A child for the Reich
Kidnapping and helping single mothers were not the only methods used by the Germans to increase the population. In an unofficial document sent to all members of the SS on October 28, 1939, Himmler ordered his men to fulfil their patriotic duty by becoming fathers. It didn’t matter if they were married or not.
‘Beyond conventional bourgeois laws, which may be necessary in other circumstances, it may be a noble endeavour for German women and girls to become, even out of wedlock—and not lightly, but with deep moral seriousness—mothers of children who will become soldiers and go to war; of whom only fate knows whether they will return or die for Germany’, Himmler wrote.
At the same time, the Reichsfürer assured the soldiers that both mothers and children would be cared for while the war lasted, or if men fell on the battlefield.
‘SS soldiers and mothers of these children: Show that you are ready, by faith in the Führer and for the sake of our blood and our people, to regenerate life for Germany with the same courage with which you know how to fight and die for Germany’, he added.
Stories of sex in Hitler’s Youth that were already circulating revived. There was also a rumour that the Lebensborn Organization favoured sexual encounters between honourable women and members of the SS, causing a scandal among a people who still didn’t fully understand the laws of sexual selection and eugenics.
Himmler tried to smooth things over, but only made it worse: ‘We only recommend men who are racially unblemished as conception assistants’. He then had to clarify that the order didn’t apply to wives of soldiers and police officers. He also expressed his great faith in the German woman and assured that he could decide for himself if a potential mother was racially and ideologically appropriate.
Alas, none of this had much of an effect on an audience that still required decades of education in eugenics. ‘Nature has no use of organisms, variations, or groups that cannot reproduce abundantly’, wrote the historian Will Durant.
