Are there comparable statistics for Nazi-occupied Europe, or is it just "let's-bash-our-NATO-allies" season in Germany? "Germany in the months after the end of the war 70 years ago was a dangerous place for a woman. Vodka inflamed Russian soldiers were let loose to rampage through shell-shattered streets, raping at will. Food was scarce and sex against a wall became the common currency for a loaf or a pack of cigarettes. So it must have been a comfort as well as a joy for 17-year-old Ilse Neumann to find herself on the arm of a likeable British corporal named Jimmy. They met at a dance in Berlin, where he was among 3,000 of our troops serving in the British sector of the German capital, then controlled by British, American, French and Russian forces. He was tall and strong, a bit of a lad, fun to be with, but useful with his fists when it came to fighting off the attentions of any other sex-crazed Allied soldiers roaming the streets and eyeing up his girl. Pretty soon they were inseparable. She took him to the bomb-damaged flat she shared with her mother and younger sister (her father was in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp). Jimmy was the perfect suitor, with his cheerful face, disarming patter and gifts of much-needed food. For Ilse, young and in love, the future looked as good as it possibly could for anyone in that defeated nation. Until early 1946, that was, when she found she was pregnant and Jimmy was gone, without telling her where or why. She tracked him to his new posting in a town 125 miles away and went there to beg him to stand by her. But her lover boy had turned into a bully boy. He already had a new girlfriend, whom he flaunted in front of Ilse. Vehemently, he denied that the child was his. When she threatened to kill herself if he rejected her, he said to go ahead. Distraught, she returned to Berlin and approached the British military authorities for help. However, as fraternisation between British troops and German women was banned, they didn’t want to know. Ilse never saw or heard from Jimmy again. When Wilfried was born in October, the stigma of illegitimacy, along with another mouth to feed, was a disaster for Ilse and her family. She had little to eat and her ration card did not extend to a baby, particularly one born out of wedlock. The family had nothing of value to sell on Berlin’s bustling black markets. But as Germany began to get back on its feet, they somehow got by. It was a desperate struggle, though, and for Wilfried, the words ‘Father unknown’ on his birth certificate were a constant reproach. Now 68, he is one of thousands of Germans who were born of these unions, many of them forced and extremely violent couplings. Some were the result of deception and dishonourable behaviour (as in his case), a few were born into loving and lasting relationships between Allied soldiers and their mothers. They are haunted by the circumstances of their conception. They call themselves The Lost Tribe and they search desperately, in their twilight years, for the fathers they never knew. Their plight is highlighted in We, The Occupation Children, a new book published in Germany by university researcher Ute Baur-Timmerbrink. She was fathered by an American GI — a fact she did not discover until she was in her 50s." http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3090322/Agony-love-children-left-Germany-conquering-Allied-troops-searching-fathers-families-70-years-on.html#ixzz3an2wSJNh
