Civil resettlement: citizenship, mental health and masculinity in repatriated British POWs

Abstract This article investigates the programme of ‘Civil Resettlement’ created by the British Army’s Department of Army Psychiatry to respond to the challenge of resettling prisoners of war (POWs) returning to the UK in 1945. Former POWs were seen as asocial and potentially subversive and were therefore encouraged to undergo a period of treatment in a Civil Resettlement Unit (CRU) before re-entering civilian life. These units sought to inculcate emotional health, ‘good citizenship’ and healthy masculinity in a supposedly at-risk population. Ex-POWs were seen as lacking in each of these categories due to the psychopathological environment present in Axis POW camps. POWs needed assistance on their return, lest the social stresses of resettlement result in permanent mental harm. Civil Resettlement was originally conceptualized as the solution to the emergent problem of mentally unwell POWs, but those who devised the programme held that it could be expanded to society as a whole. Unfortunately, post-war austerity meant that CRUs left a smaller legacy than their founders had hoped, but the short-lived programme raises questions surrounding the social nature of health and the relationships between citizenship, masculinity, and mental health.