In the aftermath of the Second World War, it was through fiction that many French writers decided to reflect on the conflict. Unsurprisingly, the relationship between “occupiers” and “occupied” was often depicted quite simplistically: German soldiers were either robots or barbarians. Yet, many texts — including the best sellers Education européenne by Romain Gary (Prix des Critiques winner 1945); Mon Village à l'heure allemande by Jean-Louis Bory (Goncourt winner 1945); and Les Forêts de la nuit by Jean-Louis Curtis (Goncourt winner 1947), on which this article will focus — contain a “good German” character. I have suggested elsewhere that the inclusion of a “good German” character follows both a literary tradition and the humanist values (freedom and equality for all, mainly) put forward by the French Resistance, to which these writers claim to subscribe: even though it was difficult for many French intellectuals to distinguish the Germans from the Nazis, no better example than a “good German” character could have been found to reaffirm their refusal to pre-judge anyone. A major problem remains, though: since these novels are widely Manichean, how does the memorable “good German” character not undermine the generally very negative representations of Germans? In other words, the question I would like to examine in this study is how textual and narrative strategies construct but at the same time frame the goodness of the “good German” in order not to blur the clear-cut axiology of these novels.