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The German response to the birth-rate problem during the Third Reich

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Fridolf Kudlien
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Continuity and Change , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , August 1990 , pp. 225 - 247
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

ENDNOTES

1 This series follows a general methodological conception which includes ‘a narrative intensification of single events’; see, for example, Frei, N., Der Führerstaat: National-sozialistische Herrschaft 1933 bis 1945 (Munich, 1987), 262.Google Scholar

2 Fröhlich, E., Die Herausforderung des Einzelnen: Geschichten über Widerstand und VerfolgungGoogle Scholar, with a foreword by Broszat, M. (Munich, 1983)Google Scholar; cf. in particular page 9 about a ‘form of intensive narration’.

3 To quote two examples out of many: in his book Das annexionistische Deutschland (Lausanne, 1915)Google Scholar, the Alsacian S. Grumbach collected evidence showing that German professors as well as industrialists wanted the occupied countries handed over to the Germans bevölkerungsfrei (emptied of indigenous populations); for similar ideas, see Gruber, M. v. (Professor of Hygiene), ‘Völkische Außenpolitik’, Deutschlands Erneuerung 1 (1917), 82f.Google Scholar

4 For Grimm's novel and its connections with the (then very fashionable) concept of ‘geopolitics’, see Neumann, F., Behemoth: Struktur und Praxis des Nationalsozialismus 1933–1944 (Fisher Taschenbuch edition, 1984), 187Google Scholar. The author, an émigré German sociologist, originally wrote the book in English; it was first published in 1942 in America.

5 For figures and discussion, see Faßbender, M., ‘Das Bevölkerungsproblem – das Problem der Gegenwart und Zukunft. Wertung von Tatsachen und Ursachen der Bevölkerungsentwicklung in Deutschland’Google Scholar, in idem (ed.), Des Deutschen Volkes Wille zum Leben: Bevölkerungspolitische und volkspädagogische Abhandlungen über Erhaltung und Förderung deutscher Volkskraft (Freiburg, 1917, 2nd ed.), 1–68Google Scholar; see also ibid., 813 f, ‘Tafel der Geburtenziffer in Deutschland’ (compiled by A. Düttmann) and ‘Vergleichende Kurven der Lebendgeborenen, der Gestorbenen… und der der Eheschließungen auf je 1000 Einwohner im Deutschen Reich und in Frankreich’ (compiled by H. Muckermann).

6 Quoted in Aly, G. and Roth, K. H., Die restlose Erfassung. Volkszählen, Identifizieren, Aussondern im Nationalsozialismus (Berlin, 1984), 22.Google Scholar

7 See the title of two pre-1933 books by Burgdörfer, quoted ibid., 150, n. 30. For Burgdörfer's role in German population policy (as well as for some other topics discussed in the present paper) cf. also Noakes, J., ‘Nazism and eugenics: the background to the Nazi Sterilization Law of 14 July 1933’, in Bullen, R. J., von Strandmann, H. ‘Pogge, Polonsky, A. B. eds, Ideas into Politics: Aspects of European History 1880–1950 (London, Sydney and Totowa N.J., 1984), 75–94.Google Scholar

8 For Krohne and the Beirat, see Weindling, P., in Thom, A. and Spaar, H. eds, Medizin im Faschismus: Symposium über das Schicksal…., Protokoll (Berlin East, 1983), 25f.Google Scholar

9 This book, mirroring the Catholic attitude in general, appears to have been widely known in Southern German Catholic circles (I happen to own a copy formerly belonging to the library of the Cistercian monastery at Bronnbach/Taunus); not a few of the contributors were medical men.

10 See Faßbender, , Das Bevölkerungsproblem, 27.Google Scholar

11 See Jäckel, E. ed., Hitler. Sämtliche Aufzeichnwgen 1905–1924 (Stuttgart, 1980), no. 591, 1044, and no. 592, 1047Google Scholar; both testimonies are from October 1923.

12 See Jäckel, E., Hitlers Weltanschauung: Entwurf einer Herrschaft (Stuttgart, 1981), 106fGoogle Scholar; cf. also p. 40 (references are from Mein Kampf).

13 Jäckel, , Aufzeichnungen (1924), no. 626, 1217, 04 1924.Google Scholar

14 Jäckel, , Weltanschauung, 39.Google Scholar

15 Jäckel, , Aufzeichnungen, no. 138, 207, 08 1920Google Scholar, and no. 235, 384, May 1921.

16 Ibid. no. 255, 420, May 1921.

17 Quoted by Olden, R., Hitler der Eroberer (Fischer Taschenbuch edn., 1984), 157Google Scholar. This book, one of the earliest Hitler biographies, was first published in Amsterdam in 1935; the author had had to leave Germany in 1933.

18 Ziel und Weg (Aim and Path) was a favourite Nazi phrase, used, for instance, as the title of the journal of the Nazi doctors' organization.

19 Cf. Anonymous, Adolf Hitler und seine Bewegung im Lichte neutraler Beobachter und objektiver Gegner, 2nd edn. (Munich, 1928), 54.Google Scholar

20 Quoted and commented upon by Dr med. Frankenthal, K. in Der Sozialistische Arzt 8 (1932), 104.Google Scholar

21 For this, see also Proctor, R. N., Racial hygiene: medicine under the Nazis (Cambridge, Mass, and London, 1988), 178.Google Scholar

22 To the books mentioned above, add Korherr, R., Geburtenrückgang: Mahnruf an das deutsche Volk (Munich, 1927)Google Scholar. The first edition is dedicated to the notorious philosopher Oswald Spengler, author of Der Untergang des Abendlandes. Korherr, one of the leading German population statisticians, made a career in the Third Reich.

23 Analysed by Jäckel, , Weltanschauung, 29–54.Google Scholar

24 Neumann, , Behemoth 188.Google Scholar

25 See for this Grunberger, R., A social history of the Third Reich (Penguin edn., 1974), 299.Google Scholar

26 Ibid., 302.

27 See Gütt, A., Rüdin, E. and Ruttke, F., Zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses. Gesetz und Erläuterungen (Munich, 1934), 59.Google Scholar

28 Seven volumes containing approximately 8,600 pages of reports and comments. (Printed by the publishers Petra Nettelbeck and Zweitausendeins, Salzhausen and Frankfurt a.M., 1980.)

29 Cf. Sopade reports, second year (1935), 251.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., 247.

31 See Grunberger, who mentions cases of doctors being punished thus, in Social History, 305.Google Scholar

32 Sopade reports, third year (1936), 188Google Scholar, referring to remarks made in connection with the BDM, Bund Deutscher Mädchen (Nazi Girls' Organization).

33 Cf. Sopade reports, fourth year (1937) 1353f.Google Scholar

34 Social indication was said to be one of those ‘enervating and Volk-damaging slogans whose criminal nature the Volk has seen through, in the meanwhile’, ibid., 1354.

35 For the following, see Stokes, L. D., Kleinstadt und Nationalsozialismus: Ausgewählte Dokumente zur Geschichte von Eutin 1918–1945 (Neumünster, 1984), 787fGoogle Scholar. On abortion during the Republic and Third Reich, see also David, H. P., Fleischhacker, J. and Höhn, C., ‘Abortion and eugenics in Nazi Germany’, in Population and Development Review 14 (1988), 81–112.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

36 For this and the following, see Sopade reports, fifth year (1938), 644f.Google Scholar, and Grunberger, , Social History, 302f.Google Scholar

37 Sopade reports ibid., 1140, 1142; see also Grunberger, , Social History, 312f.Google Scholar

38 This happened in a case mentioned by Grunberger based on files kept in the Koblenz, Bundesarchiv, Social History, 151.Google Scholar

39 Ibid., 305.

40 For all this see Schmierer, A. in Ziel und Weg 8 (1938) 500 f. and 599 fGoogle Scholar. Proctor, while offering some information about abortion (Racial Hygiene 121–3), seems to have overlooked the problem of contraception. However, he touches on the question – an open one, in my opinion – as to how far the German feminist movement, having been powerful in the Weimar Republic, played a role in the Third Reich in connection with a deliberate refusal to beget children, ibid., 125. A few remarks on contraception are also found in David, Fleischhacker and Höhn, ‘Abortion’, 86 f, 90.

41 See Mayer, M., They thought they were free: the Germans 1933–1945 (Phoenix edn., 1967), 198Google Scholar. This is based on information offered to the author by a former Nazi Studienrat (teacher at a higher school). On page 199 Mayer mentions the fact that mathematics teaching was often concerned with population ratios.

42 For this and the following, see Grunberger, , Social History, 508.Google Scholar

43 See Gütt, , Rüdin, and Ruttke, , Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses, 127.Google Scholar

44 Sopade reports, fifth year (1938), 1133.Google Scholar

45 Much factual information about this is also to be found in Proctor, Racial Hygiene, chapter 4.

46 Cf. Vellguth, L., ‘Gesetzliche Sterilisierung’, Ärztliche Mitteilungen 34 (1933), 435Google Scholar, right-hand column; see also Gütt, , Rüdin, and Ruttke, , Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses, 127Google Scholar, with regard to alcoholism.

47 Gütt, , Rüdin, and Ruttke, , Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses, 93.Google Scholar

48 Ibid. 60; see also Deutsches Ärzteblatt 63 (1933), 133.Google Scholar

49 Gütt, , Rüdin, and Ruttke, , Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses, 124.Google Scholar

50 Ibid.

51 Cf. Vellguth, , Gesetzliche Sterilisierung, 435 f.Google Scholar

52 Ibid. 436, left-hand column.

53 The expression is Vellguth's, ibid., 435–6; incidentally, the author was a doctor.

54 Cf. Gütt, , Rüdin, and Ruttke, , Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses, 124Google Scholar; the word Ballastexistenzen, too, is used several times by Vellguth.

55 Sopade reports, second year (1935), 356.Google Scholar

56 For this and the following, see Aly, and Roth, , Die restlose Erfassung, 105–9Google Scholar; for Koller in particular, see ibid., 96–104.

57 Cf. Ternon, Y. and Helman, S., Les médecins Allemands et le National Socialisme: Les métamorphoses du darwinisme (Tournai, 1973), 172.Google Scholar

58 For this, see Voss, W. F., Psychopathie 1933–1945 (M.D. Diss. Kiel, 1973), 95Google Scholar, and the whole of section VI 2.

59 Hudal, A., Die Grundlagen des Nationalsozialismus: Eine ideengeschichtliche Untersuchung (Leipzig and Vienna, 1937; reprinted Bremen, 1982)Google Scholar, chapter in, section 6, ‘Sterilisation und Eugenik’, 123–39.Google Scholar

60 See Die Medizinische Welt 7 (1933), 569–72, 603–6Google Scholar. Seitz' son Walter, then a very young doctor, belonged to a resistance group in Berlin; see Weisenborn, G., Der lautlose Aufstand: Bericht über die Widerstandsbewegung des deutschen Volkes 1933–1945 (Frankfurt a.M., 1974), 4th edn., 120.Google Scholar

61 See Niedermayer, 's memoirs Wahn, Wissenschaft and Wahrheit: Erinnerungen eines Arztes (Innsbruck, 1956), 277–80.Google Scholar

62 See Weitbrecht, H. J., Psychiatrie in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus (Bonn, 1968), 21ff.Google Scholar

63 Cf. Ternon, and Helman, , Les médecins Allemands, 165f.Google Scholar

64 Campbell, C. G., ‘Die deutsche Rassenpolitik’, Der Erbarzt 3 (1936), 140–2.Google Scholar

65 Pacific Coast Medicine 7 (1940)Google Scholar, issue no. 1.

66 I have consulted Temon, and Helman, , Les médecins Allemands, 178–180Google Scholar; Aly, and Roth, , Die restlose Erfassung, 153, note 21Google Scholar; Klee, E., ‘Euthanasie’ im NS-Staat. Die ‘Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens’ (Frankfurt a.M., 1983), 86Google Scholar; and, this appears to be a particularly reliable source, Stürzbecher, M., ‘Der Vollzug des Gesetzes zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses vom. 14. Juli 1933 in den Jahren 1935 und 1936’, Öffentliches Gesundheits-Wesen 36 (1974), 350–9.Google Scholar

67 According to the estimations of Bock, G., Zwangssterilisierung im Nationalsozialismus (Opladen, 1986), 230–46Google Scholar, altogether nearly 400,000 people were sterilized.

68 For this and the following, see Sopade reports, first year (1934), 103.Google Scholar

69 Cf. Grunberger, , Social History, 300f.Google Scholar

70 For the following, see Castell-Rüdenhausen, A. in Peukert, D. and Reulecke, J. eds, Die Reihen fast geschlossen. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Alltags unterm Nationalsozialismus (Wuppertal, 1981), 234–7.Google Scholar

71 Sopade reports, fifth year (1938), 641–55Google Scholar, offer a detailed description of all these measures of Nazi population policy.

72 See for this ibid., 645.

73 See Sopade reports, fourth year (1937), 1314fGoogle Scholar, and especially for the ‘Reich-smütterdienst’ Dammer, S. in ‘Frauengruppe Faschismusforschung’, ed., Mutterkreuz und Arbeitsbuch: Zur Geschichte der Frauen in der Weimarer Republik und im Nationalsozialismus Taschenbuch, Fischer edition (Frankfurt a.M.), 233–40.Google Scholar

74 For this and the following, see Grunberger, , Social History, 301f.Google Scholar

75 Cf. Dammer, in Mutterkreuz und Arbeitsbuch, 221.Google Scholar

76 For this idea see Proctor, , Racial Hygiene, 125Google Scholar and fig. 27.

77 For this and the foregoing, see Sopade reports, second year (1935), 851 f.Google Scholar

78 Cf. Schoenbaum, D., Die braune Revolution: Eine Sozialgeschichte des Dritten Reiches (Köln, 1968), 189, 216Google Scholar. The English original appeared under the title Hitler's social revolution: class and status in Nazi Germany 1933–1939.

79 The Sopade reports, fifth year (1938), 1105–28Google Scholar, offer a detailed section on ‘Der Wohnungsbau im Dritten Reich’.

80 Cf. Grunberger, , Social History, 48, 300.Google Scholar

81 Ibid., 288.

82 See Proctor, , Racial Hygiene, 125f.Google Scholar

83 See Sopade reports, fifth year (1938), 650.Google Scholar

84 For this, see Dammer, 's paper in Mutterkreuz und Arbeitsbuch, 234.Google Scholar

85 Cf. Aly, and Roth, , Die restlose Erfassung, 21.Google Scholar

86 Boberach, H. ed., Meldungen aus dem Reich. Die geheimen Lageberichte des Sicherheitsdienstes der SS 1938–1945, 17 vols. (Herrsching, 1984)Google Scholar. This edition contains approximately 6,700 pages of reports and comments.

87 Ibid., vol. 3 (January 1940), 658f.

88 Ibid. (December 1939), 570.

89 Ibid., vol. 4 (April 1940), 1017–19.

90 Ibid., vol. 6 (February 1941), 1970 f.

91 Ibid., vol. 10 (May 1942), 3766–70.

92 Ibid., vol. 13 (May 1943), 5207–10.

93 For some of these jokes, see Gamm, H.-J., Der Flüsterwitz im Dritten Reich (Munich, List Taschenbuch edition, 1963), 82.Google Scholar

94 See Grunberger, , Social history, 315Google Scholar. (Quoting from the Nazi Party organ Völkischer Beobachler.)

95 See for this Ackermann, J., Heinrich Himmler als Ideologe (Göttingen, 1970), 128Google Scholar; for other leading Nazis as propagators of this idea, see Lutzhöft, H.-J., Der Nordische Gedanke in Deutschland 1920–1940 (Stuttgart, 1971), 395fGoogle Scholar. Published as vol. 24 of the series Kieler Historische Studien.

96 For this, see Ternon, and Helman, , Les médecins Allemands, 164.Google Scholar

97 See Deutsches Ärzteblatt 72 (1942), 262.Google Scholar

98 Cf. the SD reports, vol. 13 (April 1943), 5116–18.

99 Dallin, A., German rule in Russia 1941–1945: A study of occupation policies (London, 1957).Google Scholar

100 Heiber, H.'s formulation, in Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte 6 (1958), 288Google Scholar (in his paper ‘Der Generalplan Ost’, ibid., 281–325).

101 Cf. the following remarks by Dr jur. E. Wetzel (one of the drafters of the Generalplan Ost): ‘enormous biological power of procreation among our Eastern neighbour populations’ (Heiber, , Generalplan Ost, 298)Google Scholar; Ukrainians, white Ruthenians and Poles were among the ‘strongest European peoples with regard to births’ (ibid., 300); ‘Gigantic power of procreation among these primitives’ (ibid., 317).

102 Doc. 157 in: Wuttke-Groneberg, W., Medizin im Nationalsozialismus. Ein Arbeitsbuch (Tübingen, 1980) 265–9Google Scholar (notes kept by Reichsleiter M. Bormann on a conference with Hitler in the Führer's headquarters).

103 Cf. Dallin, , German rule, 278.Google Scholar

104 See ibid., 285.

105 Cf. Gamm, , Flüsterwitz, 142.Google Scholar

106 Cf. Heiber/Wetzel, Generalplan Ost, 298.Google Scholar

107 Dallin, , German rule, 284.Google Scholar

108 See, for example, Himmler's remarks about German settlement in the East (Doc. 38 in: Ackermann, , Himmler als Ideologe, esp. 301)Google Scholar: ‘If the country … is settled with fitting German and Germanic peasants’ or ‘if the inhabitants of the cities … consist exclusively of Germans and Germanic persons’.

109 See Heiber, , Generalplan Ost, 288.Google Scholar

110 Dallin, , German rule, 285.Google Scholar

111 As for Swedes, the Nazis were convinced that these, in particular, were free of Jewish ‘blood’ (in the ‘Hitlerjugend’, I was told that I was fit to join a Nazi Eliteschule because I had a Swedish grandmother).

112 Cf. Heiber/Wetzel, Generalplan Ost, 301–5.Google Scholar

113 See Dallin, , German rule, 184f.Google Scholar

114 For this, see the section of ‘Germanisierung’ in Ackermann, , Himmler als Ideologe, 204–7.Google Scholar

115 See ibid., 209.

116 See ibid., 208 f.

117 Cf. Heiber/Wetzel, Generalplan Ost, 309f.Google Scholar

118 See for this ibid., 317 f.

119 See Ackermann, , Himmler als Ideologe, 220 with note 143.Google Scholar

120 For this, see Reiter, R., ‘Unerwünschter Nachwuchs. Schwangerschaftsabbrüche bei “fremdvölkischen” Frauen im NSDAP-Gau Ost-Hannover’, in W. Benz and B. Distel eds., Dachauer Hefte 4: Medizin im NS-Staat. Täter, Opfer, Handlanger (1988), 225–36Google Scholar (esp. 228). Cf. also F. David in: Fleishhacker, and Höhn, , Abortion, 99–101.Google Scholar

121 For this, see, for example, Ackermann, , Himmler als Ideologe, 222.Google Scholar

122 For Clauberg's activities as a sterilizer, see Ternon, and Helman, 's Les médecins Allemands, 165–84.Google Scholar

123 See Heiber/Wetzel, General plan Ost, 307Google Scholar, with note 25. In 1942, M. Bormann, one of the most fanatical Nazi leaders (a Reichsleiter), was rather shocked to find out that many Ukrainians – whom Bormann took to be ordinary Russian Untermenschen, not a comparatively ‘superior’ nation of their own (for this distinction see above) – not only had blond hair and blue eyes but were much healthier than most of the Herrenmenschen themselves; see Dallin, , German rule, 456.Google Scholar

124 For this, see Mommsen, H. in: Mommsen, ed., Herschaftsalltag im Dritten Reich: Studien und Texle (Düsseldorf, 1988), 9.Google Scholar

125 For this, cf. Allen, W. Sh., ‘Die deutsche Öffentlichkeit und die “Reichskristallnacht” – Konflikte zwischen Werthierarchie und Propaganda im Dritten Reich’Google Scholar, in: Peukert, and Reulecke, , Die Reihen fast geschlossen 397–411.Google Scholar

126 See in particular Koch, H. W., Der Sozialdarwininmus, Seine Genese und sein Einfluss auf das imperialistische Denken (Munich, 1973).Google Scholar

127 As taken by Bock, Gisela, Zwangssterilisation, ch. III.Google Scholar

128 For this and the following, see ibid., 143–6.

129 See ibid., 146.

130 See for this Internationales Ärztliches Bulletin (Bulletin Médical International), VI (1939), 29Google Scholar. This journal, edited by émigré physicians in Prague and Paris from 1934 until 1939, is now available in reprint (Berlin, 1989).Google Scholar