Lebensborn

[Heimatschuss]

Just a side note:

The Reichspost had a secret scheme for unwed mothers similar to the Lebensborn organization. I was not able to find much on it so far but the official name appears to have been "Heim am Rupenhorn der Deutschen Reichspost" though I've also seen one site calling it »Lebensborn Meta Ohnesorge«. (Wilhelm Ohnesorge was the Reich's minister for Postal Service since 1937 and is known to have been a supporter of the Lebensborn scheme.)

The institution was situated in two villas in the 'Am Rupenhorn' street in Berlin-Zehlendorf. Exact addresses: Am Rupenhorn 7 and Am Rupenhorn 8. The then building 'Am Rupenhorn 8' was also known as 'Villa Kersten' or 'Landhaus Kersten'. The details of its work are still shrouded in mystery. Nienhaus (1990, p.209) mentions that at least two female NS activists from the Reichspost were able to continue their professional careers due to the discretion of the Rupenhorn institute.

Does anybody have further information on this Rupenhorn institute?

Source:
Ursula D. Nienhaus
Von der (Ohn)Macht der Frauen. Postbeamtinnen 1933 - 1945
in: Lerke Gravenhorst, Carmen Tatschmurat (Eds.): Töchter-Fragen. NS-Frauen-Geschichte.; Kore Verlag Traute Hensch; Freiburg; 1990; p.193 - 210

Best regards
Torsten

[Annelie]

Any further information on the Rupenhorn Institute?

[Heimatschuss]

Dear Annelie,

unfortunatley nothing new on the Rupenhorn Institute so far. The history of the Reichspost in general is still a field to be tended, let alone its more exoctic aspects.

Best regards
Torsten

[Annelie]

Hello Torsten,

You aroused my interest in the topic so I tried to find myself any information on the Rupenhorn Institute
but I found nothing except some information on whom lived on the street at one time.

If it was an up and running organization it's certainly a secret.


Perhaps some archives in Berlin may have some info or the organization that keeps records of
taxes/records etc on buildings? Or Ullstein archives?

[Heimatschuss]

Hello Torsten,

Perhaps some archives in Berlin may have some info or the organization that keeps records of
taxes/records etc on buildings? Or Ullstein archives?

Actually Nienhaus already had to look through the files of the Berlin municipial building administration to establish at least that a maternity home really had existed at Rupenhorn. But here's something I've just found in another Berlin archive, the Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz: A photo actually taken inside the building of the Rupenhorn Institute in 1937/1938 showing medical advisor Prof. Mader and nurses taking care of the Reichspost's latest acquisition.

Source: http://bpkgate.picturemaxx.com/webgate_cms/ ; picture 30002323

Best regards
Torsten

[Annelie]

Nice photo, at least it shows that it was indeed in operation in some sort of capacity.

[Heimatschuss]

Hello,

here are some links to a fascinating site commemorating Else Oventrop who was the head nurse (Oberschwester)
in the Lebensborn home in Steinhöring from 1937 till Oct 1939:

http://www.karwi.de/else-oventrop/bildd ... mlung.html
http://www.karwi.de/else-oventrop/bildd ... ering.html
http://www.karwi.de/else-oventrop/bildd ... ering.html
http://www.karwi.de/else-oventrop/bildd ... etter.html
http://www.karwi.de/else-oventrop/bildd ... ering.html
http://www.karwi.de/else-oventrop/bildd ... ering.html

Lots of interesting photos. Click on the small icons and enjoy. For those who can read German there's a number of scanned documents too.

Best regards
Torsten

[Annelie]

Torsten, thankyou. Your right an interesting site.

I wish I could understand more as it has lots to read.
It certainly would be interesting if someone whom was born
there found this site.

[Dieter Zinke]

I want to recommend "Lebensbornkinder" by "Zeitgeschichten auf SPIEGEL ONLINE"
http://einestages.spiegel.de/static/aut ... reich.html

Dieter Z.

[Vik]

It is amazing how much crap there has been told and printed about Lebensborn. About twenty years ago, in my first go-round in college, one of my teachers told my class in perfect seriousness that Lebensborn homes were "human stud farms," which they were not. The Germans at that time were extremely prudish and they would never have stood for that. In fact, the Lebensborn program was extremely civilized in its treatment of pregnant out-of-wedlock girls. At that time such girls were subjected to public scorn and insult and shunning because of their condition (and not only in Germany). This attitude still exists today with some people--

[J. Duncan]

Agree with above. They were not stud farms..they were very much like the "planned parenthood" clinics we have here. They even found families for the infants should the young mother want to give them up for adoption.

[Oberhessin]

Or they sent the kids, who were not healthy. to places like Spiegelsgrund, Haar or Brandenburg-Görden - wit the full knowledge what happened there in the Kinderfachabteilungen....

[Vik]

That's bad?

[Vikki]

Or they sent the kids, who were not healthy. to places like Spiegelsgrund, Haar or Brandenburg-Görden - wit the full knowledge what happened there in the Kinderfachabteilungen....

Oberhessin, perhaps you'd better provide a translations of Kinderfachabteilungen. And some sources that the Lebensborn were involved with sending children to them as well.

~Vikki

[Mauser K98k]

One of my close friends told me he was a "Lebensborn" child born in January 1945 in Bavaria. He said his mother told him his father (whom she was not married to) was an SS officer who was killed on the Eastern Front. His mother married an American GI after the war and of course they moved back to the US after his stepfather's tour was through there. He kept his German first name, but adapted the surname of his stepfather. He despised his mother and they were not close at all, but I don't know if the "Lebensborn" thing had anything at all to do with that.

I do know he was bothered by it all and felt "unattached".