Lebensborn Was A Secret SS-Initiated Program To Create A Master Race
Lebensborn, meaning "fount of life," was a secret program carried out by the SS. The program encouraged genetically "pure" women (blonde-haired, blue-eyed women with the right measurements) to breed with SS officers. It was literally a program to selectively breed a master race of humans.The Nazis Set Up "Clinics" All Across Europe
To get more people into the Lebensborn program, the Nazis set up homes (sometimes called clinics) all across Europe. At its height, there were 10 facilities in Germany alone and 26 homes across eight countries. While some were actual places children were kept, others were just field offices. Outside of Germany, Norway had the highest amount of Lebensborn children. They facilitated 250 adoptions, most of which the mothers agreed to. In some cases, however, they were not told where their children were going.
Anni-Frid Lyngstad Of ABBA Is The Most Famous Lebensborn Child – But She Was Shunned In Norway For Her Origins
Between 1936 and the end of World War II in 1945, between 6,000 and 8,000 babies were born in Lebensborn clinics (though some sources estimated the number was a much higher 20,000). When the war ended, these children moved on with their lives, and many only learned about their true identity as adults.
The most famous of these children is Anni-Frid Lyngstad of the Swedish pop band ABBA. For her part, Lyngstad and other children like her – the products of unions between Norwegian mothers and German SS fathers – were forced out of their native country as traitors along with their mothers.
Women Were Selected To Participate In Lebensborn If They Fit Strict Criteria
Most of the women who participated in Lebensborn were single mothers, and each had to meet very strict criteria. This spanned beyond blonde hair and blue eyes. Women had to prove they had no genetic disorders and were tested to ensure they had not a drop of Jewish blood (as if that is a real thing that can be tested). They also had to prove the identity of the father, and he had to meet the same criteria – blonde hair, blue eyes, and freedom from genetic disorders.
Perhaps the most important criteria was women's allegiance to Nazism. They were indoctrinated into Hitler's ideology while they were living in the Lebensborn clinic, but many women who participated were already fervent followers of Hitler and had been scouted by the SS for their genetic traits and loyalty.
Fathers Included Hitler's Most Elite Officers
Sometimes, women would come into Lebensborn already pregnant. Other times, women specifically bred for this purpose alone. Most of the fathers were SS officers who had their own families. According to the New York Times, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, encouraged these officers to breed outside of their marriage. They weren't committing adultery. They were doing their jobs by building a German master race.
According to Hildegard Trutz, a Lebensborn mother whose story was recounted in the book Fascinating Footnotes From History, the SS officers who fathered Lebensborn children were "very tall and strong with blue eyes and blond hair." The women in her clinic went to a meet-and-greet session with a group of SS officers where they played games and watched films before she was given a week to choose her mate. The officer slept with her for three evenings the first week. On the other nights, he slept with other girls in the clinic.
At The Clinics, Children Were Conceived In Very Average Ways
One of the biggest myths of the Lebensborn program was that clinics were essentially bordellos stocked with willing women for SS men to do with what they pleased. This was not at all the case as the majority of these women were either selected from the League of German Girls or already pregnant. According to Dorothee Schmitz- Köster, an author who penned a book about Lebensborn, all of these babies were conceived in very normal ways.
“The children were conceived in all the usual ways: love affairs, one-night stands, and so forth,” she told the New York Times. “Abortion was not legal in Germany then, and in many cases, the women did not want to keep the babies.”
However, the women were given incentives to breed, and for some, it was a matter of survival in a poor, warn-torn country where families starved. Women chose breeding partners from a list of qualified SS officers. Hildegard Trutz was just 18 years old when she was recruited into the program. After she finished schooling, she joined the League of German Girls where one of the leaders suggested she give birth because Germany needed more "valuable stock." She signed up for the program immediately and chose a breeding partner from a group of SS officers.
The Only Abortions Allowed In This Program Were For Fetuses With Disabilities
The only abortions allowed in this particular program were for mothers whose fetuses were disabled. Heinrich Himmler was convinced abortion was evil because it lowered the birth rate, which meant some children considered "pure" were not born. They used the Lebensborn program as a way to adopt out those children.
Women Were Forced To Sign Their Children Over To The State After Giving Birth
Single women who willingly joined the program with the intention of breeding had to first sign a waiver stating that their children would be property of the state. Many of these women never saw their children again after the first two weeks of life.
Hildegard Trutz never felt any shame about what she was doing. She was completely willing. "As both the father of my child and I believed completely in the importance of what we were doing, we had no shame or inhibitions of any kind," she said.
After Trutz gave birth, she weaned her son for two weeks before he was taken away. He was placed in a special SS home and brought up to serve Hitler's agenda. Trutz never saw her baby or the baby's father ever again.
Most Of The Babies Of Lebensborn Didn't Know Their Identities
The Lebensborn program was a deeply held secret. The SS did an astounding job at covering up the true identities of these children. Most of the children who were born as part of the program weren't told for decades, if at all. The identities of their fathers were never recorded on their birth certificates. The stigma that Lebensborn mothers faced for having children out of wedlock also helped suppress the story.
The babies whose identities were known grew up in a post-war world where they were ostracized from their communities. They were labeled enemies of state because of their German blood.
Some Children Were Kidnapped From Their Parents And Placed In The Program
Lebensborn wasn't just focused on breeding a perfect race. It also acquired children through any means possible, and many of the children in the program were victims of kidnapping. It's estimated that 200,000 children were stolen from their families in Poland, Russia, and Eastern Europe and transferred to Germany where they would be "Germanized."
The kidnapped children were sorted from most desirable to least. Those who didn't fit Hitler's idea of genetic purity were sent away to concentration camps. Those who did fit the mold were sent to re-education camps. These children were given new names and forced to forget everything about their lives before. If a child fought their new identity, they were killed. From there, children were either fostered into ideal German families or sent to boarding schools where they were taught to be culturally German.
The unfortunate truth of the mass kidnappings was that most of these children never returned to their biological parents, even after the war.
Mothers Faced Intense Stigma As The War Ended, And Many Were Ostracized
Since abortion wasn't legal in Germany, many of the mothers gave up these "master race" babies to families in the SS. Some mothers chose to raise their children alone, but they lied about their children's origins to avoid stigma. Most would say their child's father had been killed in the war. The truth is that these women faced double the stigma of normal single mothers in postwar Germany: one for having an illegitimate child and another for participating in SS programs. Mothers, unable to cope with their silence, often developed psychological problems and turned to alcohol. Some of those who were ostracized after the war were often publicly beaten, shamed, and forced into slave labor.
Women were ostracized in Norway, not only because they swore into Nazism, but also because they lived in the best conditions while local communities starved during the war. According to Lebensborn mother Hildegard Trutz, the accommodations were the height of luxury. Women in her clinic were stationed in a castle with a common room for sports and games, a music room and a cinema.
"The food was the best I have ever tasted; we didn’t have to work and there were masses of servants," she said.
When Lebensborn Children Discovered Their Secret, It Was Often Traumatic – But Not Always
Most Lebensborn children grew up knowing they had some sort of secret – they just didn't know what it was. Over the last few decades, many of these children have slowly uncovered their roots with hints from family members and intense research.
“Most grew up knowing they had a secret,” Dorothee Schmitz-Köster told the Times. “They were angry at their mothers, because they had been lied to or abandoned. Some feel shame. There are also a small number who are proud of being Lebensborn. They feel they are part of an elite."
The Nazi party girls of Auschwitz: SS women romanced and caroused with death camp guard lovers as they oversaw the murder of thousands of Jews - before paying the ultimate price on the gallows
The biographies of over 200 SS women serving at Auschwitz death camp and their 'after work parties' have been published online in an effort to show the world that it wasn't just men involved. Entitled 'Women working for the SS', the project from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum documents the women's lives from birth and how they ended up serving Adolf Hitler. One of the women was Maria Mandl, a senior SS guard in Auschwitz from October 1942 to October 1944 who was nicknamed 'The Beast' by prisoners Born in 1912 the daughter of a shoemaker, she first started work in a Nazi concentration camp in Lichtenburg Germany in 1938 before being transferred to the camp for women in Ravensbruk, also in Germany. In 1942 she was sent to Auschwitz where she became infamous for her sadism and sending 'an estimated half a million women and children to their deaths in the gas chambers.' In 1942 she was sent to Auschwitz where she became infamous for her sadism...
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