Nazi Super-Babies

[Famas_1]

Hey all,

I'd be curious to know how the children created by those super selective SS breeding programs turned out? Are there any books or articles 30 or 40 years later that looked at the results? I'm guessing most of those kids have black hair and are otherwise unremarkable...

[Alp Guard]

Hey all,

I'd be curious to know how the children created by those super selective SS breeding programs turned out? Are there any books or articles 30 or 40 years later that looked at the results? I'm guessing most of those kids have black hair and are otherwise unremarkable...

Unfortunately, we have to assume, that the dark haired children were killed according to this source:

"LEBENSBORN" means "spring of life". The "Lebensborn" project was one of most secret and terrifying Nazi projects. Heinrich Himmler created The "Lebensborn" on December 12th, 1935. The goal of this society ("Registered Society Lebensborn - Lebensborn Eingetragener Verein") was to offer to young girls "racially pure" the possibility to give birth to a child in secret. The child was then given to the SS organization which took in charge his "education" and adoption.

In the beginning, the "Lebensborn" were SS nurseries. But in order to create a "super-race", the SS transformed these nurseries in "meeting places" for "racially pure" German women who wanted to meet and make children with SS officers. The children born in the Lebensborn were taken in charge by the SS and it is important to know that most of them were also victims of this race policy....

From 1939, one of the most horrible side of the Lebensborn policy was the kidnapping of children "racially goods" in the eastern occupied countries. These kidnappings were organized by the SS in order to take by force children who matched the Nazi's racial criteria (blond hair, blue eyes, etc....). Thousands of children were transferred to the "Lebensborn" centers in order to be "Germanized". In these centers, everything was done to force the children to reject and forget their birth parents. As an example, the SS nurses tried to persuade the children that they were deliberately abandoned by their parents. The children who refused the Nazi education were often beaten. Most of them were finally transferred to concentration camps (most of the time Kalish in Poland) and exterminated. The others were adopted by SS families.

In 1942, in reprisals of the assassination of the SS governor Heydrich in Prague, a SS unit exterminated the entire male population of a small village called Lidice. During this "operation", some SS made a selection of the children. 91 of them were considered as good enough to be "Germanized" and sent to Germany. The others were sent to special children camps (i.e. Dzierzazna & Litzmannstadti) and later to the extermination canters.

It is nearly impossible to know how much children were kidnapped in the eastern occupied countries. In 1946, it was estimated that more than 250,000 were kidnapped and sent by force to Germany. Only 25,000 were retrieved after the war and sent back to their family. It is known that several German families refused to give back the children they had received from the Lebensborn centers. In some cases, the children themselves refused to come back in their original family: they were victims of the Nazi propaganda and believed that they were pure Germans. It is also known that thousand of children not "good enough" to be Germanized were simply exterminated.

[Marcus]

The Lebensborn homes were no "breeding farms".

/Marcus

[zeitgeist1]

I'm not exactly sure about the credibility of the article above...

I can't see the Germans randomly beating kids; and I question a lot of the propogranda I hear regarding Nazi Germany.

The "Super Baby" program does seem interesting, though.

[The Mailman]

Hey all,

I'd be curious to know how the children created by those super selective SS breeding programs turned out? Are there any books or articles 30 or 40 years later that looked at the results? I'm guessing most of those kids have black hair and are otherwise unremarkable...

Unfortunately, we have to assume, that the dark haired children were killed according to this source:

"LEBENSBORN" means "spring of life". The "Lebensborn" project was one of most secret and terrifying Nazi projects. Heinrich Himmler created The "Lebensborn" on December 12th, 1935. The goal of this society ("Registered Society Lebensborn - Lebensborn Eingetragener Verein") was to offer to young girls "racially pure" the possibility to give birth to a child in secret. The child was then given to the SS organization which took in charge his "education" and adoption.

In the beginning, the "Lebensborn" were SS nurseries. But in order to create a "super-race", the SS transformed these nurseries in "meeting places" for "racially pure" German women who wanted to meet and make children with SS officers. The children born in the Lebensborn were taken in charge by the SS and it is important to know that most of them were also victims of this race policy....

From 1939, one of the most horrible side of the Lebensborn policy was the kidnapping of children "racially goods" in the eastern occupied countries. These kidnappings were organized by the SS in order to take by force children who matched the Nazi's racial criteria (blond hair, blue eyes, etc....). Thousands of children were transferred to the "Lebensborn" centers in order to be "Germanized". In these centers, everything was done to force the children to reject and forget their birth parents. As an example, the SS nurses tried to persuade the children that they were deliberately abandoned by their parents. The children who refused the Nazi education were often beaten. Most of them were finally transferred to concentration camps (most of the time Kalish in Poland) and exterminated. The others were adopted by SS families.

In 1942, in reprisals of the assassination of the SS governor Heydrich in Prague, a SS unit exterminated the entire male population of a small village called Lidice. During this "operation", some SS made a selection of the children. 91 of them were considered as good enough to be "Germanized" and sent to Germany. The others were sent to special children camps (i.e. Dzierzazna & Litzmannstadti) and later to the extermination canters.

It is nearly impossible to know how much children were kidnapped in the eastern occupied countries. In 1946, it was estimated that more than 250,000 were kidnapped and sent by force to Germany. Only 25,000 were retrieved after the war and sent back to their family. It is known that several German families refused to give back the children they had received from the Lebensborn centers. In some cases, the children themselves refused to come back in their original family: they were victims of the Nazi propaganda and believed that they were pure Germans. It is also known that thousand of children not "good enough" to be Germanized were simply exterminated.

Hello to all. This is my first post. In regards to the above quoted material from Alp Guard I would be carefull of using highly partisan and prejudiced sources. As far as I know the Lebensborn project was created for the purpose of preventing unwed mothers from seeking illegal abortions. Abortions in Germany were made illegal in 1935 and it was the racial policy instituted by Himmler which gathered what were considered racially pure and desirable women to give birth so as to make the slogan "No German child should go unborn", or something similiar. This policy was extended to some occupied countries, namely Norway and Poland to allow the same Lebensborn facilities for unwed mothers of German soldiers and racially desirable women to give birth. It is "assumed", and I will strees this, that children born with defects (brown or black hair and/or eyes NOT being one) probably ended up being killed. The atrocities listed by the quoted source in Alp Guard post are very questionable and, IMO, the truth behind them is doubtfull. I know the source used but, in case there is another source for the quote, it would interest me to know the source of the quote.

Sincerely

TM

[Famas_1]

The Lebensborn homes were no "breeding farms".

/Marcus

I didn't use the term "breeding farms", but maybe I implied it. Consider the following, taken from the book "The Black March", by Peter Neumann, chronicling his experience as a Waffen-SS man at home and on the Eastern Front. In 1940, he reports to a hospital, having been summoned there by a chief medical officer, who tells him: "We have made inquiries into your background and history. Your own and that of your family. I congratulate you. You are of pure Aryan stock. We've gone back as far as the eighteenth century and we've found nothing but completely Germanic stock in your ancestry" (p. 72). After prattling on about genetics, the officer then goes on to explain: "Given these facts, it is easy to understand that two racially pure human beings of unmixed Aryan blood, have every chance of producing a child possessing their characteristics and their good qualities, or at any rate a good part of them. During the last few years these principles have been given practical application in the breeding of thoroughbred animals. The stud farms have found that a brood mare of pure stock, mated with a stallion also purebred, will produce, nine times out of ten, a thoroughbred. That's the key. Thoroughbreds!". (p. 74). They send him to a Lebensborn (which in the book is translated as "Fountain of Life -- a state-controlled breeding establishment") in Schmallenog, where he knocks up a perfect blonde girl volunteer from the BDM. There are descriptions of rooms and cells where all this "official activity" takes place -- and areas of the Lebensborn where the single mothers then stay afterwards and raise their children.

Sounds like a breeding farm to me. The Germans even acknowledged it themselves. (Unless, of course, some of you will come back and inform me that "The Black March" is not a reliable source).

Instead of being created to prevent unwed mothers from having illegal abortions, the Lebensborn were created to "...encourage the perpetuation of a pure German race" (p. 74). Marriage wasn't important, the mothers there were unwed because they were just "baby-making machines" for Germany, and were not expected to ever see the fathers again.
*edit* -- according to this Neumann book, anyway. I just read other sources that say exactly what you mention, that Lebensborn were there so that single unwed mothers could raise their children instead of having abortions.

[Vikki]

Consider the following, taken from the book "The Black March", by Peter Neumann...

Sounds like a breeding farm to me. The Germans even acknowledged it themselves. (Unless, of course, some of you will come back and inform me that "The Black March" is not a reliable source).

Do a quick search on the Forum and/or on Feldgrau and draw your own conclusions.

~FV

[Famas_1]

Well, I followed your suggestion (should have know this book would have been discussed here), and unfortunately it seems pretty up in the air as to whether it is fiction or not. A certain poster rather comically refused to believe it's authenticity because of the "sensational" and "graphic" descriptions dealing with the Lebensborn (which he says was done to increase sales of the book). There is absolutely nothing racy or sensational with Neumann's description of what went on there. It reads like a tame, but honest account of what went on.

I personally don't see why the idea of "breeding farms" in Nazi Germany are such a hard sell. After all, if they killed masses of people because they were "subhuman", then they certainly were able to act on the opposite spectrum of this genetic thinking as well.

[Annelie]

The History Channel had an episode last year dedicated to the "Lebensborn" and the children
and how they have fared these years.
They intereviewed an women whom lives in Berlin but was adopted after the war.
This women found out about her origins and tracked down her birth mother. The mother
would not talk about the Father or her birth.

The program interviewed other children from this progrom but they lived in Denmark
and they did not fair well. The several gentlemen they interviewed told of an very
difficult upbringing with beatings and being unloved.

Yes, I believe there was an Lebensborn progrom but I wonder if we should remember
the time period in the war when this took place?

[szopen]

In Poland Lebensborn is mainly remembered because of kidnapping of "Racially pure" children. Just enter for example phrase "dzieci zamojszczyzny" itno google.

One of first hits is here, from Polish government page (IPN is INstitut of National Memory, dedicated to tracing of criems during war against Polish citizens. )
http://www.ipn.gov.pl/biuletyn/9/biuletyn9_13.html

[Cold Spring Child]

Finding people willing to talk freely about the program is difficult, not only because of the fear of reprisal or reprimand against the participants, but also because of the terrible treatment of some of the offspring of the program after the war. For example, look at this link about children of National Socialists in Norway--you might also follow the link it contains to their own organization seeking social equality with other citizens.

http://home.online.no/~kluwer/engl.htm

Stuart

[mike_r]

Hiya, im new to these forums! Ive never heard of the Lebensborn! Where would be a good place to start look for some information? Thanks. Mike

[May 10th 1940]

i read somewhere that one of de female singer from Abba was a lebensborn child, a norwegian mom and an ss Major as her fahter. i can't rember the names. but shortly after the war mother and child moved to sweden. the father was killed in Action i believe

[Annelie]

May 10th 1940

"THE BLURB ON ABBA'S BIGGEST SECRET -
Posted at 9:48 PM
Here is the preview blurb on next UK Channel 5's documentary 'ABBA's Biggest Secret' from the UK Radio Times:

"You may think that the Swedish super-group's biggest secret was the name of their costume designer, and with good reason - they undoubtedly had the worst clothes of any group in the seventies. However, the secret referred to in the title of this film is that Abba's Frida Lyngstad was the illegitimate child of a German officer conceived during the Second World War.

This was uncovered by journalist Harry Edgington while he was researching an unauthorised biography of the band. He discovered that Frida's mother was actually Norwegian, not Swedish, and her father was Alfred Haase, a young Nazi officer who, Edgington says, was performing his patriotic duty to spread his "good genes" while occupying Norway. It's not a unique story.

As many as 10,000 German/Norwegian babies were born during the occupation as part of the Nazi's plan to replace Europe's "inferior races" with "pure-blooded Aryans". And most of these children were treated appallingly because of their "tainted blood".

It is an interesting, albeit sad, story, and one that has affected many people's lives. It is also one that would probably not get much coverage if it were not for the fame of Frida." Jane Rackham.

On the listings page there is a small medium-shot of Frida singing on the '79 tour. It will be interesting to see how much specific coverage the Frida story gets - an hour of TV is a long time to fill, but they are clearly selling it on her "guarded past".

Thanks to ABBAMAILer Graham Piper, Hove, UK

.............................
"http://www.abbamail.com/news/2003_03_01_archive.htm"

[Reich Ruin]

Hmmmm... the Lebensborn is still very controversial. I have no doubt that "racially pure" children were kidnapped from families in the east and I have read from many reliable sources of this happening. Also I believe it is true that many SS officers were set up with "racially pure" woman. However I think ( and correct me if Im wrong ) what Marcus Wendel and others are trying to say is that the Lebensborn Center's and the project were no state run brothels. It wasen't meant for the sexual enjoyment of members of the SS but rather a terrifyingly meticulous state-run program by the Nazi's to ensure the racial crebibility of children of SS or Nazi party officers. The centere's was also most likely nursuries for children and their mother's who were fathered by member's of the SS who were eithier on the front lines or elsewhere.