Lebensborn (Spring of Life) - having babies for The Fuehrer, or using the State for procreation.
Heinrich Himmler made a speech on 19th January 1935 where he said he hoped that this would be "the year of the purification of the movement and the state". (1) He urged members of the Schutzstaffel (SS) to get married and introducted a system where the more children they had, the less money they paid in tax. For example, "the deduction for a thirty-four-year-old married captain with no children was 3 per cent, with one child 2 per cent, two children 1.25 per cent and three children 0.4 per cent." (2)
Himmler also introduced regulations about the type of women SS members were allowed to marry. As one woman pointed out what happened when Ernst Trutz, an SS officer, proposed marriage: "He said I was a model of purebred Nordic Germanic woman.... and it was a sacred duty to give the Führer as many fine children as possible.... As the children of the SS men were going to be the new ruling class of Germany they had to be very careful that the women were not racially objectionable and had the right sort of physique to produce plenty of children. The marriage permit was only granted after an investigation by the Reich Ancestry Office and a medical examination by SS doctors." (3)
It became clear that even with these reforms not enough to encourage SS officers to have large families. The SS couple were expected to produce at least four children, but in fact the SS birthrate remained average for the country as a whole. (4) In December 1935 Himmler founded Lebensborn to care for unmarried mothers of "good blood" made pregnant by SS men. It was an attempt to stop these men arranging abortions and the consequent loss to the nation of "valuable" racial stock. These babies were then placed with SS families who wanted to adopt children. (5)
https://spartacus-educational.com/Lebensborn.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn
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Had never heard of this one. It sure was using the State for procreation and calling it patriotic. Sound a bit familiar? It was especially promoted with Nazi troops occupying Norway where there was an ample supply of blue-eyed supposedly Aryan stock. Thought to throw it out there for discussion or at least awareness.
= new reply since forum marked as read
https://perspectives.ushmm.org/item/brochure-for-the-lebensborn-program
The featured promotional brochure was published to encourage future mothers to join the Lebensborn program. Containing several photographs of the maternity centres, this pamphlet informed potential candidates of the rules and admissions requirements for the program. Lebensborn focused on recruiting unwed women expecting babies fathered by SS men or others deemed “biologically valuable,” and copies of this brochure were likely passed discreetly to single pregnant women by their doctors or nurses.
By offering single mothers secluded accommodations for the time of pregnancy and labour, these maternity centres were designed to protect women from social judgments and prevent them from seeking illegal abortions.2 However, women willing to join the program had to meet certain terms to prove their “Aryan” ancestry and good hereditary health. Those accepted into the program received the benefits of medical supervision, legal support, and job placement after labour. In the case of single women, the Lebensborn central office determined whether to release children into their mother’s custody or place them with an adoptive family.
Between 1936 and 1945, approximately 7,000 children were born in the Lebensborn maternity houses. Although roughly 60 percent of them were born to unmarried parents, having children outside of marriage was controversial in German society. By encouraging unwed but "racially worthy" mothers to have children, Lebensborn challenged traditional ideas about family.3 Elsewhere in its propaganda, however, the Nazi regime promoted early marriage as a way to have many children while reducing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Although these approaches seem very different, they both contributed to the goal of creating a large and healthy “Aryan” nation.
