The Lebensborn program was a secret SS initiative created by Heinrich Himmler in December 1935 and active until the collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945. Its stated purpose was to increase the number of children with what the Nazis considered “racially valuable” Aryan blood. The program operated in Germany and in several occupied countries, most notably Norway.
Lebensborn: The Secret Aryan Breeding Program of the Third Reich | FULL DOCUMENTARY
Join the conversation after watching this video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsHl8iow3OY
How the Program Worked in Germany
In Germany, Lebensborn established maternity homes where unmarried women deemed to have “good Aryan” ancestry could give birth in secrecy. The SS encouraged SS men to father children even outside marriage if the mother met racial criteria. Many of these children were born to women who could not or did not want to raise them openly due to social stigma. The organization arranged for these infants to be placed with SS families or other carefully selected German couples who were screened for racial and ideological reliability. The program also expanded during the war to include the abduction of children from occupied eastern territories—primarily Poland, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, and Slovenia—who were judged to have “Aryan” features (blond hair, blue eyes, etc.). These children were separated from their families, given new German names and identities, and placed with German families for “Germanization”.
Scale and Impact
Estimates vary because many records were destroyed in 1945. Historians generally agree that between 7,000 and 12,000 children were born in Lebensborn maternity homes in Germany and Norway. The number of kidnapped and Germanized children from eastern Europe is much higher—likely in the tens of thousands, though only a fraction were processed directly through Lebensborn facilities. After the war, many of these children grew up without knowing their true origins. Some discovered the truth only decades later through documents, family revelations, or chance encounters. A significant number faced lifelong identity confusion, shame, stigma, and psychological trauma.
Long-term Consequences
Survivors and their descendants have described deep emotional wounds: feelings of abandonment, difficulty forming attachments, bullying as “Nazi children,” and the pain of learning they had been stolen from biological families. In Norway, where the stigma against “German girls” and their children was especially harsh, many war children were institutionalized, ostracized, or subjected to abuse. Only in the 2000s did Norway formally apologize and provide limited compensation to some survivors.
This program was part of the Nazi regime’s broader racial and eugenic policies. It combined selective encouragement of births with systematic child abduction and forced assimilation. The human cost—broken families, erased identities, and lifelong suffering—is still being uncovered through survivor accounts and archival work.
This summary was created by GROK, after an intense Q&A educational ‘chat’. Please do your own research.
Where to Learn More
- The Arolsen Archives holds digitized Lebensborn-related documents and received Dorothee Schmitz-Köster’s extensive interview collection in 2021.
https://arolsen-archives.org/en/news/85-years-of-lebensborn/ - Ingrid von Oelhafen (a kidnapped Slovenian child raised as a Lebensborn adoptee) wrote a memoir based on her 20+ year search for her origins.
Book: Hitler’s Forgotten Children (2016) – available on major retailers (e.g., https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Forgotten-Children-Lebensborn-Identity/dp/0425283321) - Dorothee Schmitz-Köster conducted hundreds of interviews with Lebensborn mothers and children over more than 25 years. Her books include:
Deutsche Mutter, bist du bereit … (2002/updated editions)
Lebenslang Lebensborn (2007)
Her website: https://www.schmitz-koester.de/ - Documentary: Lebensborn – The Forgotten Victims (2019, ~53 min) includes testimonies from former children in multiple countries.
Free with ads on Tubi (US): https://tubitv.com/movies/640639/lebensborn-the-forgotten-victims
Dorothee Schmitz-Köster began researching Lebensborn back in the mid-1990s
– initially focusing on the “Friesland” home near Bremen, where she lived at the time. She soon expanded her search to other homes, as more former Lebensborn children got in touch with her with information as well as many questions about their own past after each publication. Her research took her as far as Poland. The author thus became an expert in the history of Lebensborn. She published four books and created many radio and print contributions about everyday life in the homes and the lives of many children.
In this video interview, we ask Dorothee Schmitz-Köster about her experiences during the Lebensborn research and about her decision to hand over her collection to the Arolsen Archives.
Dorothee Schmitz-Köster always wanted to collect as much material as possible in her research so as to record the voices and stories of the contemporary witnesses – who are becoming fewer and fewer in number. Alongside a good overview of the many different individual fates, it was also important to her to clear up the myths and rumours surrounding Lebensborn as a “breeding institution”
Predominantly single women were to deliver their children in the homes, as long as they and the father – who were often married SS men – fulfilled the racial criteria. The mothers could also remain anonymous and give their babies into the care of Lebensborn, which then sought an “Aryan” foster family. Many of the babies never discovered the truth about where they came from. This also applied to many “Aryan” children abducted in Poland and other occupied countries in order to “Germanize” them.
https://arolsen-archives.org/en/news/85-years-of-lebensborn
Example of the type of information that can be found at the Arolsen-Archives
Content: Classification stamp (top): DECLASSIFIED PER EXECUTIVE ORDER 12356, SECTION 3.3, NND PROJECT
NUMBER 86077-3051, BY [signature], DATE [illegible] Main body text: OFFICE OF THE FIELD REPRESENTATIVE FOR BAVARIA
INTERNATIONAL REFUGEE ORGANIZATION
AREA 7 HQ | APO 407
US ARMY 24 January 1949 TO : Miss Josephine GROVES,
OMGUS Public Welfare Branch, 210 Tegernseer Landstrasse, MUNICH
SUBJECT : Children removed from Geratshausen
- This will confirm the report from our Area 4 Head-quarters, Gauting, that the following children were removed from Geratshausen to the Children’s Village in Bad Aibling on 20 January 1949:
GALUSCHKA, Gerhardt, b. 21.2.42
JARUS, George, b. 26.6.42
LUBRA NIEWIADOMSKI, b. 6.4.39
[Signature]
Marjorie M. Parley
Child Care Field Representative
Munich Distribution:
(4) Addressee
(1) Zone Child Care Officer
(1) File
(1) Chron
Information on the Children’s Village in Bad Aibling
Höschler, Christian (2017): The IRO Children’s Village Bad Aibling: a refuge in the American Zone of Germany, 1948–1951. Dissertation, LMU München: Faculty of History and the Arts
Abstract
Based on a variety of source material and previous research, this microhistorical study represents the first comprehensive history of the IRO Children’s Village Bad Aibling. Established in late 1948, it was the central facility within the US Zone of Germany where unaccompanied children were cared for by the International Refugee Organization (IRO). Displaced during or after World War II, their fates were as varied as those of adults who had survived the atrocities of the Nazi regime. In total, over 2,000 children (representing more than 20 nationalities) passed through the Children’s Village.
The early days were marked by a prolonged struggle to get the installation into running order, secure necessary supplies and hire qualified staff. Tensions which arose as a result of these problems culminated in violent episodes of unrest among the children. The administrative setup in Bad Aibling was reorganized, and the situation gradually improved.
With the help of various voluntary agencies such as the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), an ambitious program was developed from 1949 onwards. It was inspired by contemporary trends in child welfare and aimed at developing an inclusive, international community consisting of family-like living groups. Through schooling and vocational training, recreational activities, psychological treatment and individual case work, the inhabitants were prepared for life after the Children’s Village. A decision regarding the future of each child had to be reached. In the majority of cases, the options were either repatriation or resettlement abroad. While the political friction of the Cold War had an undeniable effect on the IRO’s activities in Bad Aibling, it seems impossible to derive a universal set of beliefs guiding the work of relief workers from this fact. Despite occasional contact with the German population as well as international press coverage, the Children’s Village remained more or less isolated from the outside world.
The last months of the Children’s Village saw new challenges as the IRO slowly began to wind down its operations in Europe. A change in US occupation policy saw the introduction of new courts which would decide the cases of the remaining children. In 1951, the Children’s Village shut its doors, and its inhabitants were moved to Feldafing. By early 1952, the cases of the remaining children had been closed.
It is believed that the history of the Children’s Village, as part of a broader narrative of humanitarian efforts and child welfare in the postwar period, is relevant to the sphere of international relief work today.
Shared from https://edoc.ub.uni-muenchen.de/20571/