Three more submissions on this topic follow.   - ed.

1.
Submitted by: Elizabeth Heinemann
          lisa-heineman@UIOWA.EDU

Our explorations of "intent" should enhance, not obscure, our
understanding of the significance of Lebensborn. Calling them "maternity
homes" does not diminish the extent to which they are implicated in the
Nazis' racial vision.  It simply removes the element of sexual titillation.

Lebensborn homes were designed to strengthen the "aryan" population by
enabling racially-approved single women (who claimed racially-approved men
as the fathers) to continue their pregnancies, give birth, and recover in
private, comfortable facilities with good medical care.  After this, the
children could be placed in "good aryan" families.  The leadership
(rightly) feared that, without such facilities, single women would
frequently opt for abortion rather than the shame and economic strain of
unwed motherhood.  Women who *did* opt to carry their pregnancies to term
might produce babies in less-than-ideal health, since discrimination
against unwed mothers extended into the health care system (despite *Mother
and Child's* attempts to rectify this for racially-approved women), and
since single women's poverty often meant poor nutrition and unsanitary
apartments. When single women opted to raise their children rather than
surrender them for adoption, the children suffered the economic and social
consequences of illegitimacy.

All of these phenomena -- abortion, poor prenatal and infant care, and
economic and social discrimination against "bastards" -- were at least as
important as inadequate sexual activity between "aryans" in depressing the
health and size of the "aryan" population, and the Nazis knew it.  The
Nazis didn't need to create an environment for more pregnancies; they
simply needed to create an environment for more *births* and more
opportunities for nonmarital children to enjoy good health and social
standing.  Stud farms would have been misspent resources.

Elizabeth Heineman
Associate Professor of History
University of Iowa


2.
Submitted by:  Margarete Myers Feinstein
        mmyers@IUSB.EDU

Richard Weikart raised the question of Hillel and Henry's _Of Pure Blood_.
In the film version, their evidence of "stud farm" activity relies on the
testimony of disgruntled neighbors of allegedly SS-owned buildings that
were the sites of carousing dinner parties.  Apparently suitable girls from
the local BDM were invited to some of these parties to even the numbers.
>From this the film makers conclude that the dinner parties were in fact
organized matings.

The documentation in the book consists of memoranda and letters from
Lebensborn officials in which they deny the rumors that Lebensborn was
engaged in matching men and women for procreative purposes.  Hillel and
Henry believe the officials to have been disingenuous in their denials but
offer no concrete evidence to support that.  The "evidence" they do provide
that Lebensborn ran a stud farm operation came from the testimony of Annie
E.  She had applied to be a nurse at a Lebensborn home but retracted her

application when, as she reported in 1973, "A girl friend whom I told about
my plan explained things to me.  And as I did not want children without
being married, I used [a] pretext to get out of it." (p. 81) Thus, we are
to believe that stud farms existed because Annie E.'s girl friend said so.
The authors do not provide any indication that the girl friend had any
particular knowledge of Lebensborn's activities.  She appears to have
simply repeated the rumors that were circulating at the time.  Hillel and
Henry did extensive research into the documents and much of the book is of
value, but occasionally they drew conclusions which their own evidence
could not support.

The rumors concerning Lebensborn activities appear to have been related to
confusion about Lebensborn's promotion of the acceptance of illegitimacy.

The Nazis did not condone indiscriminate sex, but at the same time they
were concerned about the illegal abortion rate among women of valuable
racial stock.  (see Gisela Bock, "Racism and Sexism in Nazi Germany" in
_Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust_, eds. Carol Ritter and John K.
Roth).  Lebensborn was to offer these women an alternative to abortion by
providing them with a safe and anonymous environment in which to spend
their pregnancy.  Women accepted into Lebensborn had to pass racial
examinations, as did the father of the unborn child.  Thus, the Nazis had
determined in utero  that the illegitimate Lebensborn child was of racial
value, while illegitimate children born in ordinary hospitals were often
presumed to be of lesser value.  The secrecy surrounding the maternity
homes, designed to protect the identities of unwed mothers, also promoted
speculation about what dirty deeds may have been committed behind their
doors.

Because of Lebensborn's role in placing children in racially acceptable
foster homes, it was charged after the war with facilitating the kidnaping
of children from occupied Europe by providing the children with false
identities and new families.  Lebensborn officials were exonerated at
trial, since the agency was involved in so few (around 500) of those
thousands of such cases that were handled by the Rasse und
Siedlungshauptamt.

I hope this helps to clarify the matter.

Margarete Myers Feinstein
Assistant Professor
Indiana University South Bend


3.
Submitted by:  Christel Krause Converse
        DocConv@AOL.COM

Looking through the index for the Berlin Document Center Library Collection
(on microfilm) for which our team of volunteers at the National Archives
prepared a couple of finding aids (not available to the public here until
summer of 1998), I noticed two further items.  One is a "Beitragstabelle zum
Verein Lebensborn," the other consists of training material for young SS men
and includes questions concerning Lebensborn.  Both are SS materials.

I am too busy at the moment, but as soon as time allows, I shall look at
those microfilms. I do not want to speculate before examining  the material
but wonder about the SS preoccupation with the subject.

Christel Krause Converse

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