Lebensborn

[Admiral Matt]

Near the end of WWII, the Nazis began to set up a system to effectively mass-produce ideal aryans. German men with flawless aryan credentials and appearance were paid to have sex with similar women in a factory setting. The idea was to crank out as many aryans as possible in an attempt to compensate for the planned extermination of roughly a quarter to a third of Europe's population.

The program obviously didn't get anywhere in OTL, but presumably would have continued and expanded in the event of some sort of German victory. Just who would raise these children when they were born? Adoptions into existing families are possible, but a more disturbing possibility is that they would be raised by the state, which more or less means the SS.

Lebensborn children would find themselves in an odd relationship with German society in general. On the one hand they are the ideal ubermenschen exalted by the state, while on the other they find themselves cut off from any pre-existing family or social ties. After all, even if you're adopted child is the aryan ideal, he still isn't your child.

I've a disturbed feeling that the only outlet for these superhuman orphans will be the Schutzstaffel, where only their superior heritage counts. In fact, I wonder if it might eventually become difficult for anyone else to get in. Female lebensborn may find themselves driven right back into the baby factories until their fertility fails.

One interesting thing to keep in mind is that a study done some time after the war found an abnormal tendency towards mental retardation in children born to the factories. Those cases are probably tied to imperfect conditions before or shortly after birth that could probably been avoided as the operators of the project gained experience. Nevertheless, we could expect the children raised at least partially in a factory environment to end up with other mental disorders.

Would anybody care to speculate?

[carlton_bach]

Well, the whole Lebensborn story gets wayyyy overblown. Basically, whjile some planners intended it to be a factory to produce perfect Aryans by selective breeding, in fact it amounted to little more than homes to shelter pregant unmarried women who had incurred the ire of their families by obeying the commands of Hitler to produce many healthy children of German blood. However, if we assume the unlikely prspect of a German victory in the second half of WWII (it would have to be - it took years to soften conservative sensibilities to the point where this became thinkable):

I'd envision a system where SS men (of German descent, not the foreign volunteers) are encouraged to impregnate women outside of their marriage and Lebensborn takes them in, shelters them, brings their children and acts generally as a kind of 'Aryan commune' where young women can go if they want to 'serve the Fuhrer' - or just fell for the blue eyes of that sexy Sturmfuehrer who's already married). Think regulated polygamy.

The kids would of course all be 'pure aryans' by default (not necessarily all blue-eyed and blond - Nazi racial 'science' had a few kinks and loops in it) and I would assume them to be steered towards a career in the SS. However, I don't think this would go anywhere much. Germany at the time is far too conservative top allow for that kind of thing.

[aktarian]

In "Himmler" Peter Padfield describes Himmler's ideas in quite detail. This is what is said about Lebensborn. It was ment for Aryan women who couldn't get pregnant by their husbands or for single women. Children would be taken care of by mothers. had they wished to give them up they would be raised by SS run orphanages. Had mothers kept them children would have guaranteed job in SS.

[MerryPrankster]

After the war, the children of the Lebensborn project were subjected to all sorts of awful doings by various Allied gov'ts (especially the gov't of Norway). Perhaps some of the mental disorders comes from mistreatment at an early age, and might not be the fault of the "factories" (though, given the Nazis and their proclivity for bad science, I would not be surprised if some of it was the factories' fault).

[Leo euler]

What if, instead of the kids being raised in communes or by adopted parents, etc., the Nazis made a law that forbade or restricted non-Aryan people from having kids, and strongly encouraged Aryan parents to have kids? That would presumably give a greater Aryan proportion in the population and more Aryans as the population grew. If the system worked, which is of course probably a very small if anyway.

[Admiral Matt]

Thanks guys, good to know.

Carlton: Yes, I was thinking in terms of a Nazi victory scenario.

Matt Quinn: Interesting. Could you tell me anything more about that? Why did the Allies bother?

Leo: Nah, that wasn't the Nazis style. Forcibly sterilization of whole villages in Russia could happen, but they probably wouldn't legislate a ban on kids.

[robertp6165]

Originally Posted by Admiral Matt

Leo: Nah, that wasn't the Nazis style. Forcibly sterilization of whole villages in Russia could happen, but they probably wouldn't legislate a ban on kids.

Besides which, the Nazis needed a non-Aryan slave population. That's what they planned to use the Slavs for, anyway. So they wouldn't want to get rid of the non-Aryans who could be put to use as laborers. Other than Jews, of course, who they wanted to get rid of on general principle.

[MerryPrankster]

Originally Posted by Admiral Matt

Matt Quinn: Interesting. Could you tell me anything more about that? Why did the Allies bother?

It was basically revenge by the individual governments. It wasn't all the Allies; the only one I can think of off the topic of my head is Norway.

Here's an article that contains some information about what had happened...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_the_Nazi_era

And another...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anni-Frid_Lyngstad