Lebensborn: Birth, Adoption, and Kidnapping under the Third Reich
- Daniel Holland
- 15 hours ago
- 7 min read
It began quietly, with paperwork, letters, and a belief that the future of a nation could be engineered in nurseries rather than battlefields.
In December 1935, Heinrich Himmler signed off on a project that would attempt to redefine motherhood itself. At a moment when Germany was still reeling from the demographic catastrophe of the First World War, and when Nazi racial ideology had become state doctrine, the SS leader proposed something radical and deeply unsettling. The survival of the Reich, he believed, depended not only on conquest but on controlled reproduction. What followed was Lebensborn, a secretive SS run organisation that sought to increase the number of children deemed racially pure according to Nazi eugenic standards.
This was not a fringe experiment. Lebensborn became embedded within the machinery of the SS and expanded across occupied Europe. It offered comfort, security, and material privilege to some mothers, while destroying the lives of thousands of others whose children were stolen, renamed, and raised to forget who they were. Long after the collapse of the Third Reich, its consequences remain unresolved.
A demographic crisis and a racial fantasy
Germany entered the 1930s with a population problem. More than two million German soldiers had been killed between 1914 and 1918, leaving a sharp imbalance between men and women of childbearing age. Economic instability during the Weimar years had already depressed birth rates, and by the early Nazi period it was estimated that more than 800,000 pregnancies ended in abortion every year.
To Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, this decline was intolerable. It was compounded, in their view, by what they described as racial degeneration. Intermarriage with Jews and other groups the Nazis classified as inferior was portrayed as a biological threat to the nation. Himmler framed the issue bluntly. Germany did not simply need more children. It needed the right children.
Lebensborn, meaning fount of life, was created as a registered association under SS control. Though publicly described as a family welfare organisation, it was rooted in Nazi racial hygiene theory. Its stated goal was to increase births among those classified as racially and biologically valuable, while ensuring that disabled or non Germanic children were excluded from protection. Abortion was strictly punished for women carrying Aryan children, while encouraged or enforced for those deemed unfit.
Himmler’s blueprint for controlled motherhood
In September 1936, Himmler outlined the purpose of Lebensborn in a directive to SS leaders. He described it as an organisation dedicated to supporting valuable families, caring for pregnant women approved by the SS Race and Settlement Office, and overseeing the upbringing of their children. Membership was compulsory for senior SS figures, and by 1939 the organisation counted around 8,000 members, including 3,500 SS leaders.
Lebensborn initially served the wives of SS officers, providing maternity care and welfare support. It soon expanded to include unmarried women, provided they passed racial examinations. Around sixty percent of mothers accepted into the programme were not married. For many, Lebensborn offered secrecy at a time when unwed pregnancy carried social stigma. Women could give birth discreetly, away from their home communities, in well resourced facilities staffed by SS doctors and nurses.
The first Lebensborn home, known as Heim Hochland, opened in 1936 in Steinhöring, a small village near Munich. These homes were conspicuously comfortable. Furniture, artwork, and household goods were often looted from Jewish families and from occupied territories. Mothers received nutritious food and medical care even as shortages spread elsewhere.
Racial testing and selective admission
Admission to Lebensborn was not automatic. Both mother and father were required to undergo racial screening. Blond hair and blue eyes were preferred, but the criteria went far deeper. Family lineage had to be traceable and free from Jewish ancestry or other traits the Nazis deemed undesirable for at least three generations.
The process was exacting. Only around forty percent of women who applied were approved. SS doctors conducted physical examinations, genealogical investigations, and ideological assessments. The aim was to ensure that children born under the programme could be presented as living proof of Nazi racial theory.
Within the homes, selected women were encouraged to socialise with SS officers. Some relationships developed over time, others were brief. The programme allowed, and in some cases quietly encouraged, sexual encounters designed solely for reproduction. The resulting children were often taken into SS custody at birth and placed for adoption with approved families.
Incentives for prolific motherhood
Lebensborn did not operate in isolation. It was part of a broader system designed to reward women who produced large numbers of Aryan children. The Cross of Honour of the German Mother was introduced with three grades. Bronze recognised four children, silver six, and gold eight or more.
Recipients gained tangible benefits. Mothers with three or more children under the age of ten received honorary cards granting priority in shops, rent reductions, access to better food, and eligibility for interest free state loans. In a society increasingly shaped by scarcity, these privileges mattered.
Motherhood was recast as a patriotic duty. Women were praised publicly for fertility, while those who failed to reproduce faced social pressure and suspicion. The regime celebrated birth as a form of national service.
Expansion beyond Germany
As the Third Reich expanded, so too did Lebensborn. Facilities were established across occupied Europe, particularly in regions the Nazis considered racially compatible. Norway became a central focus. Himmler was especially drawn to Scandinavian populations, whom he viewed as exemplars of Nordic Aryan traits.
By the early 1940s, Lebensborn operated homes in Germany, Austria, Poland, Norway, Denmark, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. In Norway alone, nine facilities were established. Thousands of children were born there to Norwegian women and German soldiers.
In 1942, policy shifted further. German soldiers were encouraged to socialise with local women in occupied territories. Children produced by these unions were to be handed over to the SS if the mother met racial criteria. Many women were never told that adoption would involve transfer to Germany.
Kidnapping and forced Germanisation
The most brutal aspect of Lebensborn emerged in 1939. Under Himmler’s direction, the Nazis began systematically kidnapping children from occupied territories. Poland, Yugoslavia, Russia, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, and Norway were all targeted.
Children were seized in full view of their parents. SS teams selected those who looked Aryan and subjected them to racial tests. They were then categorised. Those deemed suitable were sent to Lebensborn homes or placed with German families. Others were sent to labour camps or killed.
Himmler justified the policy chillingly. “It is our duty to take the children with us to remove them from their environment,” he reportedly said. “Either we win over any good blood that we can use for ourselves or we destroy this blood.”
Children between two and six were fostered by German families. Older children were placed in boarding schools, given new names, and punished for speaking their native languages. Records of their origins were erased. Resistance was met with beatings or deportation to concentration camps.
Destruction of records and the scale of loss
As the war turned against Germany, SS officials destroyed Lebensborn archives. The result was a historical void. Estimates of the number of children affected vary widely. Polish authorities claimed 10,000 were taken from their country alone, with fewer than fifteen percent returned. Other estimates run as high as 200,000, though many historians place the figure closer to 20,000.
What is clear is that tens of thousands of children were separated permanently from their families. After the war, only around 25,000 children were successfully traced and reunited.
Reckoning after 1945
At the Nuremberg trials, evidence of mass child kidnapping by Nazi Germany was presented. Lebensborn leaders were tried in the case of United States of America v. Ulrich Greifelt et al. The court acknowledged widespread abduction but concluded that Lebensborn itself had directly handled only a portion of the cases.
Max Sollmann, head of Lebensborn, was acquitted of kidnapping charges. The court ruled that the prosecution had not proven sufficient organisational responsibility, a judgement that remains controversial.
Meanwhile, the women and children associated with Lebensborn faced harsh treatment. In the immediate post war period, communities often took revenge on mothers, shaving their heads, beating them, or driving them out. Children were bullied, labelled, and ostracised for their origins.
In Norway, many Lebensborn children were placed in institutions and subjected to abuse. Decades later, survivors sought compensation. In 2008, the European Court of Human Rights dismissed their case on technical grounds, though the Norwegian government offered compensation payments.
Lives shaped by silence and shame
For many survivors, the damage was psychological as much as physical. Some German families refused to return adopted children. Others had grown so thoroughly indoctrinated that they rejected their birth families. Many mothers never told their children the truth, inventing stories of absent fathers or lost husbands.
The legacy of Lebensborn is one of fractured identities. Survivors continue to search for records that may no longer exist. Support groups formed in Germany and Norway in the early 2000s to challenge myths and encourage historical clarity.
As Brené Brown observed, “Shame corrodes the very part within us that believes we are capable of change.” For many Lebensborn children, that corrosion began before they could speak.
A programme built on ideology, not science
Despite persistent myths, Lebensborn was not a system of enforced breeding camps. Participation by women was often voluntary, though shaped by coercive ideology and limited choices. Yet the absence of physical compulsion does not lessen the moral weight of the programme. It was a state sponsored attempt to manipulate reproduction, erase identities, and treat children as raw material for a racial project.
Lebensborn stands as a reminder that the most dangerous policies are often wrapped in the language of care and protection. Behind clean nurseries and medical charts lay a worldview that reduced human beings to bloodlines and statistics.
