Grandma's lodgers

Just after the second world war my grandma used to let rooms in her house out to a young German couple with a baby.
What I was wondering was : Why would Germans want to come here to live at all after just fighting a war with us?

Did our government welcome them and why?

Re: Grandma's lodgers

well where I grew up there were many Germans who had been prisoners of war & they stayed in the area. Seemed peculiar to me that they had stayed but those young men were integrated into the community & were liked.

Re: Grandma's lodgers

Hi gardener. Welcome to the forum. Thanks for your reply.
The young couple who rented rooms off my grandma were both German and had a baby so I don't think he'd been a prisoner of war.

Re: Grandma's lodgers

Quite a few Germans came here after the war and settled, one of my first bosses when I was apprenticed was a German, a brilliant engraver, he was a very decent man, if he wanted to see a film on in town he used to give me the money to go and see it first then tell him all about it, if he thought he’d fancy it he’d go with his wife at the weekend.

Re: Grandma's lodgers

I can't understand what made them want to come?

Re: Grandma's lodgers

well let's remember that a lot of Germans were anti-Hitler and everything he stood for. I have been to Austria the country of his birth and been introduced to the daughter of a cart wright who refused to salute Hitler in the usual fashion - his life was spared because he was the only cartwright in the whole area left!

Re: Grandma's lodgers

Yes but Hitler was dead and all he stood for was in ruins.
I still can't understand why they would want to come here...

Re: Grandma's lodgers

Because they admired and respected the British people, hated Hitler and all he represented and felt they would be safer here than in Germany because of that. Let us not forget Nazism didn't die with Hitler - it lives on still

Re: Grandma's lodgers

YES but Germany was in more ruins than we were!

Re: Grandma's lodgers

Carol maybe they were Jewish. I know a number of German Jews came here at the start of the war. I think some were interned at aliens and settled here after the war.