Figure 1.--These babies were found by Allied troop at the "SS Lebensborn Steinhöring in Bavaria. We do not know where the children came from. Notice that the baby boys were wearing rompers or puffed pants called "Spielhöschen" by the staff. It is the old German word for romper. The Germans now say "Spielanzug". |
counterpoint to the NAZI program of exterminating Jews and other groups considered to be sub-human was the Lebensborn program, a sectret NAZI program to enrich German racial lines with pure Nordic Aryan blood. The Lebensborn program was a pet project of SS Reichsführer Himmler. The program was launched in Germany in a small way to incourage and assist German girls to give birth to racially pure children, even if they were unmairred. We have noted some diference of opinion about the Lebensborn homes. After the Germans launched World War II and occupied large streaches of Eastern Europe, they proceeded to kidnap thousands of children who were deemed to be Aryan. Himmler indicated that these children had to be Germanized or killed because he though Aryan populations outside of the Reich were a threat. The Lebensborn program also affected other countries such as Norway--albeit on a smaller scale. Estimates suggest that 0.20-0.25 million children, mostly Polish, were eventually involved in this program. Only a small number were ever returned to their parents.
Charles Darwin's land mark work on natural selection had been widely accepted by te turn of the 20th century by scientists if not by the general public. This an increasingly sophisticated understanding of genetics gave rise to the Eugenics Movement in the early 20th century. Eugenics has been described as the science of improving the human race through the careful selection of parents. As practiced in the early 20th century it is probably best described as a movement than a science. Those with "good" characteristivs would be encouraged to have children. Those with "bad" characteristics would be sterilized.The problem was in defining just what constituted an improvement. Many promoting the program focused on outward physical characteristics which usually resembeled themselves. Eugenics gained an emense following in America and European countries.
German Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler had a passionate interest in race purity and the use of eugenics to achieve it. His SS was conceived as a nightly order of genetically pure Aryans. We took a special interest in the Lebensborn program. He used his control of the NAZI security services to aquire large numbers of genetically appropriate children in the occupid countries for the Lebensborn program.
Lebensborn is difficult to translate presisely, but it means something like "fountain" or "source" of life". The "Lebensborn" project was a secret program conceived by SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler. He founded the Lebensborn Eingetragener Verein (Registered Society Lebensborn or Lebensborn Foundation) on December 12, 1935. The Lebensborn Program was originally part of Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt until 1938 at which time it was transfered to the Persönlicher Stab RFSS.
The purpose of the Lebensborn Foundation was to provide "racially pure" young women a place to have birth in private away from their homes. The first home was opened in 1936
at Steinhoering, under the pseudonym "Heim Hochland" ("home high country"), near Munich. The SS by the end of the World War II had set up 10 homes or nurseries. Another source notes 13 homes. The size of these is suggested by te number of nurses assigned: Heim Taunus 22, Hochland 18, Sonnenwiese 18, Wienerwald 15, Pommern 14, Kurmark 12, Harz 10, Schwarzwald 9, Ardennen 9, Westwald 4, Moselland 3, Friesland 3, Alpenland 1. [Bleuel, H. P., Das saubere Reich. Theorie und Praxis des sittlichen Lebens im Dritten Reich, Bern u.a. 1972, S. 192.]
The buildings were expropriated from wealthy Jews or foreign private instiotuions. Some were donated by faithful NAZI Party members. Steinhoering was a former Caritas children's home. The general physician at Steinhoering Dr. Ebner was the in the Lebensborn physician became the medical director for the entire Lebendborn program and SS Oberfuehrer. He was also involved with the killing of handicapped children.
The facilities were open to SS wives, but most preferred to have their babies at home surrounded by their familes. As they were mairred there was no difficulty here. The facilities were also open to unwed mothers who were embarassed about having a baby while still single. Onme source suggests that about 90 percent of the women using the homes were unmairred. Another source suggests that about half were unmarried. [Bundesarchiv NS 20/30, Band 2. in Franz W. Seidler, Lebensborn E.V. der SS: Vom Gerücht zur Legende.] These mothers had to demonstrate their Aryan ancestry and identify the father so his Aryan ancestry could be checked. There were very strict standards, about half of the applicants were rejected. There were still strong social scantions against this and the girls were considered as immoral. A Lebensborn home provided a comfortable place for these girls to have their children and receive high quality pre- and post-natal care. Rather than being and outcast, at the Lenensborn homes there were no societal scantions.
The pregnant women could enter the homes as soon as the pregnancy began to be notable. Besides the privacy, living conditions were very good in the Lebensborn homes, often better than in the women's own homes. The women were housed in private quarters. There were often beautiful grounds. They were not required to work. The food was good, even during the War. And they received excellent medical care.
Himmler took a special interests in the homes. He would visit to check on the conditions. Children born on his birthday would get presents from him.
The German Lebsensborn program managed to produce a very small number of children. I note one estimate of 7,500 babies born at the German homes. Another source estimates 8,000 babies. [R. Abe, "Lebensborn e.V." Shoa.de website, retrieved May 3, 2002]
Given the care given in the approval process, NAZI authorities believed that the Lebensborn children would be pure Aryans and constitute perfect future SS leaders. These children were conceived as future leaders in the NAZI state that would dominate Europe of not the world. They would be the new nobility of blood.
The newborn babies were baptized in a mixture of Germanic, NAZI, and pseudo-Christian ritual, by Dolchauflegung under the NAZI-swastika flag. The babies as a baptismal gift was given a Kerzenleuchter, manufactured of by Dachau concentarion camp prisioners.
The mothers received post-natal care. They could then return home without neighbors knowing that she had given birth. Most apparently left the homes after giving birth. Some mothers worked in homes after giving birth so they could be near their babies. I have seen photographs of mothers with children that look to be about a year old so I am unsure just what the rules were. One source suggests that the children were kept for 1 year before being released for adoption.
We have little information on how the children were dressed at the Lebensborn homes. The younger boys were apparently often dressed in rompers at the Lebensborn homes in Germany. We do not have any information yet on the training facilities for the older children kidnapped from foreign countries. One reader reports, "About the children clothes in the Lebensborn or Heimschulen. All were dressed at the Hitler way, namely light even during the winter."
If the parents were not married or woud not the Lebensborn home, in effect the SS, took over the guardianship of the child. The baby ithus became the property of the SS. If the baby was handicapped or impaired, it would allowed to starve or otherwise terminated. Suitable Aryan families were allowed to adopt healthy babies. In some cases they were SS families. The German police were responsible for registering all births. The birth certificates for the children were thus easily falsified by the SS. As a result, after te War it was very difficult for these children to find teir birth parents. Given the relatively small number of children involved, I believe that suitable homes were found for virtually all of the healthy children, however, I do not have precise details on this.
The German Lebensborn appears to have been primarily a program of SS nurseries offering care for unwed-mothers who were already pregnant when they arrived. Some have referred to these facilities as SS stud farms. One author claims, "In order to create a 'super-race', the SS transformed these nurseries into 'meeting places' for 'racially pure' German women who wanted to meet and make children with SS officers." We can not, however, confirm that this was the case or if it was the case, to what extent this occurred. We have some doubts here. Some sources maintain that this was a myth. Strange as it may seem now that we know what they did during the War, SS members had very strong moral ideals in many areas. They strong believed in traditional values and institutions. One such institution was the family. Thus it is likely that many SS members would have objected to homes established to impregnate young German girls. This is an area that needs further investigation.
World War II changed everything. The War resulted in the Lebensborn program being expanded with a horendous change in direction. Even before Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, they had seized Czecheslovakia and annexed the Sudentland into the Reich. The conquest of Poland resulted in additional areas being annexed. Even in the occupied areas of Poland there were large numbers of blond, blue-eyed children meeting the Aryan ideal. Scandinavian countries with largely Nordic populations were occupied in April 1940. This was followed by the Netherlands, Belgium, and France in May-June 1940. Even more children became available when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941.
The NAZI program for Lebensraum in the east was not just to acquire territory. The plans for that territory was monsterous beyond belief. he plan was to evacate Poles an Russians from these territories. Some would remain to serve as slave laborers. Millions would be expelled or "evacuatd" with the understanding that large numbers would die in the process. The goal was to make the east German. Here Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler had the responsibility for persuing this effort. He appears to have assigned his deputy Reinhard Heydrich appears to have coordinated this effort and essentially he SS's entire eastern operations. Heydrich ordered the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) (SS Security Service) in 1941 to begin the necessary planning. The Reichs-Sicherheitsdienst (RSHA) (Reich Decurity Head Office). There were differences of opinion within the SS and between the SS and Alfred Rosenberg's Ostministerium (Ministry for the Occupied East) over how to claim the East. There was agreemnt that large numers of Slavs had to be removed to Siberia. There were differences as to the extent to which forcible evictions should take place.
A key elment in the Germanization of the east was finding Germans to populate it with. An important part of this process was to "reclaim" Aryan stock from the occupied territories and turning them into Germans. This process was termed Eindeutschung. The SS section responsible for Eindeutschung was Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt--RuSHA (Race and Settlement Head Office). Here the SS's authority also overlapped with Alfred Rosenberg's Ostministerium (Ministry for the Occupied East). While there were differences within the SS, there was agreement that the most of the population of the occupied East was not suitable for Eindeutschung and would have to be expelled to Siberia. The differences withinthe SS was the extent to which force should be used to bring about the emmigration to Siberia. [Padfield, p. 363.]
The Lebensborn program was soon transformed into a much larger effort of kidnapping large numbers of these children. This was valled "Eindeutschung" which I am unsure how to translate. The NAZI description of this is instructive, "Erhaltung und Förderung rassisch wertvollen germanischen Erbgutes". This translates roughly as the "preservation and promotion of racially valuable Germanic hereditary property". In other countries Lebensborn homes were established. The NAZI polices in this regard varied greatly from country to country. Probably more than 0.3 million children were kidnapped by the NAZIs. Few were ever to be reunited with their parents. A substantial number were murdered in concentration camps.
Among the kidnapped children, some of the older ones remembered their parents and resisted Germinaztion. The children who resisted Eindeutschung (Germinization) or were not of sufficent Aryan blood lines to be accepted were not returned to Poland or other country of origin. Most were sent to the Kalish camp in Poland where they were murdered. Himmer explained this. "It is our duty to take these children if we have to rob or steal them. It is our duty to take their German blood or destroy it." Himmler felt that these children were such potentially superior individuals that it would be dangerous to leave them outside the Reich.
Modren readers have difficulty understanding the NAZIs and what caused them to commit such atrocious acts of barabarity in our suposedly civilized world. The murder pf Jews was an act of hatred. Regretably such acts of ethnic and racial hatred are all too common in histort, although not on the scale and ruthless efficency pursued by the NAZIs. The murder of children at first selected and then rejected from the Lebensborn Eindeutschung (Germanisation) program seems incomprehensible. For Himmler the elimination of these children was necessary because their racial makeup would pose a threat to the NAZI New Order. A HBC reader has compiled information on NAZI cosmology and the occult which provide further insights on Hitler and the NAZI mindset.
No one really knows how many were kidnapped in Poland and other NAZI-occupied countries. Historians generally estimate that 0.2-0.3 million children were forcibly seized and brought to Germany by the NAZIs. Only an incredibly small number of the kidnapped childrten (25,000-40,000) were ever returned to their parents after the War. There are several reasons for this small number. Some of the older children were killed by the SS when they resisted Germinization. The SS did not keep records on who the parents were and the records made up for the children were often falsified making it impossible to determine in some cases even nationality, let alone family names. Even many of the children themselves, if they had been kidnapped at an early age, were not aware of their Polish and other non-German origins. German families in many cases became attached to the children and resisted giving the children up that they had received from the Lebensborn centers. Often the children themselves had become Germanized and objected to go back to their original family. Further problems were created by the Cold War. German and Allied Occupation authorities were often unwilling to take well-adjusted children from stable families and send them behind the Iron Curtain to Communist Poland.
R. Abe, "Lebensborn e.V." Shoa.de website, (retrieved May 3, 2002).
Jörg Albrecht "Rohstoff für Übermenschen", Artikel in Zeit-Punkte 3/2001 zum Thema Biomedizin, S. 16-18.
Bleuel, H. P., Das saubere Reich. Theorie und Praxis des sittlichen Lebens im Dritten Reich, Bern u.a. 1972, S. 192.
Catrine Clay, Michael Leapman "Herrenmenschen", Das Lebensborn-Experiment der Nazis, Heyne-TB (1997, vergriffen)
Marc Hillel and Clarissa Henry, "Of Pure Blood" (1976).
Georg Lilienthal "Der Lebensborn e. V.", Fischer Verlag (1993, vergriffen)
Padfield, Peter. Himmler: Reichsführer-SS (Henry Holt: New York, 1991), 656p.
Dorothee Schmitz-Köster "Deutsche Mutter bist du bereit", Alltag im Lebensborn, Aufbau-Verlag (1997, vergriffen)
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