Figure 1.--.

The NAZIs upon coming to power were greatly concerned not only about racial purity, but also about overall population trends. We have noted a variety of sttisticak data. Some of the various estimates vary. The trends, however, are quite stark. The German birth rate declined very significantly. Declines were noted in the birth rates of many other industrial countries, but in no other industrial county did the birth rate decline as sharply as it did in Germany. We are not sure what the caue of falling birth rates were in Germany. The NAZIs gave great emphasis on encouraging German women to have more babies. The results of these efforts, however, were minimal.

NAZI Concern

For the NAZIs, obsessed with race, the birthrate was a very serious matter. It not only had military consequences, but in the perceived race war, a decling birth rate meant that NAZI Aryans would be operating under an increasingly numerical disadvantage with other countries and races. As Hitler was planning war and the repopulation of large sathes of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union with Germans, the birth rate was of emense importance.

Falling Birth Rates

Germany had a rapidly falling Geburtenstatistik (birth rate). Since World War I, the German birthrate had rapidly fallen from 894,978 in 1920 to only on 516,793 in 1932. [Statistisches Jahrbuch nur das Deutsche Reich 1941/42, S. 66.] Other data shows that the German birth rate had been falling since the 1880s (table 1). The birth rate by 1930 had reached extremely low levels. While the actual numbers vary, the trends are very clear. The birthrate had not fallen so drastically in any other important industrial country. The NAZIs worked hard to increase the birt rate and by 1938 just before World War II, we note a small increase over 1930, but it was still well below 1920 levels.

Table 1.--Births in the German Reich

	1870	1880	1890	1900	1910	1920	1930	1938
Live Births	1,469,834	1,739,437	1,758,253	1,996,139	1,924,778	1,599,287	1,144,151	1,440,879
Births per 1,000	37.2	39.3	35.7	35.6	29.8	25.9	17.6	19.2

Source: Reinhard Müller, Deutschland. Sechster Teil (München and Berlin: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1943).

Reasons

In no other industrialized country there was a such break-down in the birth rate. The falling rate since the 1880s probably reflects understandable long-term trends as the German like other European countries evolved from agicultural to industrial socities. The especially severe decline in the 1910s-30s probably reflects the combined impact of World War I, the political and economic turmoil following the War, the Allied mandated War reparations. The Depression was another factor in the earlys 1930s.

German Families

HBC has developed several pages on German families. The falling birth rate indeed can be seen in an increasing number of small families after World War I. We see several families with one single child. The HBC pages focuses primarily on the clothing trends. The portraits ans snap shots, however, comvey a great deal of information about German families in general.

Created: May 3, 2002
Last updated: 2:22 AM 11/11/2004