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The untold history of Afro-German children adopted by African American families after World War II
In the aftermath of World War II, hundreds of Afro-German children were born to white German mothers and Black American soldiers stationed in occupied Germany. Many were placed in orphanages. Beginning in the late 1940s, African American families in the United States adopted these children, creating one of the earliest large-scale waves of transnational adoption in modern history.
Drawing on archival records from Germany and the United States, Black press coverage, military correspondence, and personal testimonies, A Child from Abroad reconstructs how these children became the focus of debates about race, democracy, citizenship, and family during the early Cold War. At a moment when the United States claimed global leadership of the “free world,” the presence of mixed-race children in defeated Germany—and their adoption by African American families—exposed the contradictions of segregation at home and racial ideology abroad.
By placing adoption at the center of Cold War and civil rights history, Silke Hackenesch reveals how seemingly private family decisions were deeply political acts. African American adoptive parents challenged racial boundaries, reimagined kinship, and asserted claims to belonging that transcended national borders. At the same time, German officials, U.S. military authorities, and international welfare organizations struggled to define the racial and national status of these children.
Ultimately, A Child from Abroad offers a new perspective on postwar Germany, the global dimensions of Black freedom struggles, and the enduring politics of race and belonging.
"Hackenesch brings the little-known history of Black German children adopted into U.S. homes and embeds it within a complex landscape of shifting social welfare norms, media representations, domestic racial politics, and Cold War geopolitics. With fine-grained attention to a range of archival sources, A Child From Abroad brings keen insights into the political and social forces that created the first generation of transnationally adopted "mixed-race" children. This text will be a key resource for scholars of critical adoption studies, American civil rights in the postwar era, and social welfare history."