Reichführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and the Lebensborn Program

Himmler Lebensborn boy
Figure 1.--Himmler soon saw that his Lebesborn homes would never have any real impact on the German birth rate--for this to hppen, thousands of such homes would be needed. The War offered an opportunity to substantially move the demographic needle, simply harvest 'valuable genetic mterial' from the occupied countries. SS harvesting units begn kidnaping possible candidates. Children who passed the exhaustive examinations by SS doctors would be transported to the Reich to be raised by suitable families, often SS families. Those children who did not meet the SS standards would be killed so as to deny the occupied country such valuable genetic material. The other individuals here are Himmler's Chief Adjudant SS-Gruppenführer Karl Wolff (center) and Himmler's driver and bodyguard, SS-Obersturmführer Josef "Sepp" Kiermaier left). Wolf and Heydrich at the time were the number two anbd three man in the SS. We see the three SS commanders being invited to the Berhof to socialize with Hitler and other top NAZIs. Himmler had later had a falling out with Wolf, made him a Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS and shipped him off to Italy. Wolf would largely escape justice after the War.

German Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler had a passionate interest in race purity and the use of eugenics to achieve it. He had studied agriculture in university and wanted to use the same methods on humans that famers used on livestock. His SS which began as Hitler's personal Party body guard. As the SS grew in importance he began to conceive a nightly order of genetically pure Aryans. Hitler was not impressed with Himmler's nightly order, but allowed him to pursue his qyuitotic effort because he did stronly aggree on race issues. As part of his race building effort, Himmler conceived of the Lebensborn program. He personally founded the Lebensborn project (December 12, 1935). This was shortly after Hitler inroduced the Nuremberg Laws at the Party Congress. These race laws outlawed intermarriage with Jews and others who were deemed inferior. Himmler was not only concerned with race purity, but with the relatively small numbers of Germans and the declining birth rate. Himmler wated to not only reverse that decline, but to increase the Germany's Aryan population to 120 million. His ininital effort ws to incourage SS and Wermacht officers to have children with carefully selecte young, healthy Aryan women. As most Germnans would have been horrified at the very idea, it was all done quietly with no discusion permitted by the press. As the women were unmarried, after infancy the children would be raised by the SS in special facilities and be trained as the racially pure leadership of the new German nation. This program prove disappointing. The numbers of Lebensborn children were just too small to have ny meaningful demographic impact. He saw this clearly by the outbreak of the War (1939). The War provided Himmlr the idea of acquiring Lebensborn children in large numbers. As far as we know, he personally conceived the effort. He used his control of the NAZI security services to aquire large numbers of genetically appropriate children in the occupied countries for the Lebensborn program. As increasing numbers in the Reich was proving difficult, he would simply in NAZI terms, harvest genetically valuable material in occupied countries. Thnks to the many Wehrmcht victories, the populations of several occupied countries were at the mercy of Himmler and the SS. Polish children became the primary victim of the program because Poland was occupid by the Germans for 5 years and for much of that that time the Germans were not under severe pressure from the War. The situation in Ukraine was different because the Red army was never defeated and an effective resistance was able to organize. In addition, the Germans were forced to restrain their violence more so than Poland because it was only feding into popular resistance in unlike Poland and active war zine. Even so, some 50,000 Ukranian children may have been kidnapped by the Germans.






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Created: 4:41 AM 11/5/2012
Last updated: 4:42 AM 11/5/2012