yr11_nazis_women

=__Women of Nazi Germany__=

By Sebastien Haghayeghi, IST, 2007
When translated “Lebensborn” means “Spring of Life”. The Lebensborn program, after the extermination camp, seems to be one of the most terrifying Nazi Projects. This program was created in 1935 by one of Hitler’s most close followers, Heinrich Himmler. This society aimed to give young racially pure women (Blue eyes, Blonde hair, etc) the chance to have children in secret. Once the child was born he/she would be given straight to the Nazi SS organization.

Honor Cross Medal
To encourage young girls from childhood to have many babies when they grew up propaganda was heavily used to control the way the thought. They were forced to believe that a family of 7 children and Aryan father was the perfect family. Pictures of this Nazi stereotype family were imprinted into young children storybooks and text books. The Nazis created the thought of a Large; pure race family was a sign of prosperity and nationalism. They even introduced a word to describe this type of family, “Kinderreich”

Lebensborn Program
Lebensborn, started off just by having SS nurseries, but this was not on a large enough scale to have any influence on the birth rate of Germany. The next stage was having meeting places for racially pure women to meet and mate with SS officers. When born, they were immediately donated to the Lebensborn program where they were to be given a “Nazi Education”.

Honour Cross Medal[[image:177CROSS_OF_HONOR_OF_THE_GERMAN_MOTHER_IN_BRONZE.jpg width="366" height="284" align="right" caption="Honour Cross of the German Mother"]]
The Honor Cross medal, or more commonly known, was awarded to women who achieved to have racially pure babies. It was offered as an incentive to increase the Aryan population growth. This Medal was introduced in 1939; 4 years after the Lebensborn program first began.

A picture of the Honour Cross Medal

It was not only German women who were eligible for the Honor Cross medal but also other approved Germanic countries such as such as Austria and Danzig who had racially pure women. A mother could be awarded a bronze, silver, or gold cross depending on the number of children she had produced. Eight would entitle the woman to a gold cross, six for silver, and four for bronze.There are even some rare accounts that a tiny number of women were awarded a gold medal with diamond for having over 12 to 13 children.

Lebensborn Program[[image:0,1020,339089,00.jpg width="420" height="294" align="right" caption="A young girl having her characteristics measured"]]
With the number of racially pure babies not increasing at a higher enough rate they were forced to take more dramatic extremes, these envolved:
 * The worst side of the Lebensborn program was in 1939 where the policy for kidnapping racially pure children from eastern countries was uncovered. The unfortunate children were placed in centers where they were to be “Germanized”.
 * To no matter what extent necessary, the children were forced to reject and forget their birth parents (their true parents). If children were simply not good enough for the Nazis they would be sent to concentration camps where they would be executed.
 * The children who did reject their birth parent were adopted by SS families.
 * Sadly for these poor babies a large majority of them, without any maternal love and kindness, grew up to be autistic. In Hitler’s eyes, a child with autism was not a pure race child; these children with autism would have most likely ended up in concentration and extermination camps.

To what extent was this a success?
In my opinion the Lebensborn program was by no means a success. The extreme measures taken for such disastrous results were devastating for Hitler. With over half of the children being born under the Lebensborn program turning out Autistic, and a large percentage of other kidnapped children not being worthy for "Germanizing", extermination camp for children were filling up quicker rather than the master race increasing in growth. Though the Master Race did increase slightly the measures taken and sacrifices made were simply not worth it.