Lebensborn

Lebensborn 

Lebensborn, a Nazi organization, was established in 1935 in an effort to reverse Germany’s dwindling birthrate and to increase the number of ‘racially valuable’ offspring. Instigated by Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, the effort provided financial assistance and maternity care to the wives of SS men and also to unmarried mothers, a group that concerned Nazi racial hygienists and population planners. Lebensborn administrators encouraged unwed mothers to give up their infants after birth, and the organization managed both orphanages and adoption services that placed Lebensborn children with ‘deserving’ German families. Some 7,000 children were born in the organization’s home in Germany between 1936/1945. Lebensborn officials played a more insidious role in placing children from eastern Europe chosen for Germanization with adoptive families in Germany.