according to their age, the type of evacuation, and the persons running the camp, these short holidays (which the Nazis would not label ‘evacuations’) were opportunities for children to absorb National Socialist ideology through marching, singing, political lectures, modified curriculums, all without interference from parents. ³⁴ Although evacuations were never compulsory, it would have been hard for parents to rationalize keeping their children in zones under aerial attack, especially as the Allied bombings increased in the last years of the war. By 1945, it is estimated that some 200,000 special trains had transported approximately two million German children to as many as 12,000 KLV or HJ camps. ³⁵ Such statistics and these wide-ranging initiatives denote that the Nazi government mobilized children and valued them as politically active beings involved in the welfare of the state. The NSV (and HJ) therefore exploited children’s vulnerability in war to serve its own political ends.

It is critical to note that most non-German children in the occupied territories were excluded from NSV-led evacuations. This was likely due to the practical challenges of mass evacuations in the midst of war, and the increasingly distinct racial criteria that governed the selection of evacuees. Rather remarkably, Belgium was an exception. Early in the occupation, in 1941, the NSV and the pro-Nazi Deutsche-Vlämische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (German-Flemish Working Group or ‘Devlag’) ³⁶ started to evacuate Flemish and Walloon children to Germany. ³⁷ Presumably, children from both (ethnic) groups were selected as they were threatened by aerial bombardment. As a result, Belgian children benefited from NSV-evacuations to the Reich for six-month periods and were subjected to significant hype and propaganda. For example, in September 1941, Walloon evacuees were greeted on their return from upper Austria to the Rogierplein, a major plaza outside of Brussels’ North Station, with large swastika flags, banners in Flemish that ‘warmly welcomed’ the children, and a full uniformed marching band. ³⁸ As many as 10,000 Belgian children were evacuated in 1941 alone. ³⁹ While this demonstrates that Belgium – unlike, for example, Poland – was to be strategically integrated within the greater Reich’s racial identity, Belgian children were also selected for evacuations according to their parents’ collaboration in war industries or volunteering for joining the Germany army. ⁴⁰ Even if children were selected initially due to concerns over aerial bombardment, the archival evidence and blatant propaganda surrounding the departures and arrivals of evacuees undermines any arguments that these evacuations were undertaken solely due to concern for the health of the child. ⁴¹

Despite these NSV evacuation efforts, the commanders of the Military Administration of Belgium and Northern France continued to authorize the evacuation of Belgian children to Switzerland. Unlike the NSV evacuations, the Swiss Kinderhilfe evacuations employed the local Red Cross to select children based upon health criteria; the children’s condition was often exacerbated by poverty and the shortages of food and medicine arising from the war. Similar to the KLV evacuations, parents were not forced to send their children, but, arguably, the Swiss evacuations may have been viewed by some as more favourable due to the absence of Nazi agencies and ideological aims. Importantly, the Swiss evacuations were shorter, three-month respites, which directly targeted and monitored the health of the child.

But Hilgenfeld, having learned about these (non-NSV) Swiss Kinderhilfe evacuations, was extremely displeased. In December 1941 and January 1942, he raised a series of objections to his boss, Propaganda Minister Goebbels. Hilgenfeld remarked that the use of non-NSV agencies to conduct separate evacuations, including the Belgian Red Cross, could ‘hardly be seen as an advertising campaign in favour of the German side’. ⁴² He also questioned the exceptionalism of Belgium, arguing that the NSV exercised total control in the other territories (for example, Poland) where such evacuations had been rejected – so why was Belgium any different? ⁴³ Finally, Hilgenfeld claimed that von Falkenhausen was not only evacuating children to Switzerland, but might expand operations to Sweden. ⁴⁴ Historically speaking, this was not outside the realm of possibility as Sweden’s neutrality and popularity as a host for foreign children had already been well established by 1942. ⁴⁵ But the NSV, Hilgenfeld argued, had already transported thousands of children from Belgium to Germany, which thus proved that von Falkenhausen’s evacuation scheme ‘can be achieved also without the utilization of foreign and supranational organizations’. ⁴⁶ Hilgenfeld rejected further transportation measures and urged that the evacuations be stopped immediately.

Reeder offered a carefully measured reply a short time later. First, Reeder clarified that ‘[a]s a result of nutritional difficulties, children in Belgium experienced extraordinary symptoms of disease last year. We have therefore intervened [by evacuating Belgian children to the Reich]’. ⁴⁷ This indicates that the German occupiers initially undertook the evacuations as a direct response to food shortages and disease. Although this might appear charitable, Reeder would further argue (as will be discussed shortly) that food shortages threatened public peace and order and, therefore, would undermine Nazi occupation. Secondly, Reeder maintained that the initial evacuations had been in cooperation with the NSV (‘guided by one of us’), and offices had even been established in the pro-Nazi Devlag headquarters (a German-Flemish Working Group). ⁴⁸ Reeder admitted this created significant propaganda for the Reich, indicating that the positive response of these evacuations from German civilians was also a major reason for their implementation. However, Reeder explained, this had also caused significant problems for von Falkenhausen because the Military Administration had met with significant resistance from (unspecified) Belgian circles. ⁴⁹ In response, the Belgian Red Cross organized evacuations to neutral Switzerland. Reeder concluded that to prohibit special trains for children from Belgium would also prevent any evacuations carried out by the NSV. ⁵⁰

Reeder’s response is revealing. It indicates that domestic tensions between the Military Administration, the NSV, the Devlag, the Belgian Red Cross and other ‘Belgian circles’ were unfolding in the background to such an extent that Switzerland, the only neutral body that any group could endorse, was selected as the solution. Thus, these tensions played a significant role in the occupation authorities’ policies, which directly undermined the NSV’s attempts to gain more power in von Falkenhausen and Reeder’s realm. Importantly, the concern about propaganda both within Belgium and within the larger Reich was a major concern and, fundamentally, implied that children (and perceptions of saving them) were politically and ideologically influenced.

This did not yet resolve Hilgenfeld’s concern. In early February 1942, Martin Bormann, head of the Party Chancellery (representing Hitler and the Nazi party’s interests), replied to Reeder directly, claiming that a major challenge to these evacuations was the especially difficult winter traffic conditions. ⁵¹ Indeed, such traffic problems had previously prevented a number of convoys from Belgium to Switzerland. Also, Bormann insisted that the completely unacceptable anti-German sentiments in Switzerland should not be allowed to have any propagandistic influence over Belgian children. In fact, Bormann pointed out ‘children are to be regarded as propaganda’. ⁵²

The influence of propaganda over children was a strong argument in favour of already prevalent Nazi attitudes about children, which were based upon broad social and historical experiences. ⁵³ Nazi Germany’s approach towards children contained not only a strong ideological dimension, but also a practical one. By indoctrinating and mobilizing young people, the next generation of Germans were ready to further the legacy of the Third Reich. As discussed, the NSV-operated evacuations capitalized on the vulnerable circumstances of children to begin indoctrination at a young age. The KLV camps that received evacuees were designed to teach political principles to children, such as memorizing Hitler’s life story, or engaging in ‘Strength through Joy’ activities such as dancing and sports competitions. ⁵⁴ In this sense, it was accepted that children became extensions of the state, thereby adopting Nazi doctrine into daily routines and intimate beliefs. ⁵⁵ Furthermore, evacuees were positioned to embrace a Nazi worldview without interference from the private family structure or Church leaders. This early indoctrination aligns with the state’s mobilization of adolescents, as indicated by the Hitler Jugend (HJ), which represents one of the most infamous paramilitary youth groups in European history. Not only did this popular movement preach Nazi principles of racial superiority, but it also prepared adolescents for military duty. ⁵⁶ Membership in the HJ was an astounding 98.1 per cent of all German youths between the ages of 14 and 18 in 1939. ⁵⁷ Although evidence suggests that some children actively resisted such activities and that even some of those who willingly participated were not convinced by the regime’s basic principles, the HJ’s role in Germany society was paramount. ⁵⁸ Despite beginning as a type of recreational after-school activity, the HJ and its members became critical to the Reich’s efforts to encourage ideological cohesion amongst German families on the home front, and inspire confidence among troops on the battlefield, ⁵⁹ especially as the war continued and German military failures increased.

The Third Reich’s massive mobilization of children and generous acceptance of their role as ideologically fundamental to Germany’s national vitality indicates that children were more than just a vulnerable group in need of protection. Nazi doctrine viewed children as agents of political power, who should be valued for their ability to shape and influence the future German state. According to Tara Zahra, the connection between children and the survival of the state is often used by nations that perceive themselves to be threatened by or recovering from war, genocide and displacement. ⁶⁰ In the case of Nazi Germany, which Hitler repeatedly claimed (even during peacetime) was under attack from both domestic and external enemies, the German state deliberately nurtured children into believing that they were politically active beings with legitimate power and duty to shape the future of the Reich. While scholars, educators and campaigners today correctly argue that children have agency and infallible rights, which have historically been neglected or denied, it must be remembered that although children were told they had agency within the political system of the Third Reich, children were actually treated, to a great extent, as objects of state control with restricted powers. They were targets of indoctrination and perceived as easily malleable to the will of the state, even if those children were led to believe they had agency and power. Therefore, Bormann’s assertion that children were to be regarded as (targets and influencers of) propaganda, and therefore, easily manipulated by (questionable Swiss) political goals, was aligned with Nazi attitudes. Child evacuees’ exposure to foreign messages while abroad was, therefore, a reasonable argument to use against further evacuation measures to Switzerland.

Two documents submitted to the Propaganda Ministry for consideration expressed both condemnation and support for the evacuations’ continuation in February 1942. The first document (addressed to Leopold Gutterer at the Propaganda Ministry from a senior government councillor in the civil service identified only as Dr Hesse) outlined the very negative anti-German attitudes as conveyed in Swiss newspaper articles. For example, Hesse outlined one portion of the Swiss article ‘Wir Wollen Helfen’ in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, which states ‘We suddenly realize that in Greece, in France, in Serbia, in Finland, there is a child misery that has not reached our consciousness and our hearts, because [publicized] meetings, films and radio were forced for various reasons to represent this misery with the greatest restraint’. ⁶¹ Based upon this excerpt, Hesse argued that the Swiss believed ‘Germany is ultimately the sole culprit for the miserable condition of the children’. ⁶² He clearly took exception to the fact that the Swiss press failed to emphasize that Germany was not obliged to evacuate children but, nonetheless, ‘has done everything for the nourishment of civilians, to make nutrition and food supplies better’. ⁶³ This letter cautioned that Switzerland’s press campaign would inevitably muster all social classes in Switzerland and those abroad (who can access these messages) to have an even stronger anti-German attitude.

In contrast, the head doctor for the German Red Cross, Dr Ernst-Robert Grawitz (also Chief Doctor of the SS and, therefore, of all concentration camps, and eventually Hitler’s personal doctor), encouraged the evacuations. Grawitz’s letter to the Propaganda Ministry conveyed that, although the German Red Cross had not participated in the evacuations thus far, he supported the German Red Cross commissioner in Belgium’s request for transportation. ⁶⁴ Moreover, Grawitz pointed out that ‘the procedure is the same for the child deportations from occupied France to Switzerland and there had been no reported impact of any anti-German propaganda-influence on the children, which would have prohibited the continuation of these deportations’. ⁶⁵ Grawitz, interestingly, offered his opinion by using Switzerland as the common denominator between these evacuations. One interpretation could be that Grawitz challenged the anti-German attitudes among Belgian children as speculative and unlikely, because they did not occur in France. The other interpretation is that occupied France was more efficiently administered than Belgium, and attention should be given to the occupation regime. However, as Grawitz endorsed his colleague’s application for help with transportation within the same letter, it is more likely that he was offering support for the continuation of the Belgian evacuations.

Despite all the communications to the Propaganda Ministry, there is no evidence that Goebbels made any decision regarding the evacuations. Instead, one last letter from Reeder finally stimulated the Propaganda Ministry to finalize their decision, in accordance with the Führer’s wishes.

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On 18 March 1942, Reeder penned his final explanation to the Propaganda Ministry in an effort to justify the actions of the Military Administration. In three pages, his crisp and articulate letter reveals various motivations behind this unusual transnational evacuation.

Reeder asserted that the Military Administration welcomed the evacuations of children to a neutral country for three reasons. First, the ‘always increasing health problems of the Belgian children as a consequence of the lowest food rates of the whole population in all western territories … endangers the public peace and order’. ⁶⁶ No emotional, descriptive or statistical embellishment was offered to provide evidence that children or parents threatened local stability or unmanageable social unrest. Secondly, he stated that such conditions would ‘impair the necessary readiness for the voluntary collaboration of the population for the full wartime economic exploitation of the country’. ⁶⁷ Predictably, the Military Administration wanted to convey that its interest mostly arose from a desire to better exploit the local population, rather than any charitable or humanitarian concern. Thirdly, Reeder added that forbidding such child evacuations to receptive countries could be used in Belgian propaganda to harm Germany’s occupation. ⁶⁸

Immediately following these justifications, Reeder reminded the Propaganda Ministry that if such evacuations to neutral foreign countries were deemed undesirable, then the Military Administration, naturally, would accept any decision as binding. Reeder also proclaimed absolute obedience to the Reich as he declared that the Military Administration, as direct result of these raised concerns, had suspended all evacuations from Belgium to Switzerland as well as all other plans for evacuations to other ‘neutral foreign lands’. ⁶⁹ Reeder and the Military Administration, it appeared, were keen to obey all commands.

Critically, the brief also included a personal note from von Falkenhausen. He amplified the neutrality of the operation by highlighting that the housing and selection of Belgian children in Switzerland was a responsibility of Switzerland’s Kinderhilfe (from the Swiss Red Cross), and not other Christian charities, such as the ‘Internationale Kinderhilfe’. ⁷⁰ Crucially, von Falkenhausen emphasized that the Kinderhilfe had integrated the independent medical judgments of the Belgian Red Cross, in cases where transport through the German Red Cross in Belgium was concerned. Therefore, von Falkenhausen stated, the possibility of ‘supranational forces’ somehow affecting the judgment of the Belgian Red Cross was not feasible. ⁷¹ Moreover, he claimed that children (aged 10 to 14) returning from Switzerland with anti-German attitudes had not (so far) been reported to any local departments, nor to the Propaganda Division. The letter closed with promises of readiness to obey.

A number of significant insights can be garnered from this letter. First, the concept of neutrality was heavily emphasized. The term ‘neutral foreign country’ (neutrale Ausland) was favoured when discussing the evacuations in theoretical terms, while ‘Switzerland’ was used when specifically referencing its role in some previous action. The political status of the receiving country was obviously a consideration for von Falkenhausen and, moreover, a persuasive argument in favour of continuing the evacuations. Also, von Falkenhausen’s stress on the objective impartiality of the Belgian Red Cross’s selection process underlines the apparent importance of neutrality within the charities involved in this operation. Neutrality, it can be argued, played a major role in the justification for, and the defence of, child evacuations.

Additionally, von Falkenhausen and Reeder’s comment about the lack of anti-German sentiments among adolescents, aged 10 to 14, returning from Switzerland offered another strong argument in favour of the evacuations. By drawing attention to the age of the children, von Falkenhausen also implied that these returning cohorts were not babies or young children, but in the persuadable age before and around entrance into the Hitler Youth (aged 12 and up). Also, despite Bormann’s insistence that evacuated children should not be exposed to Swiss influence, von Falkenhausen stated plainly that no evidence had been found to support such a claim. As it would probably have been impossible to manipulate or lie about such data held by the Propaganda Division in Brussels to the Propaganda Ministry in Berlin – both operated under the same administration – von Falkenhausen’s argument must have been based upon shared and accessible evidence.

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Less than a month after the Military Administration’s succinct justification and defence of the evacuations, the Propaganda Ministry in Berlin sent a telegram to the Propaganda Division in Brussels. It indicated that photocopies of news clippings had revealed two certain outcomes. ⁷² First, children evacuated from occupied zones to Switzerland were influenced by the Swiss general mentality (which was prevalently anti-German). ⁷³ Although any nation’s general mentality is arguably impossible to generalize (especially Switzerland’s due to its complex and controversial relationship with Nazi Germany), the earlier evidence of Swiss newspaper articles that negatively portrayed the Reich might have contributed to this argument. Furthermore, although the telegram acknowledged that this negative influence might not be immediately noticeable, such propaganda might eventually cause children to commit acts of sabotage, such as bomb attacks. ⁷⁴ Because no photocopies of these supposed news clippings were included in the archived file, and a suspicious lack of additional information in the memo failed to identify the news clippings, it is entirely possible that they may have been ‘misplaced’ or ‘forgotten’ when drafting this response. It is also critical to note that because this order came from a superior, it is unlikely that subordinate officers would question the evidence that justified the decision.

Secondly, the Propaganda Ministry claimed that these news clippings revealed the Swiss intended to launch an ‘open or covert’ smear campaign against Germany and German politics. ⁷⁵ This campaign would supposedly then condemn Germany’s child evacuation efforts to persuade readers to support further Kinderhilfe operations, and therefore undermine German policies in the occupied territories. ⁷⁶ This ambiguous argument alluded to (unattached) news clippings for evidence. This concern, however peculiar, also reflected the overlapping nature of the NSV and Swiss Kinderhilfe evacuations, in addition to the various competing agencies that sought control in Belgium (such as the SS). However, as discussed earlier and clearly argued by von Falkenhausen and Reeder, the tensions between these rival departments had resulted in the commanders selecting the Swiss Kinderhilfe operations in order achieve local policy objectives. In the absence of a collective forum for decision making, these commanders took control by choosing a method and organization that was arguably neutral, enigmatically altruistic and, yet, still politically motivated.

The controversy surrounding the evacuations of Belgian children to Switzerland for three month periods was resolved when Hitler gave his final negative decision. On 10 May 1942, Bormann informed Propaganda Minister Goebbels that Hitler shared Goebbels’ view and, therefore, the evacuations should not take place. ⁷⁷ The justification became clear on 18 May, when Bormann informed Reeder that Hitler terminated the evacuations because ‘in these countries the children would only be politically incited’. ⁷⁸ Within the same week, Bormann relayed Hitler’s decision to various offices: the SS Main Office, the Foreign Office, the Reich Transport Ministry, the Welfare Office for Ethnic Germans, the NSDAP Office for People’s Welfare and several Reich Security Offices (headed by Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler). ⁷⁹

Why did the Nazis terminate the evacuations to Switzerland? Ultimately (and despite the lack of tangible evidence to support such a claim), the Nazis stopped the evacuations because they believed that indigent, war-stricken children would be provoked to turn against the German occupation authorities to such an extent that they would subsequently commit acts of sabotage (such as bomb attacks). The news clippings attesting to rising anti-German attitudes by Swiss hosts (which were, interestingly, not attached to the Propaganda Ministry file) were a propagandistic ploy to terminate a major humanitarian enterprise in Belgium. By doing so, the Nazis hoped to limit the exposure of local populations to anti-German propaganda and therefore to strengthen their control within the occupied territories. Children’s health and well-being were not the primary considerations.

***

The tensions and infighting between the Military Administration in France and Belgium and the Reich ministries in Berlin over a local evacuation measure indicate that in the Third Reich ‘there was no real collective government in any sense’. ⁸⁰ Occupation policies, and how to achieve them, had not been clearly defined. The commanders responsible for extracting and exploiting local resources from occupied lands were thus left to their own interpretations and methods of how to best control their sphere of influence. As discussed, von Falkenhausen and Reeder not only bickered with the Propaganda Ministry and NSV about the child evacuations, but also with the SS about racial policy. Such tensions signified and echoed the polycratic nature of the Nazi system. In the absence of coherent planning and collective decision making in the Nazi leadership (beyond Hitler’s own role as a ‘linchpin’), the officials in the occupied territories were granted a wide scope to achieve what they perceived to be Hitler’s goals. Although this child evacuation obviously contradicts the infamous brutality of the Nazi regime, it is exactly these exceptions, contradictions and paradoxes that epitomized the Nazi leadership.

While it is not accurate to state that von Falkenhausen and Reeder were undertaking humanitarian operations in order to be humanitarian, they utilized this avenue of action as another tool of exploitation. In the absence of national or international law, Nazi commanders had ‘only their own ethical constraints [… to] set limits to what they regarded themselves as justified in doing’. ⁸¹ Some commanders may have felt uncomfortable using ‘humanitarian’ tactics to meet policy objectives, while others may have felt uncomfortable using brutality to achieve the same ends. This article reveals that von Falkenhausen and Reeder initiated the evacuations based upon the poor local food conditions and their negative effect upon the full exploitation of Belgium, the objective impartiality of the Red Cross to select the children and the political neutrality of Switzerland as the host country. These combined factors were evidently strong arguments for the evacuations’ continuation. By relocating hungry children from their parents to a neutral land that would feed and house them – crucially without any cost to the German authorities – labour production would increase. Parents’ concerns for their children’s health would no longer be a burden, and parents would be more likely to cooperate with local authorities. Humanitarianism, or any perception of its existence, was merely a by-product of a larger quest for control.

After the termination of the Swiss Kinderhilfe evacuations in May 1942, Hilgenfeld’s NSV was the only authority to evacuate children from Belgium and northern France. By June 1942, thousands of children were photographed departing Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent for KLV camps in Germany’s Black Forest, Baden-Württemberg, East Prussia and Austria. Departures and arrivals of children were orchestrated with great propaganda, including speeches from local Nazi leaders at train stations and even supplying children with little flags which depicted the Swastika on one side, and the Belgian lion on the other. While such propaganda stunts implied that children in the occupied zones could embrace multiple compatible national identities within the greater Reich, the victims of German occupation would have likely argued the reverse. Also, in stark contrast to the Red Cross photographs of the Swiss evacuations, many archived photographs of the NSV-led evacuations do not document the medical evaluations, sleeping arrangements, or negative emotional reactions of children and parents. Instead, photographs of the Nazi-operated child evacuations focus upon the pleasure and excitement of Belgian children and parents’ inclusion in the initiatives, as well as the harmonious leisure activities undertaken while holidaying in the greater Reich. This strategy implies that both Hilgenfeld and the NSV were acutely aware of the propagandistic benefit these evacuations could serve. But although Hilgenfeld’s objections to the Swiss Kinderhilfe evacuations were made on the basis of efficiency and irregularity of their conduct (which is quite reasonable considering the substantial NSV-operated evacuations to the Reich), it is extraordinary that the Swiss evacuations were not terminated on these grounds. Therefore, the role of the Propaganda Ministry and children as propaganda becomes amplified.

As discussed, Nazi Germany valued children as politically active and cognizant beings, who were capable of being influenced to specific ends. While this usually facilitated Nazi ideological aims and even its war efforts (especially when HJ graduates were then mobilized into the SS or the Reich Labour Service), ⁸² the belief that children were politically conscious was used against children in Belgium and northern France, and to their detriment. Although the Propaganda Ministry asserted that rising anti-German attitudes in Switzerland would elicit hostile (and even violent) tendencies in (starving) evacuated Belgian children, both the Military Administration and the Chief Medical Doctor argued that no evidence had been found to substantiate these claims. Despite the lack of evidence, both Hitler and Goebbels concurred that child evacuees in Switzerland would be exposed to political provocation and indoctrination. The vague references to news clippings of apparent anti-German Swiss sentiments were a convenient excuse to cease the evacuations.

Ultimately, the termination of the Belgian evacuations actually reveals that German authorities could not discontinue them simply on the grounds of efficiency, as proposed by Hilgenfeld’s NSV, but rather that evacuations had to be rejected based upon a stronger argument – the ideological confidence in the political agency of children themselves. Thus, the strong value of children, which was usually a positively held attitude in Nazi Germany and even led to the granting of moderate social autonomy to groups such as the HJ, was contorted so as to be used against the children themselves. Children’s perceived agency and power, in this instance, became another Nazi weapon for exploitation and control.

Despite Hitler’s orders, the Reich’s Foreign Office in Brussels was inundated with requests by various organizations to continue the evacuations. ⁸³ The responsibility to refuse these requests fell upon Reeder. His justifications portrayed the Reich positively, and even expressed gratitude to the ‘friendly Swiss government’ for its participation. ⁸⁴ Although the three-month evacuations ended in May 1942, small groups of tuberculosis-stricken Belgian and northern French children continued to be evacuated to Switzerland for convalescence for the duration of the war. ⁸⁵ These evacuations were carried out with the full authority of both the Military Administration and Hilgenfeld’s NSV, and were even immune to the Swiss border closures in the autumn of 1942. ⁸⁶ While it can be argued that German authorities wanted to remove sickly and contagious children from their sphere of control, these children received appropriate medical attention, rather than being overlooked by authorities in Belgium, or selected for extermination in a concentration camp.

When contextualized within the larger framework of Nazi occupation policies, these child evacuations are both unusual and atypical of Nazi leadership. The authorized use of neutral organizations to provide relief to a suffering group of foreigners under Nazi occupation is obviously remarkable and contradicts the tenets of this genocidal regime. Meanwhile, the intense infighting and inconsistent opinions of how to exert methods of control and fully exploit local populations epitomizes the polycratic nature of the Nazi regime. But perhaps such nuances and rare archival findings will bring attention to the many opportunities Nazi commanders possessed to achieve their vision. While some may have chosen more brutal initiatives, perhaps others could have chosen more charitable methods? As the article has shown, these ‘humanitarian’ evacuations were fundamentally employed to achieve a certain level of positive propaganda to prop up both the larger Reich’s ethos, and local parents’ morale; economic output would increase, while local populations would better cooperate with authorities. While this may not have been the first or last time that such paradoxical policies were implemented by Nazi occupation authorities, these child evacuations demonstrate that the Nazis would stop at nothing – including manipulating the perception of saving children – to meet their policy objectives.