The Consequences of Anti-German Narratives for Germans in Britain

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39 minutes ago
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Lucy Smith | University of Strathclyde

‘How many more generations do we keep going through until this stops?’

The above quote comes from a German woman living in England, interviewed in March 2025 about her experiences of living in Britain, tearfully admitting that her teenage sons had been branded as Nazis and experienced horrendous bullying at school just for being German. Eighty years after the cessation of the Second World War, wartime narratives still reinforce negative stereotypes. As a result, Germans living in Britain today struggle with their sense of identity and belonging. They are trapped between an identity rooted in their heritage and experiences and an assumed identity tarnished by negative associations created during the war.

There can be no doubt that the Second World War has cemented itself into British culture and public memory. The narrative of the people of Britain uniting to save Europe from fascism is one commonly reinforced at significant anniversaries and commemoration events, despite most of the population today having no direct experience of or connection to the conflict.

Scholarly efforts have come on leaps and bounds to explore experiences and narratives beyond the British popular memory, such as: Arthur McIvor, Juliette Pattinson, and Linsey Robb’s studies on men in reserved occupations; Penny Summerfield and Corinna Peniston-Bird’s work on the experiences of women, and Wendy Ugolini’s exploring of Italian experiences and identity in Scotland. However, one group’s experiences are consistently missing, particularly without the militarised, wartime context: the Germans. Interviews conducted by a team of researchers at Imperial War Museum in the late 1970s and early 1980s capture the German wartime experience in Britain. However, due to a lack of a recent documentation, original oral history interviews I have conducted within the last three years have been essential in exploring the experiences of Germans living in Britain today. The interviewees will be referred to by their initials to help honour their wishes of privacy after sharing their experiences.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, the German population of Britain stood at approximately 80,000 after a significant influx of refugees fleeing Nazi oppression but, similarly to today’s climate, refugee status would not be enough to help them avoid being painted as enemies. By May 1940, all Germans aged between 16 and 70 were interned regardless of the level of ‘threat’ they posed to Britain. Interviews conducted by the Imperial War Museum with formerly interned Germans show that this process was incredibly inconsistent, with some decisions being made based on how judges felt that day. German-Jewish refugees were also placed near those with Nazi beliefs, highlighting the lack of distinction in the minds of British authorities. However, the British official attitude appeared to change in the early post-war years; former German Prisoners of War (POW) were allowed to remain in Britain and young Germans, in a weakened, divided country, were invited to live and work in Britain and the British German population has grown to approximately 300,000 today.

Despite this, reminders of wartime began to emerge beyond commemoration events. The 1966 World Cup, ending in a 4-2 English victory against West Germany, prompted the creation of the chants such as ‘Two World Wars, One World Cup’, ‘Stand up if you won the war’ and ‘Ten German Bombers’. The topic of football, particularly chants like these, provoked a near unanimous reaction of frustration for Germans living in Britain as shown in interviews:

‘The usual thing where I switch off is bloody 1966… Every bloody time and I don’t care about football anyway so when that comes on I’m like ‘come on, grow up’’– A.J.

‘It’s just nonsense, it’s just awful. And really you know I laughed at it a lot until I gained consciousness and thought ‘oh for god’s sake’’ – V.W.

‘the most funny thing in the world of course putting a German First World War hat on a German football player and you just think ‘yeah that is really creative, we’ve not seen this before ever’ and the football player is so young that it was his grandfather or great-grandfather who was fighting in that war’- K.K.

There is no respite for Germans wanting to escape into some classic British fiction either, as the continued characterization of Germans as Nazis reaches younger generations. As Geoff Eley argues, it provides a sense of memory for events they were not alive for. There are two iconic, well-loved examples particularly worthy of discussion due to their role in reinforcing wartime narratives. Firstly, the 1973 Dad’s Army episode ‘The Deadly Attachment’. The plot featured captured, stoic, German naval officers who lacked a sense of humour when confronted with young Private Pike’s song about Hitler, prompting the famous Captain Mainwaring line ‘Don’t Tell ‘Em Pike!’ once the German demands Pike’s name to be added to his execution list.

German Naval Captain writing his list of names with Captain Mainwairing of the Home Guard watching. — A still from BBC Sitcom, *Dad’s Army* episode ‘The Deadly Attachment’, first aired in October 1973. (Credit: BBC).

The second well-known example comes from the sitcom Fawlty Towers, in an episode entitled ‘The Germans’ where concussed hotel manager Basil Fawlty keeps saying ‘don’t mention the war!’ before proceeding to have a chaotic interaction with the German guests, name-dropping Hitler and other prolific Nazis, and mentioning the invasion of Poland. He then exits the room doing a ‘goose-stepping’ Hitler impression.

C.G. said in his interview that the iconic ‘don’t mention the war’ line, reflects how British people view the topic of the war:

‘Most people actually don’t want to have a conversation about this, like, they don’t want to talk about the war… they could truly learn something about how we Germans have different feelings about this but they are not it’s just ‘don’t mention the war’ which isn’t the case’.

Hotel manager Mr Fawlty going his ‘goose-stepping’ Hitler impression in front of German guests. — A still from BBC sitcom *Fawlty Towers* episode ‘The Germans’ first aired in October 1975. (Credit: BBC).

A lack of willingness to think beyond accepted wartime narratives and the casual, humorous association of Germans with Nazism has resulted in a more hostile form of anti-German sentiment that lies dormant until provoked. Most recently, this has occurred during the build-up and aftermath of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union in 2020 following the 2016 referendum (‘Brexit’) which interviewees have attributed to recent experiences of anti-German sentiment and a desire to conceal their ‘Germanness’.

One issue that quickly emerged from the interviews conducted was the connection to language and accent. Several first-generation German interviewees admitted to attempting to hide their accents. At best, many Germans experienced questions about where they are from because of their accent. K.Kr has received guesses of the Netherlands and South Africa, even being mistaken for a Welsh person before Germany was guessed. When she came to Britain to study in the early 1970s, she initially tried to conceal her accent:

‘It meant I didn’t talk a lot. It also meant I tried desperately, desperately, tried to lose my German accent… If you want to escape being German having to talk about Nazis you then sound like a white South African just after Apartheid… That was not a good switch’.

C.G. also confessed to attempting to hide his accent, particularly in the aftermath of Brexit, as his wife was worried about what people could do if they overheard. He has also warned his family members to do the same whenever they visit. However, it has remained a core part of his identity:

‘It is part of who I am, if I change my accent, what accent should I take?’

The connection to the German language was mentioned by second-generation Germans. N.H. noted being a shy girl at school who did not want her German heritage to be something that made her different, but wishes she had kept the connection to the language in later life:

‘now I’m like ‘Aw I kind of regret that I’d not been like practicing it more’ and that I didn’t badger my mum to teach me how to read and write German which is something I’m like teaching myself now…it’s such a great thing but I didn’t see it that way for a really long time’.

When being ‘caught’ speaking German by British people, interviewees spoke of experiencing abusive language, in front of and directed at children.

‘A middle-aged women turned to me and said ‘we fought the war against you! Why are you here…?... You are in England, speak English’ right in front of my three-year-old’ – K. Kr.

‘They [her sons, aged 7 and 9 at the time] were playing in the garden one day after Brexit speaking German and then I saw them talking to someone across the hedge and it turned out they were kids from the neighbourhood who um had picked up that they didn’t speak English, calling them filthy animals um and at one point wanted to come into our garden to beat them up… A few days later we had a barbecue in the garden with friends and I don’t know if it was the same kids or others but they ran past our hedge and shouted ‘German bastards we are going to put stones through your windows’ – K.K.

Another theme that emerged from interviews was Germans feeling that people perceived them as inherently immoral during discussions regarding social and moral issues, just because they were German.

‘How dare a German criticise America or I guess Western Allies in detaining these men when they have so many skeletons in the closet themselves’ – C.G. when told he was the ‘wrong person’ to join an Amnesty International protest against Guantanamo Bay around 2008.

‘They had a discussion about Kanye West and my oldest son said ‘I think he’s a Nazi’ or ‘he has antisemitic views’ and the other student said ‘you have no right to comment on that because you’re a Nazi anyway and your whole family is’’ – K.K.

The recent political climate following ‘Brexit’ meant that many German-born interviewees have considered their citizenship status, showing that anti-German sentiment has resulted in them having to make more permanent, legal decisions. All interviewees commented on the dramatic increase in discrimination against not just Germans but other minority groups surrounding the Brexit referendum, with some of the above incidents occurring in pro-Brexit areas of the country. Those who had previously only held German citizenship sought dual nationality, an expensive process which revealed the panic anti-German sentiment brought about for some people. C.G. talked about his wife not being able to sleep at night until he started this process. However, not every German felt this was the right path. K.K.’s sons, aged 16 and 18 at the time of the interview, did not want to adopt British citizenship and had planned to study in Germany after they finished school, due to their experiences. From this, Germans have either felt the need to alter their legal identity to remain safe or plan to leave the country due to feeling unwelcome because of their heritage.

Four generations after the war, German-British identities remain strained and conflicted. Old stereotypes, reinforced and exacerbated by Brexit, keeps the British view of Germans trapped in a narrow six-year period. The oral history interviews conducted have been vital in uncovering the lives of Germans living in Britain, as without them there is little to go on outside of the wartime narrative. While the above cultural examples may have been intended as humour in the 1970s, it only takes the wrong person in the right circumstances to weaponize these narratives as shown repeatedly in the interviews. The oral histories show that little account is taken into considering Germans as individuals instead of grouping them within the wartime ‘Nazi’ narrative and viewing them under the perceived actions of their ancestors. There is also a strong contradiction in the pressure placed upon Germans to be more ‘correct’, more ‘British’ and to conform to ‘British’ thinking while simultaneously condemning them speaking on issues in a societally accepted manner because they are German. They are either too German or not allowed to become too ‘British’ because of being German. While this may appear to be an obvious issue in society, the interviews presented here show it is one not taken seriously enough and still needs to be addressed.