Norway Apologizes for Treatment of ‘German Girls’ During WWII

Gerd Fleischer (L), one of the 154 Norwegian nationals who were born during the Second World War from a Norwegian mother and a German father, talks with Bjorn Lengfelder (R) the press secretary of the union of Norwegian "lebensborn" children in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, on March 8, 2007. Frederick Florin/AFP/Getty Images

STOCKHOLM—The Norwegian government has apologized to Norwegian women who were mistreated after World War II for having relationships with German soldiers.

The treatment of the so-called “German girls” is a dark epilogue to the liberation from Nazi occupation in 1945. In addition to being publicly shamed, abused, and ostracized, thousands of girls and women who consorted or were rumored to have consorted with German soldiers during the occupation were also detained for months, and, in some cases, stripped of citizenship; many were expelled to Germany.