26. The Nazi Kidnapping Program That Abducted Hundreds of Thousands of Unfortunate Children
During WWII, SS leader Heinrich Himmler ordered that children meeting criterion of “racial purity” be abducted in German-occupied territories. Accordingly, hundreds of thousands of unfortunate children were forcibly seized from their homes and off the streets, mostly in Eastern Europe and the USSR. The assumption was that such children were of Germanic stock, and thus too racially valuable to “waste” in a sea of Slavs or other inferior races. The children were to be repatriated to Germany, and taken to Lebensborn homes – facilities originally established for a racial selective breeding program.
The program, which resembled the process for breeding prize cattle, sought to increase the “racially pure” population by increasing the “Aryan” birthrate. Unmarried and racially pure Aryan women were mated with SS men. Upon impregnation, they were often housed in SS-administered maternity homes, and upon giving birth, the children were adopted by pure Aryan families. The Lebensborn facilities were repurposed to warehouse the kidnapped children. There, they were to be Germanized, and then be put up for adoption alongside the offspring of the breeding portion of the Lebensborn program.