Women, marriage and the family

• The Nazis wanted to reverse the fall in the German birth rate from 2 million births a year in 1900 to 1 million by 1933.
• The Law for the Encouragement of Marriage in 1933 gave loans of 1,000 marks newly married couples if the woman gave up her job. For each child born, a quarter of the loan was written off
• In 1938, the divorce laws were changed so the inability to have children was grounds for divorce.
• The Mother’s Cross was awarded to women who have lots of children: bronze for four children, silver for six, and gold for eight.
• Hitler Youth were expected to salute wearers of the gold Mother’s Cross.
• If a family had a tenth child, they were encouraged to call it Adolf, and Hitler became the godfather.
• The Lebensborn (Fountain of Life) programme was set up in 1935. At first, this provided nursery and financial help for women who had children with SS men, but from 1938 it encouraged breeding ‘genetically pure’ children between Aryan single women and SS men.
• 540 babies were born under this programme between 1938-41.