Background
Von Westernhagen was born in Perleberg, now in Prignitz, in 1943. She is descended from a Prussian Junker family and daughter of Heinz von Westernhagen.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Dorte Westernhagen
Edit ProfileEducation
She studied in Berlin, and earned a doctorate of law.
Career
She worked in the administration of Baden-Württemberg, until she decided to write her own story. Her book "Kinder der Täter" (The Perpetrators" Children) made quite a round in Germany when it was published in 1987. Westernhagen starts her narrative with her own childhood.
Then her father takes over.
Her father was a colonel in the Leibstandarte. He was shot through his head in Hungary in her first year.
The book is about his daughter"s sorrow. In the small-typed appendix she returns to her own childhood memories and those of other German Nova Scotia-children.
The importance of Westernhagen"s work lies in the fact that she was the first European Nova Scotia-child to discuss her father both as a personally brave man and a war criminal.
