One of the most disturbing elements of social policy in Nazi Germany was lebensborn - an attempt to breed racially pure Aryan children.
The aim was to encourage Aryan girls from good families to breed with specially selected members of the SS. It was hoped that the resultant children would be - in the words of one lebensborn volunteer - ‘to lay the foundation of a pure racial breed.’
Surviving, first-hand accounts from these volunteers are rare, but I unearthed the shocking story of Hildegard Trutz while researching my book Wolfram: The Boy Who Went to War.
Surviving, first-hand accounts from these volunteers are rare, but I unearthed the shocking story of Hildegard Trutz while researching my book Wolfram: The Boy Who Went to War.
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| Lebensborn room for new born babies, Bavaria, 1938 |
Hildegard was approached by a loyal Nazi leader in the autumn of 1936, when she was just 18 years old.
‘If you don’t know what to do,’ said this leader, ‘then why not give the Fuhrer a child? What Germany needs more than anything is racially valuable stock.’
The impressionable young Hildegard - already an enthusiastic Nazi - immediately knew that this was her calling in life. After giving proof that she had at least three generations of Aryan ancestors, she was sent to an old castle in Bavaria.
‘The whole place was in the charge of a professor,’ she said. ‘A high up SS doctor who examined each of us very thoroughly.’ He wanted to ensure that there had never been any cases of hereditary diseases in the family.
‘We had to sign an undertaking renouncing all claims to the children we would have there, as they would be needed by the state and would be taken to special houses and settlements for intermarriage.’
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| A lebensborn birth house, circa 1936 |
Over the next few days, Hildegard was introduced to the SS men who had been selected to impregnate the women. They were all tall and strong with blond hair and blue eyes. The girls had a week to choose the one they liked, but were never told their names.
‘When we had made our choice, we had to wait until the tenth day after the beginning of our last period, when we were again medically examined.’
They were then ordered to receive the men into their rooms at night.
Hildegard felt no shame or inhibitions about what she was doing. Nor did her chosen partner. ‘He was a sweet boy, although he hurt me a little, and I think he was actually a little stupid, but he had smashing looks.
‘He slept with me for three evenings in one week. The other nights he had to do his duty with another girl.’
Hildegard quickly fell pregnant and eventually gave birth to a healthy baby boy. ‘I suckled him for the first fortnight, and then he was removed.’ That was the last she ever saw of him.
The chief surgeon thanked her and told her to come back in the following year. Hildegard was tempted, but in the intervening time she got a job working within the Nazi party and was no longer available.
She eventually got married and told her husband about her lebensborn child. ‘I was rather surprised to find that he was not as pleased about it as he might have been. Of course, he couldn’t very well say anything against it, seeing that I had been doing my duty to the Fuhrer.’
She would eventually have a further three children: it’s not known whether she ever told them about their half-brother, born in that SS-run castle in Bavaria
The child that Hildegard gave birth to was one of some 8,000 lebensborn children born in Nazi Germany. Many of them are still alive today.
Hildegard Trutz’s story is told in Louis Hagen’s 1951 book Follow My Leader (o/p) There is more on the policy of lebensborn in my forthcoming book, Wolfram: The Boy Who Went to War, to be published in February.
