This volume addresses an issue that was until recently taboo: children fathered by Black American GIs who were stationed in Europe during and after World War II and whose mothers were local citizens. They were born into societies that defined themselves as White and rejected this extremely visible portion of the so-called occupation children.Black and White are in this volume not (only) understood as descriptions of skin color, but above all as social constructs and political categories with racist attributions and effects. The authors of the contributions examine the manner in which these mixed-race children and their mothers were treated by their societies and the respective authorities; they assess the experiences and self-understandings of the individuals affected; they discuss their institutionalization and the strategy practiced by the youth welfare agencies of giving these children up for adoption abroad; and finally they highlight how African American couples in the USA interpreted the adoption of these mixed-race children from Europe as an act of Black resistance against White supremacy.
Contents
Ingrid Bauer / Philipp RohrbachEditorial7
Articles
Kelly Condit-ShresthaAmerican Fathers, German Mothers, and “Brown Babies”: The Intersection of Race, Empire, and Kinship in U.S. Transnational Adoption13
Philipp Rohrbach“This Has Finally Freed the Welfare Agency from a Considerable Burden”: The Adoption of Black Austrian Occupation Children in the United States35
Lucy BlandThe War Babies of Black GIs and White British Women: Experiencing Racism and Exclusion and Searching for a Sense of Belonging57
Azziza B. Malanda“I Had a Dark Skin Color, That Was a Problem”: Race and Racism in the Child Welfare System in Postwar West Germany73
Ingrid BauerPost-World War II Interracial Relationships, Mothers of Black Occupation Children, and Prejudices in White Societies: Austria in Comparative Perspective91
Abstracts113
Reviews
Hellmut ButterweckJohannes Sachslehner, Hitlers Mann im Vatikan. Bischof Alois Hudal – Ein dunkles Kapitel in der Geschichte der Kirche119
Stefanie Wiehl / Katharina SeibertMichael Riekenberg, Gewalt. Eine Ontologie121
Authors125