What turns a place into ‘home’? Is it family, a common nationality or language?
For Christian Steffens, a retired vet originally from Germany, the answer is far more complex.
Christian has lived in Bazens (Lot-et-Garonne) for close to eight years. However, his link to the sunlit rolling hills of this picturesque area of south-west France dates back to his childhood and, beyond that, to his father’s experience in the turmoil of post-war France.
Prisoner of war
In 1942, aged just 16, Wilhelm Steffens joined the German Kriegsmarine, serving in the Black Sea and Romania.
By early 1945, the Allies, east and west, had steamrollered to within Germany’s borders.
The end was near. By May, Hitler was dead and the war in Europe was over.
Millions of German soldiers had surrendered, including Wilhelm, who was taken prisoner by the US army.
Through a prisoner exchange programme, he, along with thousands of other German POWs, was handed to the French to work as a labourer.
Initially taken to Le Mans, he was later transported south towards Toulouse, before ending up in Castelsarrasin (Tarn-et-Garonne), where he was set to work as a forestry labourer.
The hours were long and the work exhausting. During his downtime, Wilhelm would read and try to learn French.
Major food shortages in France at the time meant hunger was rife, especially among the German POWs, whose rations were piecemeal.
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French kindness
“My father was not a stereotypical soldier,” said Christian. “He wasn’t tough, but a small, lean young teenager. He was a curious intellectual who wanted to be a teacher.”
His slight build made him an easy victim for other prisoners looking to steal rations, leaving him constantly starving.
A French labourer named Emile noticed what was happening and took it upon himself to bring the young German a packed lunch every day.
More than once, at his wife’s insistence, he even brought Wilhelm home for a meal.
Over time, a close bond formed between the two men, which would flourish into a deep friendship.
Soon after, Wilhelm was moved to nearby Moissac to work on a vineyard run by the Cayrou family.
Once again, he was welcomed with open arms into the household, becoming a sort of surrogate son.
At the end of a working day, Wilhelm would often accompany the patriarch, Moïse Cayrou, to the local bar – strictly forbidden by the authorities, but overlooked by the establishment’s owner.
Return to Germany
By 1948, most German prisoners, including Wilhelm, had been repatriated. They returned home to a very different Germany – a country in ruins, divided between two ideological blocs, plagued by hunger and black marketeers.
These men now faced the tumultuous task of rebuilding their own lives as well as their country, transitioning from soldiers to civilians, and rejoining society as best they could.
For younger ex-servicemen such as Wilhelm, now 22 years old, who was brought up under the Nazi regime and had known nothing but war and imprisonment for most of his life, Germany must have seemed a foreign country.
Leaving behind his adopted French families, Wilhelm passed his school exams and worked in a bank to finance a year at university.
He was later awarded a scholarship to study full-time at the University of Frankfurt, graduating in 1955.
By this time, he was married and father to a little boy, Christian. They eventually settled in the town of Kassel, in central Germany.
'Home is wherever you feel it is'
In the summer of 1968, Wilhelm, now 42, made his way back to France for a holiday with his young family. He wanted to show his wife and children where he had spent three formative years – and to introduce them to the people who had, as Christian put it, “saved his life” by sharing the food off their tables.
By then, Emile had died, but Wilhelm and his family were still welcomed by his daughter and her husband.
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However, nothing could have prepared them for the welcome they received from the Cayrous, who wined and dined them.
“It was the first time I truly appreciated what a family meal was,” said Christian. “The food was so fresh and the meal lasted for hours – from midday until dusk. There was always one more course to be had.”
From that point on, Christian always held a place in his heart for France, and visited the Cayrous regularly.
Although his father is now dead, Christian and his wife moved here permanently in 2016 and now live only an hour from the Cayrou family home.
“For me, home is wherever you feel it is,” he said. “It isn’t necessarily based on nationality, or ancestry, but where you feel at peace and in love with your surroundings, the culture, the language.
“The overwhelming love I’ve received and, more importantly, that my father received from this country and these two families at a time when he was still considered un Boche by so many shows the best side of humankind, and we should never forget that.”
Rife malnutrition among soldiers
France demanded mostly financial reparation from Germany.
Following World War Two, however, it looked to rebuild the country using German labour as well, enlisting around one million prisoners of war to work in mining, harvesting and industry.
With barely enough food to meet its own citizens’ needs, many POWs suffered malnutrition and starvation. It is estimated that 40,000 former German soldiers died, while others lost their lives working in mining or clearing the land mines Germany had left in France during the conflict.
POWs in agriculture generally fared better, both in terms of diet and closer interaction with French people.
While the Geneva Convention stipulated POWs should be returned quickly to their home countries, it was only under pressure from the US, in 1947, that French officials told German POWs that the last of them could return by the end of 1948.
Not all of them chose to go, however. They were offered the chance to stay on in France, and almost 137,000, many of them from eastern Germany, received the status of civilian workers.
It is estimated that between 30,000 and 40,000 former German soldiers were still living in France in the 1950s.
