49 Sodobni vojaški izzivi, junij 2017 – 19/št. 2
Contemporary Military Challenges, June 2017 – 19/No. 2
OD	SOVRAŽNIKA	DO	PRIJATELJA?	VETERANI
KOT	GONILNA	SILA	MEDNARODNE	SPRAVE	PO
DRUGI	SVETOVNI	VOJNI
Jörg Echternkamp
FROM	FOE	TO	FRIEND?	VETERANS	AS	A	DRIVING
FORCE	OF	INTERNATIONAL	RECONCILIATION
AFTER	THE	SECOND	WORLD	WAR
Povzetek
Ključne 
besede
Abstract
V 50. letih 20. stoletja so veterani druge svetovne vojne postali pionirji mednarodne 
sprave. V članku so z osredotočanjem na nemške in francoske vojake analizirane 
okoliščine, pojavitev in funkcije tega procesa v kontekstu zunanje in notranje 
politike Zahodne Nemčije. Postavljena je teza, da so organizirani vojni veterani 
sprejeli vzorce razlage in argumentiranja povojne družbe v Zahodni Nemčiji ter jih 
prilagodili svojemu konceptu zgodovine, da bi pridobili zgodovinsko samozavest. 
Predvsem pa so svoje mednarodno delovanje predstavljali kot evropsko pobudo 
o dogovoru. V nasprotju z 20. in 30. leti prejšnjega stoletja so bila prizadevanja
nemških vojaških veteranov v 50. letih 20. stoletja skladna z vladno politiko. Na
temelju pluralističnega kulturno-zgodovinskega ozadja so veterani vzpostavili stike
na lokalni, območni in regionalni ravni v procesu, ki ga lahko poimenujemo sprava.
Veterani, sprava, 50. leta 20. stoletja, Nemčija, Francija.
In the 1950s, World War II veterans became pioneers of international reconciliation. 
Focusing on former German and French soldiers, this article analyses the conditions, 
manifestations, and functions of this process within the context of West Germany’s 
foreign and domestic policies. The thesis is that organised war veterans accepted 
the patterns of interpretation and argumentation of post-war West German society, 
and adapted them to their concept of history for the purpose of gaining historical 
self-assurance. Most of all, they presented their international activity as a European 
initiative for a better understanding between nations. In contrast to the 1920s and 
1930s, the efforts of German war veterans in the 1950s were in accordance with the 
policy of the government. Against the backdrop of a pluralistic cultural-historical 
background, the veterans established contacts at the local, district and regional levels 
in a process that can be called reconciliation. 
DOI:10.33179/BSV.99.SVI.11.CMC.19.2.3
50 Sodobni vojaški izzivi/Contemporary Military Challenges
Jörg Echternkamp
Veterans, reconciliation, 1950s, Germany, France. 
War veterans of Hitler’s Wehrmacht, as pioneers for reconciliation after 1945? The 
idea that the very men who had just fought an ideological war, and subjected large 
parts of Europe to an exploitative occupation as members of the National Socialists' 
(NS) armed forces, might have become pioneers for peace and democracy in Europe 
is surprising. After all, the veterans of World War I had turned out to be revanchist 
warmongers. Nevertheless, it is one of the paradoxes of the second post-war period 
that former combatants assumed an important role in the process of international 
reconciliation in the early 1950s; my argument is that they did not put the recent war 
to the back of their minds, but rather adjusted what they had experienced during the 
war to the constellation of the post-war period at home and abroad by ascribing to it 
a specific meaning and making it "suitable for reconciliation" (Schwelling, 2012).1
As far as Germany is concerned, I will focus on the fields of activity, forms of action, 
mental dispositions, patterns of interpretation and argumentation, and symbolic 
practice in the specific historical context which enabled "reconciliation" (Wienand, 
2013) to take root. The fact that the source material is fragmentary and important 
sources are difficult or indeed impossible to access2 may explain why thorough work 
on the international and transnational dimension of the European history of war 
veterans has not yet been undertaken. However, there are some empirical studies, 
especially on the history of Franco-German relations (Roessner, 2010), on which the 
following reflections are based; they are also based on my own work (Echternkamp, 
2014) and on source analyses, in particular publications of associations, media 
reports, and memoirs. 
We will begin with the way in which the view of history and the self-image of 
West German war veterans were a precondition for reconciliation (Part 1), then go 
on to the organisation and initial official contacts (Part 2), and finally discuss the 
various associated fields of activities and forms of action (Part 3). At the end I will 
summarise my reflections, which extend the view into the period after World War I 
and are intended not least as suggestions for further research.
1 This article is based on my chapter “Veteranen als zivilgesellschaftliche Akteure der Versöhnung? 
Dispositionen, Handlungsfelder und Aktionsformen transnationaler Verständigung ehemaliger Kriegsteilnehmer 
in der frühen Bundesrepublik, in: CorineDefrance und Ulrich Pfeil (eds.), 2016. Verständigung und Versöhnung 
nach dem „Zivilisationsbruch“? Deutschland in Europa nach 1945 (= L'Allemagne dans les relations 
internationales / Deutschland in den internationalen Beziehungen, vol./Bd. 9), Brussels: P.I.E. Peter Lang, pp. 
443-463.
2 Until further notice, stock B 433 (VdH) at the Bundesarchiv, Abt. Militärarchiv, Freiburg i.Br., is not available 
for use for conservatory reasons (Information BArch-MA, Abt. MA 1, dated 19 Feb 2015).
Key words
Introduction
 51 Sodobni vojaški izzivi/Contemporary Military Challenges
FROM FOE TO FRIEND? VETERANS AS A DRIVING FORCE OF INTERNATIONAL RECONCILIATION  
AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR
 1 VIEWS OF HISTORY AND SELF-IMAGES AS FACTORS PROMOTING 
RECONCILIATION
Following a short phase of criticism during the immediate post-war period, against 
the backdrop of the Nuremberg Trials in 1945-46, the image of the Wehrmacht that 
rapidly spread was one in which its officers were presented as victims of a misused 
army and as soldiers who had nothing to do with the crimes committed by the SS. 
The myth of a "clean Wehrmacht" was henceforth the interpretative context in which 
former soldiers presented themselves as lovers of peace and staunch Europeans. 
This corresponded with an ahistorical representation which ignored the specific 
character of the national socialist war – the fusion of warfare and genocide – and 
instead used characterisations which signified a general validity. Against this 
backdrop, the home comers returning from imprisonment were able to develop a 
self-image which allowed them to see themselves on the one hand as "victims", 
and, on the other, to a certain extent also as experts, with a very special insight into 
the conditions and consequences of war and violence because of their experience 
of suffering. They regarded their experience of imprisonment as vital, not only 
for the societal integration of a German republic, but also for European unity in 
peace and freedom (Echternkamp, 2014; Schwelling, 2012). "Comradeship" and 
"honour": these often quoted key categories of a soldier's self-description could also 
be applied beyond their nationalistic elevation and used for other soldiers, like a set 
of professional ethics that took no heed of borders.
The captivity of prisoners of war was an additional and crucial chapter in their 
experience of war. This was particularly emphasised by the German War Graves 
Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge, VdH), which represented 
approximately 520,000 members in 1950 (Der Heimkehrer, 6 (3 Sep 1955) 9, p. 4.). 
The home comers regularly considered the facts of having been taken prisoner by the 
enemy and spending years in custody, particularly in the Gulags, both as the real acid 
test and as a time of reformation. The VdH spoke again and again of a community 
of people who shared the same experience or fate and who also included the civilian 
population (Der Heimkehrer, 6 (3 Sep 1955) 9, p. 1). By contrast, reports of those 
who had “harassed” fellow soldiers, or of deserters or defectors on the eastern front, 
served as negative foils against which the idealising image shone even brighter.
The use of this historical self-image of former Wehrmacht soldiers as a factor for 
inducing international reconciliation becomes more understandable when account 
is taken of the philosophical horizon of the 1950s and the threat perception in 
the conflict of systems. The Christian-Occidental worldview emanating from the 
interwar period was popular again for the last time during the 1950s as the Cold 
War ideology. The confinement of prisoners of war was seen in this context as the 
experience of a "mass society" incriminated by cultural pessimism. Consistent with 
their self-image, war veterans believed that their "becoming an indiscriminate mass" 
during the absence of freedom turned them into champions of the concept of the 
52 Sodobni vojaški izzivi/Contemporary Military Challenges
individual in freedom. In political terms, their idea was that only a united Europe 
could ward off the danger threatening the Occident from the East. Based on the 
Occident ideology, their interpretation of imprisonment inspired their enthusiasm for 
Europe, irrespective of the fact that different concepts of political order existed, thus 
creating a hotbed for international reconciliation with fellow soldiers from Western 
Europe. Traditional anti-communist attitudes did the rest.
2 FIELDS OF ACTIVITY, ACTORS AND SYMBOLIC PRACTICE
While the efforts to promote international understanding were only part of the veteran 
associations' work, their focus was on the search for missing soldiers, on assisting 
home comers and their relatives by providing medical care, accommodation and 
legal counselling, on political lobbying, and on the remembrance of soldiers killed 
in action. Nevertheless, international contacts were established as soon as a veterans' 
culture evolved in the new West Germany. This also went for the neighbouring 
French (Cochet, 1997; Roessner, 2010; Wienand, 2017). Even among former 
soldiers, Franco-German relations were a driving force in the reconciliation process. 
A comparison between France and Germany recalls the different structural conditions 
in the two countries. For example, imprisonment only really began in 1945 for many 
German soldiers, while for the French it ended that year. The demilitarisation policy 
implemented in the country of those who had lost the war delayed the veterans 
organising themselves and founding associations throughout the country until late 
into the 1950s, while in other countries, these associations formed shortly after their 
liberation, such as the Fédération Nationale des Combattants Prisonniers de Guerre 
(FNCPG) in France in November 1944. From the start, the Fédération's aim was to 
establish contact with equivalent organisations in other countries. There were soon 
international affiliations. In September 1949, a joint French, Belgian and Dutch 
initiative resulted in the founding of the Confédération Internationale des Anciens 
Prisonniers de Guerre (CIAPG); in 1950, the "International Federation of War 
Veterans Organization" (later: World Veterans Federation, WVF) was established 
in Paris. The first German war veterans association to join was theVerband der 
Kriegsbeschädigten, Kriegshinterbliebenen und Sozialrentner Deutschlands 
(VdK) (Schröder, Munimus, Rüdt, 2010; Donner 1960), which did so in 1953; the 
Reichsbund followed some time later (Die Zeit, 4 Sep 1958)3.
Achieving understanding with former Wehrmacht soldiers was at best a subordinate 
aim. Formal contacts initially developed between the eminent officials who 
represented their associations at events organised by third parties. The German 
reunions known as the Heimkehrer-Deutschlandtreffen (HKD) are an example of 
this. Delegations from Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands 
attended the 3rd HKD in Cologne, and reunions took place biannually until 1975. 
The only communist state to send delegates to Cologne was Yugoslavia, which had a 
special role in the eyes of the West since Josip Broz Tito's breakaway from the Soviet 
3 In 1960, the German section of the WVF was founded.
Jörg Echternkamp
 53 Sodobni vojaški izzivi/Contemporary Military Challenges
Union. This HKD was the first to be attended by representatives from American 
organisations, such as the committee of American Veterans (AMVETS), the 
association of World War II veterans (DH 10 (10 May 1959) 9, p. 1)4. The 3rd HKD 
was devoted to veterans' international networking activities. Beside the VdH flag, the 
flag of the World Veterans Federation (WVF) flew outside the Cologne exhibition 
centre. For the VdH, this was proof that it belonged to a multinational community 
of interests based on a transnational concept of comradeship. The "Der Heimkehrer" 
saw the WVF's symbol as a sign that "the strong comradeship between those coming 
home from war and imprisonment knows neither continental nor national boundaries 
when it comes to showing commitment to living in a free and peaceful world" (Der 
Heimkehrer (25 May 1959) 10, p. 1; (Wienand, 2017). European unification and 
international reconciliation merged into one objective. The attraction of the peace 
and freedom formula at home was its diachronic and synchronic ambivalence. It not 
only aimed to achieve disassociation from World War II and the national socialist 
dictatorship, but also the abolition of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) dictatorship in 
East Germany and the reunification of the two German states.
A special relationship existed between German and Austrian war veterans, as over 
1.3 million Austrians had served in the Wehrmacht (Grischany, 2015). There were 
therefore close contacts with the Österreichische Kameradschaftsbund (OKB). 
Association representatives at both national and regional levels did the honours (Der 
Heimkehrer 10 (25 May 1959) 10, p. 1). The chairperson of the Bavarian association 
represented the West German home comers on behalf of the VdH when the Austrian 
war veterans association Heimkehrerverband Österreich (HVO), established in 1957, 
inaugurated the home comers' memorial site at the Ulrichsberg, a mountain near 
Klagenfurt in Carinthia. The memorial carried a Christian message of reconciliation: 
a 20m high cross in memory of the soldiers killed in World War II. The memorial 
located in the tri-border area stands not only for the love for one's country, but also 
for “all the dead soldiers beyond national differences" and urges people to work for 
"international understanding and peace in a free and united Europe"(Der Heimkehrer 
10 (25 May 1959) 10, p. 1).
Finally, international war veterans’ associations also offered ideal opportunities for 
former Wehrmacht soldiers to establish and consolidate international and bi-national 
contacts. The CIAPG, the International Confederation of Former Prisoners of War, 
is a good example of this. A working congress of the confederation in Paris from 1 
to 3 September 1955 was attended by 150 German delegates as representatives of 
over two million front veterans (Der Heimkehrer 6 (8 Sep 1955) 9, p. 1). The VdH 
already had representation in Paris. Besides the national executive committee and 
the ten state chairpersons, the delegates included members of the advisory boards 
which had been established to deal with prisoner-of-war matters and political and 
medical issues. The congress even voted for a German, August Fischer, the first VdH 
4 AMVETS was founded in late 1944 in Kansas City, Missouri, and on 23 Jul 1947 recognised by Congress as a 
World War II veterans association.
FROM FOE TO FRIEND? VETERANS AS A DRIVING FORCE OF INTERNATIONAL RECONCILIATION  
AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR
 54 Sodobni vojaški izzivi/Contemporary Military Challenges
national chairperson, to be installed as its vice president. The major international 
event also attracted the interest of the people of Paris. The mayor of the city extended 
an invitation to a reception at the city hall, in the course of which Fischer was given 
the opportunity to sign the city's Golden Book. 
 3 FORMS OF RECONCILIATORY ACTION
The mechanisms of rapprochement, the social practice and cultural design of 
"reconciliation", and not least its political character, stood out very clearly at the 
local and regional levels of German war veterans associations. International contacts 
were also established and maintained at these levels. 
One example highlighting the attendance of German war veterans at one major event 
of the equivalent French organisation was the national congress of the French war 
veterans’ association in Metz in early September 1959. Representatives of the VdH 
district association from Merzig/Wadern, in the west of the state of Saarland, travelled 
to Metz. There, they entered into a partnership with the Association des Prisonniers 
de Guerre du Département des Ardennes in Charleville. The twin towns of Merzig 
(Saar) and Charleville were tasked to "coordinate" the partnership at the local and 
Département levels within the framework of their twinning agreement. As in similar 
instances, institutionalised contacts centred on memories of the wars. The German 
VdH was convinced that this was the way to prevent "people from either side ever 
having to face each other with a weapon in their hands". Against the background of 
developments in the security situation –having rearmed, the Federal Republic acceded 
to NATO in 1955 after the project of a European defence community had failed in 
1954 – "Der Heimkehrer" had the hope that the Germans and the French would rather 
"support freedom together" (Gardner Feldman, 2012; 18 (25 Sep 1959) 13, p. 3).
In Metz, the chairperson of the Saar regional association, Helmuth Hinsicker, declared 
himself in favour of building "understanding" with the former enemy and “mutual 
trust”. In his speech, he referred to the outbreak of the war 20 years earlier and 
reminded the audience of the human and material losses. Hinsicker omitted disturbing 
questions concerning responsibility and guilt when he emphasised that those present 
"had confronted each other as soldiers, hence, as enemies, through no fault or volition 
of their own [...]" – as if millions of men had nothing to do with the political system 
under which they had served. This remark reflected the myth according to which 
the Germans saw themselves as victims. Hinsicker looked ahead when he called 
upon those present to "live" what they had “experienced” in war: through friendship 
and cooperation, for example, in the form of exchange programmes for children 
(Der Heimkehrer 18 (25 Sep 1959) 13, p. 1)5. Thus, personal contacts between the 
5 During the 1950s, the reception of "holiday children" was a well-known programme furthered by the VdH, which 
at the same time enlivened contacts between West Germany and Berlin. War veterans enabled children from the 
"afflicted four-sector city" to spend their holidays with the families of home comers, especially by the North and 
Baltic Seas. Cf. Berliner Ferienkinder in sonniger Sommerfrische, in: Der Heimkehrer 18 (25 Sep 1959) 13, p 3.
Jörg Echternkamp
55 Sodobni vojaški izzivi/Contemporary Military Challenges
families of war veterans and also "exchange partnerships" (Der Heimkehrer 18 (25 
Sep 1959) 13, p. 5) developed into a driving force for reconciliation.6
This practice not only applied to German-Franco relations. To develop contact with 
the Dutch prisoners of war association, the VdHEnnepe/Ruhr district association 
organised a bilateral "holiday initiative". The Dutch-German "exchange of children" 
programme in June 1959 helped place the children of war veterans from one country 
with families in the other (Der Heimkehrer 10 (25 May 1959) 10, p. 8). In late 
1959, the VdH general manager concluded that within one such "regular exchange 
programme", 7,000 members had travelled to another European country, while 1,000 
war veterans from abroad accompanied by their spouses had paid a return visit to 
West Germany (Der Heimkehrer 18 (25 Sep 1959) 13, p. 6). Traditional associations 
also ran similar exchange programmes, with German youth groups including children 
of former members of the 16th Infantry Division, for example, visiting France. The 
"Greyhound Division", as this major Wehrmacht unit was later called, participated 
in the Western Campaign in 19407. 
The binational exchange programme for former soldiers was closely connected 
with another evolving reconciliation model: partnerships between towns and cities 
(Defrance/Hermann, 2016)8. The dynamics worked in both directions. War veterans' 
contacts were used to promote partnership programmes, while the latter brought 
veterans into contact with each other.
By contrast, more controversy existed in the field of civic education, which was 
another means used to achieve understanding and reconciliation. Since the late 1950s, 
the local, regional and district level war veterans’ associations had been organising 
international seminars, "women's discussion weeks" and youth congresses at which 
people from different nations met. 
International solidarity initiatives can also be seen as a means for achieving 
reconciliation among war veterans. The "Europa-Hilfe" aid programme was one 
example of such a tool for providing material help. As early as 1958, VdH members 
donated DM 22,000 to assist their fellow veterans from Holland when the Netherlands 
had to take in nationals expelled from the Dutch East Indies, among them 10,000 
former prisoners of war. After all, they had each experienced the feeling of their 
countries "being overcrowded" with displaced people and refugees – this analogy 
6 To cite another example: When the chairperson of the local VdH association of Bochum-Wiemelhausen in 
North-Rhine Westphalia, Heinrich Schöppner, had a visit from the chairperson of the CIAPG of the 14th 
Arrondissement in Paris, Jean Taganti, they agreed to promote partnerships between former French and 
German prisoners of war. War veterans would regularly meet, accompanied by their spouses, and enable 
their children to spend their holidays in the respective neighbour country. Taganti who, by his own account, 
initially had to overcome doubts, asked for the addresses of neighbouring local VdH branches upon his return 
to Paris so that he could help build more partnerships. The sides agreed that the days of the "alleged hereditary 
German-Franco enmity" were over (ibid).
7 See the reports in "Der Windhund", here, specifically British soldiers visiting the "Greyhounds".
8 Cf. the list of current and planned partnerships in: Der Heimkehrer 10 (10 Sep 1959) 17, p. 2.
FROM FOE TO FRIEND? VETERANS AS A DRIVING FORCE OF INTERNATIONAL RECONCILIATION  
AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR
56 Sodobni vojaški izzivi/Contemporary Military Challenges
was drawn by VdH general manager Werner Kießling (Der Heimkehrer 18 (25 Sep 
1959) 13, p. 6). And when the Austrian alpine foreland was hit by thunderstorms in 
the summer of 1959, a number of VdH local branches sent financial donations to 
affected members of the HVO under the "Europa-Spende" programme. The VdH 
interpreted the solidarity between German and Austrian soldiers not only as a sign of 
comradeship, but also as an expression of a "European sense of community"9. The 
contact was linked to the European idea and acquired an ideal value, even an excess 
of utopia.
Another reason for criticising other countries was the state of German war graves on 
former battlefields. In their publications, associations made every effort to promote 
"war grave trips" to Western and South-Eastern European countries, and later also 
to North Africa (Der Heimkehrer (8 Sep 1955) 9, p. 7)10. Again and again, the 
associations' publications deplored the poor state of war graves on former battlefields. 
One thorn in their side was the difference between the graves of soldiers of different 
nationalities. They concluded that equality in death meant equal status in the design 
of graves. "Soldiers are equal in death, but their graves are not" was a complaint 
made by "Der Heimkehrer" with regard to a cemetery in France where American, 
British, French and German soldiers were buried alongside one another. 
International networking by association officials, international family and youth 
exchanges, educational activities with participants and lecturers from home and 
abroad, donation campaigns for foreign war veterans, municipality-level partnerships 
and trips to war graves in Western and Southern Europe: the various fields of activity 
and forms of action reflected the international dimension organised war veterans had 
achieved in West Germany. This variety showed that they were civil actors involved 
in a reconciliation process in which concern was shown both to foreign and domestic 
policy issues, in spite of the use of a rhetoric that was occasionally apolitical.
Did Wehrmacht veterans after 1945 become pioneers of reconciliation which 
upended previous enemy perceptions? This was the initial question. Let me sum up 
the results in three points.
Firstly, the organised war veterans accepted the patterns of interpretation and 
argumentation of post-war West German society and adapted them to their concept 
of history for the purpose of gaining historical self-assurance. Here, historical 
awareness was equivalent to European awareness, and international activity was 
presented as a European initiative for understanding. 
Secondly, the reconciliation efforts were helped by the domestic and foreign policy 
parameters and the mental disposition of the war veterans. As in the second half of 
the 1920s, the policy of rapprochement pursued by the then French and German 
9 Cf. the list in Der Heimkehrer 10 (10 Sep 1959) 17, p. 4.
10 For details on a trip to Greece, see DH 8 (25 Feb 1957) 2, p. 6.
Conclusion
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Jörg Echternkamp
 57 Sodobni vojaški izzivi/Contemporary Military Challenges
Foreign Ministers, Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann, was regarded by many as 
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Jörg Echternkamp
Povzetek
Ključne 
besede
Abstract