Questions of Identity in Children Born of War—Embarking on a Search for the Unknown Soldier Father

Abstract

Objectives
Children Born of War (CBOW) are important but largely uninvestigated populations. As a result of being fathered by a foreign soldier and born to a local mother, these children often struggle with identity issues and search for their absent fathers their whole lives. Despite CBOW being a part of every society, which has been involved in armed conflicts, there is almost no systematic research about them.

Methods
We provided a systematic insight into issues of identity that many CBOW face throughout their lives by assessing N = 146 German and N = 101 Austrian Occupation Children born after WWII. We applied a descriptive analysis of our quantitative questionnaire data.

Results
Our results suggest that CBOW were often not told the truth about their origin until they were adults. The older they were, the more the disclosure seemed to impact them. After learning the truth, almost all CBOW set out on a search for their biological fathers and wanted to get in touch. Approximately half were able to locate them but many of those had not contacted them eventually. German and Austrian Occupation Children report largely similar experiences.

Conclusions
Growing up as a CBOW can come with specific difficulties. Locating and getting to know their biological father seems to be a core aspect. It seems particularly important to CBOW to find out about similarities in personality and physical appearance. The possibilities to find their fathers, however, are extremely limited. Implications of the findings are discussed within the context of limitations and potential intervening factors.

Full text

Journal of Child and Family Studies (2019) 28:3220–3229
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-019-01501-w
ORIGINAL PAPER
Questions of Identity in Children Born of War—Embarking on a
Search for the Unknown Soldier Father
Saskia Mitreuter1●Marie Kaiser1●Sophie Roupetz1●Barbara Stelzl-Marx2●Philipp Kuwert3●Heide Glaesmer1
Published online: 4 July 2019
© The Author(s) 2019
Abstract
Objectives Children Born of War (CBOW) are important but largely uninvestigated populations. As a result of being
fathered by a foreign soldier and born to a local mother, these children often struggle with identity issues and search for their
absent fathers their whole lives. Despite CBOW being a part of every society, which has been involved in armed conflicts,
there is almost no systematic research about them.
Methods We provided a systematic insight into issues of identity that many CBOW face throughout their lives by assessing
N=146 German and N =101 Austrian Occupation Children born after WWII. We applied a descriptive analysis of our
quantitative questionnaire data.
Results Our results suggest that CBOW were often not told the truth about their origin until they were adults. The older they
were, the more the disclosure seemed to impact them. After learning the truth, almost all CBOW set out on a search for their
biological fathers and wanted to get in touch. Approximately half were able to locate them but many of those had not
contacted them eventually. German and Austrian Occupation Children report largely similar experiences.
Conclusions Growing up as a CBOW can come with specific difficulties. Locating and getting to know their biological
father seems to be a core aspect. It seems particularly important to CBOW to find out about similarities in personality and
physical appearance. The possibilities to find their fathers, however, are extremely limited. Implications of the findings are
discussed within the context of limitations and potential intervening factors.
Keywords Children born of war ●Hidden populations ●Vulnerable populations ●Conflict ●Identity
Children born of war (CBOW) is the umbrella term for
children, who have been born in connection with an armed
conflict with one parent (typically the mother) being a
member of the local community and the other parent
(typically the father) being a member of foreign military
forces or peacekeeping corps (Grieg 2001; Mochmann
2017). Those conflicts have happened throughout history,
still happen today and will likely continue to happen in the
future (Mochmann and Kleinau 2016). When military or
peacekeeping forces get in contact with the local commu-
nity, there have always been sexual encounters, which can
range from romantic relationships over amicable and mutual
“business arrangements”, prostitution or forced prostitution
to (systematic) rape of local women (Glaesmer et al. 2017;
Lee 2012). There has been some attention in media and
research to women experiencing war rape as in the example
of the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the 1990s,
but almost no attention to the children born of such rapes
(Glaesmer et al. 2012). However, children who were con-
ceived in more consensual kinds of relationships have been
even more neglected in public discourse even though there
is no clear evidence that is easier to grow up as a foreign
soldier’s child from a consensual relationship in a post-
conflict society than from rape (Mochmann and Larsen
2008).
CBOW are still a taboo topic in most societies and they
remain a hidden population often with limited access to
support networks. Maybe most is known about the children
born of World War II, who are now in late adulthood (Lee
*Saskia Mitreuter
Saskia.Mitreuter@medizin.uni-leipzig.de
1Department of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology,
University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
2Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on Consequences of
War, Graz, Vienna Raabs, Austria
3Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy,
HELIOS Hanseklinikum Stralsund, Stralsund, Germany
1234567890();,:
1234567890();,:
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2017). These children include for instance “Wehrmacht-
children”(children of German Wehrmacht soldiers in dif-
ferent European countries), “German Occupation Children”,
and “Austrian Occupation Children”(GOC and AOC;
children, whose father belonged to one of the four allied
forces based in Germany and Austria at the end of World
War II and whose mother is German or Austrian respec-
tively). Only in rare cases GOC and AOC grew up with
their fathers. Some soldiers returned back home voluntarily
without knowing about the pregnancy or they were aware of
it and left regardless. Others were relocated forcefully by
their military supervisors after their relationship with a local
German woman had become public. Forced relocation was
common particularly for Soviet soldiers, for whom intimate
contact with German or Austrian women was considered
treason (German women were suspected of spying for the
enemy; Stelzl-Marx 2012). Paternity suits and child support
claims were difficult to put through as foreign administra-
tions proved to be disobliging. In the case of former Eastern
Germany, as an effort to emancipate women, they were
made solely responsible for their children and hence did not
have the rights to officially claim support. Furthermore,
many women did not know more than the forename of their
child’s father, which is one main factor preventing children
from being able to find their fathers (Stelzl-Marx 2015).
In recent years, there has been first psychosocial research
showing that GOC were at higher risk for childhood mal-
treatment compared with a birth-cohort-matched sample
(Glaesmer et al. 2017), had significantly higher prevalence
rates of traumatic events and higher point prevalence rates
of full and partial posttraumatic stress disorder, depression,
and somatization (Kaiser et al. 2015), and had a more
insecure (dismissive and fearful) adult attachment style
compared to the general population (Kaiser et al. 2016).
Mothers and their CBOW often face severe social stigma
and discrimination (Aßmann et al. 2015; Stelzl-Marx 2015).
There are many other populations of CBOW about which
even less to nothing is known on a systematic level
(Mochmann 2017).
From testimonies of CBOW, it becomes evident that
issues revolving around the topic of identity might be
amongst the most fundamental challenges to them. Cultural
and biological belonging are two core aspects of identity
development. In their social environment CBOW often face
discrimination. This can stem from the stigma that adheres
to being born out of wedlock. But CBOW are also often
seen as children of the enemy or at least perceived as dif-
ferent to the others and are therefore marginalized or treated
differently. Many feel reduced to their fathers’origins and
feel they do not belong to the culture they have grown up in.
In this article, we will focus on the uncertainty about
their biological origin, which is a persisting aspect that
challenges their development and well-being (Lee 2017).
The question of identity, which origins in the past (“Where
do I come from?”) spans the whole life from present (“Who
am I?”) into the future (“Who will I be?”; McAdams 2001)
and leaves many CBOW with an impaired sense of
belonging and purpose. Almost all CBOW have grown up
without any knowledge and narratives about their fathers
and mostly even a conspiracy of silence around him. To talk
or ask about the father has often been an explicit or implicit
taboo in the families irrespective of the nature of their
parents’relationship. This has left many CBOW with
questions and doubts about who their fathers are and not last
who they themselves are. Albeit this being a core aspect in
the life of CBOW, there has been no study to date that has
systematically investigated the topic of identity in a CBOW
population. Fundamental questions remain unknown, for
example how groups of CBOW differ from each other in
their experience of being a CBOW; How and when the truth
about their biological origins is revealed to them; How the
father’s background as an (enemy) soldier influences their
stand in their communities and their self-perception; Why
and how do CBOW search for their unknown fathers; And:
If they locate and contact their fathers or family members,
how does this influence them and their sense of identity?
The aim of this study was to shed some light on these
issues by providing a descriptive analysis of questions
related to their fathers’biological origin, their search for
their fathers, and how they perceive and characterize
themselves in the context of being a CBOW, in a sample of
German Occupation Children and a sample of Austrian
Occupation Children born after WWII, who were on aver-
age 64 years old at the time of assessment, and to compare
the two groups.
Our questions were in particular: When was the truth
about their origin disclosed to German and Austrian occu-
pation children and what impact did this have on them?;
How does the father’s origin as an occupation soldier
influence their self-perception?; Is there a wish for contact
to the unknown fathers and what are CBOW curious to find
out about their fathers?; How many CBOW and how do
CBOW search for their fathers and how was an eventual
contact experienced?; and last: Do German and Austrian
Occupation Children differ in those respects?
Method
Participants
German occupation children (GOC)
We collected a sample of GOC (N =146) within the project
“Occupation children: Identity development, stigma
experience, and psychosocial consequences growing up as a
Journal of Child and Family Studies (2019) 28:3220–3229 3221
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German Occupation Child”. 184 questionnaires were sent
out and 164 were returned of which 9 had to be excluded
because they did not fit the definition of “occupation chil-
dren”. The participation rate was hence 88.6%, corrected for
neutral drop-outs. We excluded another 9 cases to correct
for outliers with respect to age, leaving 146 valid cases,
which were born between 1945 and 1966. 63% of the
sample were female with a mean age of 63.4 (SD =5.7)
years. 48.6% (n =71) of GOC had a US American father,
22.6% (n =33) had a French (or French-Algerian/-Mor-
occan/-Corsican) father, 21.9% (n =32) had a Soviet father,
4.1% (n =6) had a British father. Of those GOC, 9.9%
(n =14) were not sure about their fathers’origin. Overall
2.7% (n =4) did not know their father’s origin at all. More
information about the methodological approach, sample
characteristics, and background of the study are provided in
(Kaiser et al. 2015). The study was reviewed and approved
by the ethics committee of the Medical Faculty of the
University of Leipzig.
Austrian occupation children (AOC)
Subsequent to the data collection in Germany in 2013, we
collected a sample of Austrian occupation children (AOC;
N=101). A total of 164 questionnaires were sent out and
107 were returned of which 4 had to be excluded because
they did not fit the definition of “occupation children”and 2
were excluded because of too many missing values,
resulting in a participation rate of 63.9% and hence 101
valid cases, which were born between 1945 and 1966.
Overall 66.3% of the sample were female with a mean age
of 63.5 (SD =11.6) years. 38.6% (n =39) AOC stated to
have a US American father, 13.9% (n =14) a French (or
French-Algerian/-Moroccan/-Corsican) father, 25.7% (n =
26) a Soviet father, and 15.8% (n =16) a British father. Of
those AOC, 7.4% (n =7) were not sure about their fathers’
origin. 5.9% (n =6) did not know their father’s origin at all.
The study was reviewed and approved by the ethics board
of the first author’s institution and the ethics committee of
Graz University.
Procedure
German occupation children (GOC)
Participants were recruited via press releases, various
national and international networks (e.g. www.
childrenbornofwar.org;www.bowin.eu), and online-
platforms for occupation children and children born of
war in general (e.g. www.gitrace.org;www.coeurssa
nsfrontiers.com). Within these calls, we invited potential
participants to contact our research group to learn more
about the project and to leave their contact details. Inclusion
criteria were being born after 1940 to a German mother,
being fathered by a soldier of one of the foreign occupation
forces, and being able to understand and read the German
language. Questionnaires, a study information sheet, and
consent forms were subsequently sent to interested GOC via
postal mail. We collected the data between March and
December 2013.
Austrian occupation children (AOC)
Participants were recruited via a nationwide media cam-
paign initiated by the head of the Ludwig Boltzmann
Institute for Research on Consequences of War (BIK; http://
bik.ac.at/), including press releases in print media and on
websites of official institutions such as the BIK. We fur-
thermore reached out to potential participants via
announcements on national radio and television and through
personal contacts. The subsequent procedure was equivalent
to the German study. We collected data between October
2013 and October 2014.
Measures
Children born of war are a hidden population, which is dif-
ficult to access for researchers and whose specificexperi-
ences are not accounted for by established instruments
(Mochmann 2013). For this reason, we acted twofold: We
applied a participatory approach to develop questions and
items that—amongst other topics—address aspects of iden-
tity (e.g. search for father, questions about origin, back-
ground of procreation, and feelings of e.g. shame, pride, and
belonging) of GOC and AOC adequately. By inviting both
experts and members of the target group to actively colla-
borate in the designing of the questionnaire, we created
maximum proximity to the target group and ensured the
relevance of the topics covered and questions asked (Brendel
2002; Kaiser et al. 2016). To design the questionnaire, we
first derived and adopted questions about experiences during
childhood and adolescence and father’soriginfromexisting
literature in history and the social sciences (Chaitin 2003;
Mochmann and Larsen 2008;Mochmannetal.2009). Sec-
ond, items were analyzed during discussions in focus groups,
need analysis, and item ranking by GOC (N =4) and Nor-
wegian Wehrmacht-children (N =3) to ensure content
validity, completeness, and comprehensiveness (GESIS,
2013; Kaiser et al. 2016). Finally, four subjects of the target
group as well as expert colleagues from sociology, history,
and psychiatry pilot tested the questionnaire.
For the Austrian Occupation Children, we applied the
same questionnaire with some minor linguistic adaptations.
The German and Austrian complete versions of the ques-
tionnaire as well as their English translation can be
requested from the first author.
3222 Journal of Child and Family Studies (2019) 28:3220–3229
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Disclosure of truth about the biological father and its
impact
To assess how occupation children found out the truth about
their origin and what impact this had on them, we asked two
questions: “How old were you approximately when you
found out that your biological father was an occupation
soldier?”. To answer, participants entered their age: “__
years old”. And “Did you change as a person after having
found out that your biological father was an occupation
soldier?”. Participants indicated change on a 4-point Likert
scale ranging from 1 (yes, changed very much) to 4 (no,
didn’t change at all.)
The father’s origin and its influence on self-perception
To answer how participants perceived themselves as an
occupation child, i.e. their biological father being an occu-
pation soldier, we asked “In which way did your knowledge
about your father affiliated to an occupation force influence
how you see yourself?”. 11 items could be answered on a 4-
point Likert scale: (1) Strongly disagree, (2) Rather dis-
agree, (3) Rather agree, and (4) Strongly agree. Before the
Likert-scale, there was an option to score “Not applicable”.
We will discuss implications of this option later. To make
our descriptive analyses more straightforward, readable, and
clear, we dichotomized the item scores into Disagree
(Strongly disagree and Rather disagree)andAgree (Rather
agree and Strongly agree). Examples for items are “I felt
ashamed to be an ‘occupation child’” (reverse coded), “I
was proud of my biological origin”,“I didn’t have any
issues with my father’s biological background”, and “I often
had a feeling that ‘proper’Germans considered us inferior”
(reverse coded).
Reasons for curiosity about the unknown father and wish
for contact
Participants were asked “In which way was it important for
you to resolve issues around your biological origin, i.e. to
find out about being an occupation child and to find out
about who your parents are or who your father is respec-
tively?”Answers were scored on the same 4-point Likert
scale as above ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree)to4
(Strongly agree). Before the Likert-scale, there was an
option to score “Not applicable”. We also dichotomized the
scale as we described above. The 13 items included state-
ments such as “I needed clarity about a part of my life that I
couldn’t remember myself”,“Finding out the truth took a
great effort from me”,“I had missed to be part of a more
extended family for a long time”, and “It was important for
me to explore my biological origin, because my children
kept asking me about it”.
The search for their fathers and actual contact
Several short questions were posed to inquire about if and
how participants searched for their fathers and how the
eventual contact to them turned out. Exemplary questions
were “Did you search for your biological father?”, (1) yes,
(2) no;“If yes, how did you search?”, (1) alone, (2) with the
help of third parties;“Have you found your biological
father?”, (1) yes, (2) no;“If yes, have you contacted him?”,
(1) yes, (2) (no), and “If yes, how did the contact turn out?”
(1) Positive, because _________, (2) Negative, because
_________.
Data Analyses
To answer our research questions, we conducted descriptive
analyses using the software SPSS 24. We report percentages
and absolute numbers. To test the impact of their age at
disclosure (independent variable) on how much they felt
they changed as a person (dependent variable) we con-
ducted a linear regression analysis. For an initial missing
values analysis, we conducted t-tests for independent
samples.
Results
We conducted a missing values analysis for all study vari-
ables to account for potential bias and its impact on inter-
preting our results. The results of this analysis indicated that
missing values of our study variables were missing at ran-
dom. Age of the participants seemed to have a small effect
on the response behavior to three of the scale items of study
interest. Further, missingness on scale items was associated
with missingness on some of the other scale items as well.
Other than that, missingness on study variables was at
random and was also not associated with other socio-
demographic variables.
Parental Relationship and Background of
Procreation
All participants entered a valid response to the question
surrounding their background of procreation. Overall
68.5% (n =100) of GOC and 68.3% (n =69) of AOC
indicated that they were conceived of love, while 6.8% (n
=10) of GOC and 2% (n =2) of AOC reported to know
that they were conceived of rape. 17.8% (n =26) of GOC
and 22.8% (n =23) of AOC were not sure about the
background of their procreation and 6.8% (n =10) GOC
and 7% (n =7) AOC indicated that the parental relation-
ship was something other than the above (e.g. “business-
arrangement”).
Journal of Child and Family Studies (2019) 28:3220–3229 3223
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Disclosure of Truth about the Biological Father and
its Impact
Of 146 GOC, 142 and of 101 AOC, 97 entered a valid
response to the question about when the truth about their
origin was disclosed to them. Not more than approximately
one third of GOC (n =46) and AOC (n =36) knew about
their origin since they could remember or some point in
early childhood (between 3 and 7 years). Another third
learned about it in late childhood (8–12 years), while
another 13% (n =19) of GOC and only 5% (n =5) of AOC
learned about their origin after the age of 30. Six German
Occupation Children learned the truth about their origin at
the age of 60 or later. The mean age at disclosure was 14.94
years (SD =15.23) for GOC and 11.59 years (SD =10.10)
for AOC. More than half of the German and Austrian
participants indicated not having changed at all as a person,
while 15% in both samples report having changed very
much (GOC: M =3.10, SD =1.15; AOC: M =3.17, SD =
1.13). There is a small, but statistically significant tendency
that both, GOC and AOC experienced a stronger change in
how they felt as a person after finding out the truth the older
they were when it happened (GOC: t=−0.172, p< 0.05;
AOC: t =−0.208, p< 0.05).
The Father’s Origin and its Influence on Self-
Perception
Table 1shows the number and percentage of participants,
who had missing values or who indicated that the respective
item was irrelevant to them. Of the remaining responses,
81.3% (n =87) of GOC and 86.6% (n =71) of AOC stated
not having a problem with the biological origin of their
father. Only 16.4% (n =24) of GOC and 17.8% (n =18) of
AOC felt inferior to others because their father belonged to
one of the occupation forces or felt ashamed of being an
occupation child, but more than half of GOC and AOC
(62.1%, n =54; 71.1%, n =38) felt that the “proper Ger-
mans”or “proper Austrians”, respectively, considered them
inferior.
Reasons for Curiosity about the Unknown Father
and Wish for Contact
Table 2shows the number and percentage of participants,
who had missing values or who indicated that the respective
item was irrelevant to them. We subsequently report per-
centages of the remaining responses. When reporting why it
was important for them to know more about their biological
origin, over 80% (n =84 GOC; n =53 AOC) of both,
German and Austrian Occupation Children indicated that
the “black hole”in their biographies had been bothering
them for a long time and 69.2% (n =56) of GOC and
65.4% (n =36) of AOC agreed that this hole had been filled
due to learning more about their origin. Overall 93.5%
(n =100) of GOC and 92.8% (n =64) of AOC stated that
they were happy to learn more about their father and that it
“helped to put together pieces of the puzzle”, even if the
process of finding out took great efforts for many of them.
When we asked GOC and AOC why they felt the need to
find out more about their biological father, very few of them
wanted to contact their father about hereditary entitlement
(4.6%, n =2 of GOC but 11.1%, n =3 of AOC) or confront
him with the fact that he had abandoned them (34.9%, n =
22 of GOC but 53.3%, n =24 of AOC). Between 47.5% (n
=48) and 66.3% (n =67) of occupation children, however,
indicated that those two items did not apply to them, so the
valid cases were already few to start with (see Table 2). A
Table 1 Invalid and valid responses for items about the father’s
background and its influence on self-perception
German occupation
children
Austrian occupation
children
N%N%
“I did not have a problem with the biological background of my
father”
“Not
applicable”
24 16.4 14 13.9
Missing values 15 10.3 5 5
Valid responses 107 73.3 82 81.2
Total 146 100 101 100
Mean, SD M (3.32),
SD (0.95)
M (3.57),
SD (0.88)
Min, Max Min(1), Max(4) Min(1), Max(4)
“I felt inferior to others because my father belonged to the occupation
force”
“Not
applicable”
68 46.6 54 53.5
Missing values 12 8.2 7 6.9
Valid responses 66 45.2 40 39.6
Total 146 100 101 100
Mean, SD M (2.09),
SD (1.12)
M (2.20),
SD (1.22)
Min, Max Min(1), Max(4) Min(1), Max(4)
“I often had a feeling that the ‘proper’Germans/Austrians considered
us inferior”
“Not
applicable”
49 33.6 38 37.6
Missing values 10 6.8 10 9.9
Valid responses 87 59.6 53 52.5
Total 146 100 101 100
Mean, SD M (2.70),
SD (0.99)
M (2.81),
SD (1.13)
Min, Max Min(1), Max(4) Min(1), Max(4)
All items were scored on a 4-point Likert-scale: (1) Strongly disagree,
(2) Rather disagree, (3) Rather agree, (4) Strongly agree
3224 Journal of Child and Family Studies (2019) 28:3220–3229
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vast majority instead wished to get to know their father
personally and be in touch with him (93.8%, n =106 of
GOC; 91.3%, n =73 of AOC) and almost all occupation
children indicated to be curious about e.g. similarities in
personality, talents and physical appearance. Overall 73.4%
(n =58) of GOC and 82% (n =41) of AOC wanted to get
Table 2 Invalid and valid responses for items about reasons for
curiosity about the unknown father and wish for contact
German occupation children Austrian occupation
children
N%N%
“The ‘black hole’in my biography had been bothering me for a long
time”
“Not
applicable”
28 19.2 27 26.7
Missing values 16 11.0 12 11.9
Valid responses 102 69.9 62 61.4
Total 146 100 101 100
Mean, SD M (3.40),
SD (0.90)
M (3.50),
SD (0.83)
Min, max Min(1), max(4) Min(1), max(4)
“Knowing about my biological origin filled the ‘black hole’in my
biography”
“Not
applicable”
46 31.5 33 32.7
Missing values 19 13.0 13 12.9
Valid responses 81 55.5 55 54.5
Total 146 100 101 100
Mean, SD M (3.00),
SD (0.96)
M (3.11),
SD (1.05)
Min, max Min(1), max(4) Min(1), max(4)
“I was happy to learn more about my father”
“Not
applicable”
24 16.4 19 18.8
Missing values 15 10.3 13 12.9
Valid responses 107 73.3 69 68.3
Total 146 100 101 100
Mean, SD M (3.64),
SD (0.60)
M (3.71),
SD (0.60)
Min, max Min(2), max(4) Min(2), max(4)
“It took me great efforts to find out more”
“Not
applicable”
36 24.7 16 15.8
Missing values 18 12.3 13 12.9
Valid responses 92 63.0 72 71.3
Total 146 100 101 100
Mean, SD M (3.26),
SD (0.97)
M (3.52),
SD (0.73)
Min, max Min(1), max(4) Min(1), max(4)
“I wanted to contact my father to claim hereditary titles”
“Not
applicable”
92 63.0 67 66.3
Missing values 10 6.9 7 6.9
Valid responses 44 30.1 27 26.7
Total 146 100 101 100
Mean, SD M (1.26),
SD (0.62)
M (1.48),
SD (0.89)
Min, Max Min(1), max(4) Min(1), max(4)
Table 2 (continued)
German occupation children Austrian occupation
children
N%N%
“I wanted to confront him with the fact that he had abandoned me”
“Not
applicable”
71 48.6 48 47.5
Missing values 12 8.2 8 7.9
Valid responses 63 43.2 45 44.6
Total 146 100 101 100
Mean, SD M (2.06),
SD (1.19)
M (2.58),
SD (1.23)
Min, max Min(1), max(4) Min(1), max(4)
“I wanted to get to know my father personally and be in touch with
him”
“Not
applicable”
22 15.1 13 12.9
Missing values 11 7.5 8 7.9
Valid responses 113 77.4 80 79.2
Total 146 100 101 100
Mean, SD M (3.61),
SD (0.63)
M (3.56),
SD (0.73)
Min, max Min(1), max(4) Min(1), max(4)
“I was curious about similarities in personality, talents, and physical
appearance.”
“Not
applicable”
12 8.2 10 9.9
Missing values 10 6.9 7 6.9
Valid responses 124 84.9 84 83.2
Total 146 100 101 100
Mean, SD M (3.65),
SD (0.60)
M (3.64),
SD (0.61)
Min, max Min(1), max(4) Min(1), max(4)
“I wanted to know more about my father because I feel/felt lonely in
this world and wish/wished for a family”
“Not
applicable”
49 33.6 42 41.6
Missing values 18 12.3 8 8.9
Valid responses 79 54.1 50 49.5
Total 146 100 101 100
Mean, SD M (3.08),
SD (0.96)
M (3.32),
SD (0.96)
Min, max Min(1), max(4) Min(1), max(4)
All items were scored on a 4-point Likert-scale: (1) Strongly disagree,
(2) Rather disagree, (3) Rather agree, (4) Strongly agree
Journal of Child and Family Studies (2019) 28:3220–3229 3225
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

to know more about their father because they had “felt
lonely in this world and were wishing for a family”.
The Search for their Fathers and Actual Contact
The majority of German Occupation Children (73.6%, n =
108) and Austrian Occupation Children (67.7%, n =68)
were looking for their biological father, of which almost all
(n =107 of GOC and n =66 of AOC) were searching with
some help of institutions or others. Overall 39% (n =78) of
GOC and 27.7% (n =43) of AOC found out his contact
details but in 22.6% (n =33) for GOC and 13.6% (n =14)
for AOC of those cases he had already passed away. After
finding out his contact details, close to 80% of those GOC
and AOC contacted him or other family members in case of
his decease. For approximately half of the GOC and AOC,
this contact was positive, for the other half it was negative.
To have found other relatives, in particular other (half-)
siblings, was the most commonly reported positive out-
come. The most common negative experience was that
fathers did not respond to letters at all or denied paternity.
Discussion
From every armed conflict, children are born, who are fathered
by foreign soldiers and born to local mothers. These children
often grow up under impeded conditions on a societal and
familial level. For most, one major aggravating factor is the
circumstance, that their father is not only absent, but that there
is a conspiracy of silence surrounding him, leaving those
children unsure and doubtful about a part of their own identity.
Despite CBOW being a universal phenomenon that is likely to
continue existing in the future, little is known about them on a
systematic level and there is still much to learn.
This study explored and compared identity issues in two
CBOW populations. For this purpose, a sample of GOC and
a sample of AOC were assessed in a cross-sectional study.
The results suggest that in general, GOC and AOC had very
similar experiences growing up as CBOW. Only few cases
were knowingly conceived of rape. Interestingly however,
although roughly one fifth of GOC and AOC report being
unsure about the nature of their biological parents’rela-
tionship and only approximately 70% report being con-
ceived of love, a vast majority of all occupation children
(81.9%, N =120 of GOC; 91.1%, N =92 of AOC) report
being convinced that their father was their “mother’s love of
her life”. This discrepancy could be explained by the fact
that most occupation children want to see their biological
father and their parents’relationship in a positive light to be
able to maintain a positive self-perception and sense of
worthiness even though little or nothing is known about the
nature of their parents’relationship. In most families it was
a taboo to talk about anything related to the missing father
and the children had great difficulties to break this wall of
silence, for example out of fear to hurt or anger their
mothers. Within a follow-up interview study with ten GOC,
it became evident that many occupation children might still
show a strong sense to protect their mothers and do not
judge her choice of having had intimate contact with an
occupation soldier, which could be another reason for
imagining their biological parents’relationship so posi-
tively. As such, only few (N =5 GOC, N =5 AOC) report
feeling ashamed for their mother that she had sexual contact
with an occupation soldier and over 90% of GOC and AOC
think that it is her own business.
Roughly one third of the occupation children learned the
truth about their origin after entering adulthood, some even
very late in life. Finding out later in life seems to be con-
nected to a stronger change as a person. In the follow-up
interviews, some GOC report that they experienced it as a
shock that shattered their assumptions about themselves and
the trust in their family members to learn that they were not
who they thought they were (e.g. the son or daughter of
their step-father), especially if they learned about this in late
adulthood, which sometimes meant even after their mother
had died. They often emphasized the importance of learning
the truth about oneself (i.e. about where one truly comes
from, which for many means who one truly is) as early as
possible in order to be able to integrate this knowledge into
ones identity and biographical narrative. This assumption
has been supported by studies on adopted and so-called
sperm donor offspring (Freeman 2015; Freeman and
Golombok 2012; Golombok et al. 2013; Ilioi et al. 2017).
Our results suggest that most of the participants themselves
weren’t ashamed of being children born of war (i.e. no
reported self-stigma), but that they felt considered inferior
nonetheless by their social environments, i.e. were sub-
jected to social stigma (Aßmann et al. 2015).
Our results revealed that the fundamental need to find out
more about their second biological half, i.e. their biological
father, is one core aspect that defines being a CBOW as
almost all occupation children wanted to know more about
their fathers, especially regarding personality, talents, and
physical appearance and wanted to get to know him per-
sonally. In the meantime, Germany and Austria have
established a right to know about who ones biological
parents are. But there are many other countries, where
children and adults cannot benefit from such a right.
Many had felt lonely and were wishing for a family. This
could be due to the fact that many of the GOC remained
without siblings after their mother had given birth to them,
because the mothers often faced discrimination and stig-
matization after having been sexually involved with an
occupation soldier, who was often considered “the enemy”
in addition to having given birth to a child out of wedlock
3226 Journal of Child and Family Studies (2019) 28:3220–3229
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

(Aßmann et al. 2015; Glaesmer et al. 2012; Satjukow 2009).
GOC often report a feeling of not belonging anywhere, also
within their families and that they felt they had been dif-
ferent from the other family members even a long time
before finding out about their true origin. As one occupation
child put it: “As a child I knew that I was a bastard. I felt it.”
(ID 151, A27). Only few occupation children in general
wanted to contact their fathers about financial matters or to
confront him. Interestingly, however, AOC wanted to do so
twice as often as GOC. This might be explained by the fact
that many Germans were racked with guilt after WWII,
which in GOC could have expressed itself by feeling
ashamed to make any demands, especially on someone of a
foreign nation, whom they might consider a liberator of
Nazi-Germany. Austrians at the same time traditionally tend
to view themselves in the position of victims of the Hitler-
aggression for example, and therefore might as well in this
context consider themselves victims with a right for
compensation.
Despite most occupation children embarking on a search
for their fathers, only approximately half of them could
eventually locate their fathers, deceased or alive. Still, one
fifth of those finding out his contact details did not contact
him or remaining family members in the end. Fear of being
rejected might be one reason for this, as this was also the
most commonly reported negative outcome of contacting
him or family members. One participant mentioned in an
interview that it was most important to have proven that he
had a father at all, to know his existence and that this was
more crucial than getting to know him so late in life (“I
could finally and proudly say that I knew who my father
was, that I had a father at all”; Interview #9, p.24, 1023).
Others had been yearning to meet their biological father
their whole lives.
Unfortunately, the standardized questionnaire items did
not allow an analysis of how CBOW experienced the
contact to their fathers or newly found family members and
how this influenced them. Further studies of preferably
qualitative nature are necessary for more in-depth insight.
However, the results of this study and preliminary analysis
of the follow-up interviews indicate that questions of
identity for occupation children and maybe CBOW in
general are closely linked to questions of belonging. Find-
ing their father seems to imply feeling complete and finding
some peace for many occupation children.
Limitations
The present study had several limitations that have to be
critically reflected. First, due to the nature of data collection
and the CBOW populations qualifying as hidden popula-
tions, our two samples were self-selective and therefore
potentially non-representative. The authors reached out for
participants publicly, who then reacted if they were inter-
ested in participating. Some participants were reached via
snow-balling. Nevertheless, as the entire population is
unknown it is impossible to conduct a representative study
in this target group. Second, we adopted the option to score
“Not applicable”for some item batteries, a measure, which
has left us with a sometimes smaller percentage of valid
responses as we hoped for. The pitfall here is that we cannot
know why participants scored “Not applicable”. In some
cases, it seems to be due to the fact that the questions were
formulated in an emotionally valent way that participants
might have tried to avoid, consciously or unconsciously. In
an effort to adopt the previously existing instruments by
Mochmann and Larsen (2008) and on the basis of the
results of our participatory pilot-study, we deemed it
unproblematic to apply it. For future studies using our
instruments, we highly recommend dropping this option.
Third, our study is of cross-sectional nature and the parti-
cipants answered the questions retrospectively, which
makes our data subject to the potential bias of retrospective
self-report. The data is only a reflection of the current status
when interviewed. Fourth, our results might not be gen-
eralizable to other CBOW populations due to cultural spe-
cificities and other specific circumstances, such as the type
of war for instance. Other studies might yield other results,
which is why replication studies in other CBOW popula-
tions are much needed. Future research on CBOW should
focus on systematic analyses and possibly standardization
of instruments to allow for comparisons of different CBOW
populations. And fifth, a scientifically new and complex
phenomenon such as identity in CBOW is difficult to
explore and understand with quantitative means and war-
rants for more open and indirect assessment.
The limitations above notwithstanding, our study pro-
vides some systematic evidence of identity questions in a
neglected, and yet important population. CBOW are a
universal and international, but marginalized subgroup of
each society that has been involved in armed conflicts. Our
study added to the evidence that being a CBOW can come
with specific difficulties. Locating and getting to know their
biological father seems to be a core aspect of being a
CBOW. It seems particularly important to CBOW to find
out about similarities in personality, talents, and physical
appearance. The possibilities to find their fathers, however,
are extremely limited due to national policies.
To formulate practical implications, further systematic
research is needed. It remains unclear for example, which
identities emerge in narratives of CBOW or in which con-
texts which aspects of their identities as CBOW seem to be
more hindering –being born out of wedlock, being seen as a
child of the enemy, looking foreign and receiving racist
treatment for it or more indirect features such as low socio-
economic status e.g. as a result of discrimination against their
Journal of Child and Family Studies (2019) 28:3220–3229 3227
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

mothers. As CBOW are still a rather novel target group, we
advise to conduct more qualitative research in order to enable
CBOW to use and create their own terms and meanings.
Funding This project has received funding from the European Union’s
Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie
Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 642571 (Network website:
www.chibow.org) and from the State of Saxony [Grant number WE-
V-G-07-2-0612]. The University of Greifswald [BMBF grant number
(FONE-100)] supported the start of the project with a starting grant for
material.
Authors' Contributions S.M. ran the data analyses, and wrote the paper.
M.K. designed and executed the questionnaire study for the German
sample and collaborated in the editing of the final manuscript. S.R.
collaborated in the editing of the final manuscript. B.S.M. executed the
questionnaire study for the Austrian sample and collaborated in the
editing of the final manuscript. P.K. collaborated in designing the
questionnaire study for the German sample and the editing of the final
manuscript. H.G. designed and executed the questionnaire study for the
German sample and collaborated in the editing of the final manuscript.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of
interest.
Ethical Approval All procedures performed in studies involving
human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of
the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki
declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
The study protocol was approved by the ethics committees of the
University of Leipzig (415-12-17122012) and the University of Graz
(39/27/63 ex 2015/10).
Informed Consent Prior to participation, all subjects were informed
about the purpose of the study, the voluntary nature of their partici-
pation, data storage and security. They gave written informed consent
before participating.
Publisher’s note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to
jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://crea
tivecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give
appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link
to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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