Fundraising for the Dead. The Youth Work of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. and the Mourning Practices of the German Youth in Postwar West Germany, 1945–1960
Fundraising for the Dead. The Youth Work of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. and the Mourning Practices of the German Youth in Postwar West Germany, 1945–1960

Summary/Abstract: “Fundraising for the Dead. The Youth Work of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V the Mourning Practices of the German Youth in Postwar West Germany, 1945–1960,” looks at how the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V., the official German war graves organization, recruited young adults in the immediate postwar period, integrating itself into all aspects of the youths’ daily life: in schools, volunteer work, and summer camps and holiday trips. Almost immediately after the conflict ended, the Volksbund recruited young adults as agents not only for fact-finding missions aimed at identifying the dead, but also for its memorialization work. The youth’s role in early postwar grave work complicates our understanding of West German memory and reconciliation discourses in the period immediately after the Second World War, particularly the concept of the “inability to mourn,” and generational differences predating the ’68 student movement.

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