Reinventing French Aid: The Politics of Humanitarian Relief in French-Occupied Germany, 1945-1952

by Laure Humbert

Overview

Laure Humbert explores how humanitarian aid in occupied Germany was influenced by French politics of national recovery and Cold War rivalries. She examines the everyday encounters between French officials, members of new international organizations, relief workers, defeated Germans and Displaced Persons, who remained in the territory of the French zone prior to their repatriation or emigration. By rendering relief workers and Displaced Persons visible, she sheds lights on their role in shaping relief practices and addresses the neglected issue of the gendering of rehabilitation. In doing so, Humbert highlights different cultures of rehabilitation, in part rooted in pre-war ideas about 'overcoming' poverty and war-induced injuries and, crucially, she unearths the active and bottom-up nature of the restoration of France's prestige. Not only were relief workers concerned about the image of France circulating in DP camps, but they also drew DP artists into the orbit of French cultural diplomacy in Germany.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108932776
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	03/23/2023
Pages:	371
Product dimensions:	5.91(w) x 9.06(h) x 0.79(d)

About the Author

Laure Humbert is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Manchester.

Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I. The Politics of Relief: 1. The Politics of Immigration: Unwanted Wartime Collaborators or Ideal White Settlers?; 2. In the Shadow of Nazi Occupation: Making and Overseeing DP Camps; 3. The Politics of Neutrality: Repatriating and Screening DPs in the Early Cold War; Part II. Reconstructing the Body, Rehabilitating the Mind: 4. The 'Broken' DP: 'Remaking' the Minds and Bodies of Refugees; 5. 'Rehabilitation' through Work? Vocational Training and DP Employment; 6. Transforming DPs into French Citizens? The Resettlement of DPs in France; Conclusion.

Editorial Reviews

‘Reinventing French Aid is an ambitious, multi-layered and multi-scale history that is international and transnational, but also distinctly French. It offers important new insights into politics and policy in the French occupation zone while telling a rich story about the experiences and interactions between displace persons and relief workers. Humbert brings the many threads of this complex yet compelling history together with great skill to create a clear narrative that contributes in significant ways to an impressive number of fields and debates.' Claire Eldridge, University of Leeds

‘Filling a gap in our understanding of the displaced persons' experience, Humbert's book convincingly explores how policy in the French occupation zone was shaped by postwar French domestic politics, French global ambitions, as well as the experiences of the interwar and Vichy periods, and how it impacted the displaced. Lynne Taylor, University of Waterloo

‘In this deeply researched book, de Zwarte offers a new understanding of famine causation, deconstructing myths surrounding the Dutch hunger winter. It is a much-needed corrective to the literature of the Nazi occupation.’ Saskia Coenen Snyder, Journal of Modern History

From the Publisher