"Deutsche Mutter, bist du bereit ...": Der Lebensborn und seine Kinder

Using the example of a Lebensborn Heim (home), Dorothee Schmitz-Köster analyzes the working methods, everyday life and ideology of the organisation Lebensborn e.V., founded by the leader of the SS, the Nazi Schutzstaffel (Protection Squadron), Heinrich Himmler in 1935. She deals with the myth of "National Socialist breeding institutions" and reports on women who gave birth or worked in the Lebensborn. And she tells of people who were born there: illegitimate babies whose fathers were kept secret, "Norwegian children" who first ended up in Germany and then in Sweden after the war, Lebensborn children who grew up in the GDR. Their biographies show how far Lebensborn has reached into the present. Many of them had to do a lot of research before they knew who their father was, where they were born, and what happened to them.