MOV:"In favor of" The NAZI view of Abortion

   Everything they saw that day, from the vast fields of ripening grain
to the many children, spoke of fertility. It seemed nothing could
change the vitality of these people. As Martin and Karl drove from
village to village their faces grew increasingly grave.

   In the evening they returned. Martin talked about all the children
he had seen and warned that, "someday they may give us a lot of
trouble" because they were "brought up in a much more rugged way than
our people." Alarm spread through the group until its leader spoke.

   Obviously peeved, he pointed out that someone had suggested that
abortion and contraceptives should be illegal here. He went on, "If any
such idiot tried to put into practice such an order ... he would
personally shoot him up. In view of the large families of the native
population, it could only suit us if girls and women there had as many
abortions as possible. Active trade in contraceptives ought to actually
be encouraged." [1]

   The date was 22 July 1942, the same day Nazis began transporting
Warsaw Jews to the Treblinka death camp. [2] The place was the
"Werewolf" headquarters in the Soviet Ukraine. The group's leader and
abortion advocate was Adolf Hitler. The two men were Martin Bormann,
his Secretary and Karl Brandt, his personal physician.

   Operation Blue, the 1942 German offensive in East Europe, had been
underway for almost a month and already its success was assumed. Nazism
had reached its high water mark. The swastika flew from the Arctic
Circle to the sands of Africa and from the Atlantic coast of France to
Mt. Elbrus, the highest of Russia's Ural Mountains.

   At Hitler's headquarters thoughts turned to what should be done with
the occupied territories. Some wanted a lenient policy to gain
Ukrainian support in the war against the Soviet Union. Others wanted to
eliminate Slavs to make room for Germans. [3]

   Population Control in the East

   As Bormann hoped, that evening Hitler chose the second policy and
the next day he told Bormann to issue population control measures for
the occupied territories. Bormann developed an eight-paragraph secret
order one historian termed "perhaps the most extreme policy statement
ever issued from the Fuhrerhauptquartier." [4] It included the
following:

   When girls and women in the Occupied Territories of the East have
abortions, we can only be in favor of it; in any case we should not
oppose it. The Fuhrer believes that we should authorize the development
of a thriving trade in contraceptives. We are not interested in seeing
the non-German population multiply. [5]

   This was not the first such statement. On 25 November 1939, shortly
after the occupation of Poland, a Nazi SS organization called the Reich
Commission for Strengthening of Germandom (RKFDV) [6] issued this
decree:

   All measures which have the tendency to limit the births are to be
tolerated or to be supported. Abortion in the remaining area [of
Poland] must be declared free from punishment. The means for abortion
and contraceptive means may be offered publicly without police
restriction. Homosexuality is always to be declared legal. The
institutions and persons involved professionally in abortion practices
are not to be interfered with by police. [7]

   This policy was confirmed on 27 May 1941 at a Ministry of the
Interior conference in Berlin. There a group of experts recommended
population control measures for Poland that included authorization of
abortion whenever the mother requested it. [8] On 19 October 1941, a
decree applied the measures to the Polish population. Hitler's 23 July
1942 decree extended it to other parts of Eastern Europe. Hitler
confirmed his order on August 5. [9]

   A Propaganda Campaign

   German experts developed plans to manipulate people into
cooperating. On 27 April 1942 in Berlin, Professor Wetzel issued a
memorandum that included the following:

   Every propaganda means, especially the press, radio, and movies, as
well as pamphlets, booklets, and lectures, must be used to instill in
the Russian population the idea that it is harmful to have several
children. We must emphasize the expenses that children cause, the good
things that people could have had with the money spent on them. We
could also hint at the dangerous effect of child-bearing on a woman's
health.

   Paralleling such propaganda, a large-scale campaign would be
launched in favor of contraceptive devices. A contraceptive industry
must be established. Neither the circulation and sale of contraceptives
nor abortions must be prosecuted.

   It will even be necessary to open special institutions for abortion,
and to train midwives and nurses for this purpose. The population will
practice abortion all the more willingly if these institutions are
competently operated. The doctors must be able to help out there being
any question of this being a breach of their professional ethics.
Voluntary sterilization must also be recommended by propaganda. [10]

   Local physicians were to be told these abortions were for the
women's benefit. A decree issued by Himmler in March 1943 stressed this
point:

   The Russian physicians or the Russian Medical Association, which
must not be informed of this order, are to be told in individual cases
that the pregnancy is being interrupted for reasons of social distress.
It must be explained in such a way that no conclusions to the existence
of a definite order may be drawn. [11]

   German authorities were careful to note, however, that as long as
births could be prevented, "natural" sexual behavior did not have to be
restricted. A 1944 memorandum said:

   In order to round out his propaganda in a practical way
contraceptives should be quietly distributed (with the Reich bearing
the cost). There is no harm in leaving a valve open to the natural
desires of the persons of alien blood as long as this will not
interfere with cutting off the flow of reproduction among these people
of alien race. [12]

   Nazi Pornography

   At times German authorities went beyond "leaving a valve open" and
deliberately flooded the society with pornography in order to destroy
it culturally, spiritually, and politically. One historian describes
the process this way:

   The German Propaganda Office ... was supposed to organize or sponsor
Polish burlesque shows and publish cheap literature, strongly erotic in
nature ... to keep the masses on a low level and to divert their
interest from political aspirations. These projects for degeneration
and moral debasement were actually realized in the larger Polish cities
... German success in this effort was significant enough to become a
target of the Polish Underground. The latter used to dispatch some
special "punishing squads" which overran some of the ill-famed Variety
Theatres and took disciplinary measures against the Polish
collaborators in the programs. [13]

   Encouraging promiscuity was an integral part of Nazi plans.
Referring to Erich Koch, Reich Commissar for the Ukraine, one historian
noted:

   Even after Stalingrad, Koch, as always conscious of the ultimate
goal of Germanization, told a group of visiting journalists that
Ukrainian fertility remained a grave danger ... The newsman who
reported the statement to Goebbels [Propaganda Minister] ... seriously
doubted whether, in view of the high morals of the population, the
attainment of 'degeneration by promiscuity' could ever succeed. [14]

   Historical Roots

   The planning for these policies began some ten years earlier. In the
summer of 1932, almost a year before the Nazi Party took power in
Germany, a conference took place at the party headquarters in Munich.
It discussed Eastern Europe and assumed Germany would someday conquer
the region.

   Agricultural experts pointed out that controlling Eastern Europe
would make Germany self-sufficient in food but warned that the region's
"tremendous biological fertility" must be offset by a well-planned
depopulation policy. Speaking to the assembled experts Hitler warned,
"what we have discussed here must remain confidential." [15]

   Not all Nazi insiders remained silent. Hermann Rauschning, a
prominent early Nazi, defected in the mid-thirties and warned of
Hitler's plans. In The Voice of Destruction, he described a 1934
conversation with Hitler about the Slavs:

   "We are obliged to depopulate," he went on emphatically," ... We
shall have to develop a technique of depopulation ... And by remove I
don't necessarily mean destroy; I shall simply take systematic measures
to dam their great natural fertility ... There are many ways,
systematical and comparatively painless, or any rate bloodless, of
causing undesirable races to die out."

   "... The French complained after the war that there were twenty
million Germans too many. We accept the criticism. We favor the planned
control of population movements. But our friends will have to excuse us
if we subtract the twenty millions elsewhere ... By doing this
gradually and without bloodshed, we demonstrate our humanity." [16]

   Within Nazi ideology, the idea of "lebensraum," the pursuit of
German "living space" in the East, equaled in importance the
destruction of Jews. In September 1942, Hitler looked at Germany's
military conquests and commented:

   Our gains in the west may add a measure of charm to our possessions
and constitute a contribution to our general security, but our Eastern
conquests are infinitely more precious, for they are the foundation of
our very existence. [17]

   Inside Germany

   Within Germany itself, Hitler wanted government-funded birth control
to weed out the "unfit." In his 1924 Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote that one
of the seven major responsibilities of government was, "to maintain the
practice of modern birth control. No diseased or weak person should be
allowed to have children." [18]

   Once in power, Hitler wasted no time legalizing sterilization and
abortion for the genetically "unfit" (including Jews). Gitta Sereny
describes it this way:

   The 1933 law for compulsory sterilization of those suffering from
hereditary disease was followed two years later, on October 8, 1935 by
the Erbgesundheitsgestz -- the law to "safeguard the hereditary health
of the German people." This expanded the original law by legalizing
abortion in cases of pregnancy where either of the partners suffered
from hereditary disease. [19]

   Within Germany these "negative eugenic" programs were paralleled by
positive programs encouraging births among the "fit." Laws limited
access to birth control and tightened the punishment for abortion for
the racially wanted.

   As Germany conquered other countries, similar positive programs were
developed for "racially valuable" groups from Nordic and Baltic
regions. [20] Groups under Nazi domination who were not racially
Germanic were targeted with only negative programs.

   The positive programs at home, along with the need to keep secret
why Germany was so eager to help Slavs and other minorities limit
births, created confusion about Nazi policy. This confusion led to
Hitler's remark about "shooting up" anyone who tried to ban abortions
in the Ukraine.

   For instance, in the Spring of 1942, SS Reichsfuhrer Himmler had to
get the chief of German police in Poland, SS-General Krueger, to
intervene so the courts would no longer punish Poles for having
abortions. Similar court behavior in Byelorussia led SS-General Berger
to remark that some German administrators, "have no idea what the
German Eastern policy really means." [21]

   Hitler's View of Abortion

   Within Germany, Nazis claimed their programs were for the
"protection of motherhood." Their real purpose, however, was to
increase the German population and thus strengthen the country's
military and economic strength. The idea of individual rights were as
irrelevant here as they were anywhere else in the Nazi dictatorship.

   Hitler believed rights belong only to those strong enough to defend
them. The weak or small had no "inalienable" right to life. In Mein
Kampf he wrote of those with incurable diseases:

   If the power to fight for one's own health is no longer present, the
right to live in this world of struggle ends. The world belongs only to
the forceful 'whole' man and not to the weak 'half' man. [22]

   Because of this, Hitler felt abortions by the "racially valuable"
were acceptable when they reduced social problems or prevented family
embarrassment.

   For instance, on 5 November 1941, Hitler told several people that he
felt the penal system made a mistake exposing young men from
"respectable families" to "living communally with creatures who are
utterly rotten." [23]

   To prove his point, Hitler told of a young man who'd been in the
prison with him after his failed 1924 Beer Hall Putsch. Earlier this
young man had "fruitful relations with a girl" and "advised her to go
to an abortionist. For that he was given a sentence of eight months."
Hitler felt this "disgrace" which the family "could never outlive" was
far too harsh. According to Hitler, such a "nice boy" should simply get
a "sound licking."

   Population Control Inside Germany

   Population dislocations caused by the war created a problem. The
Nazis brought millions of foreigners to Germany to work in factories
and on farms. Many were women who became pregnant. In their home
country abortions were encouraged. Within Germany, however, abortion
was illegal except for Jews and the "unfit."

   Under great secrecy during 1943, German authorities legalized
abortion on demand for these women. Abortion legalization occurred in
the opposite order as the territories, first for female Eastern workers
and later for Polish women. A captured Nazi document describes the
steps:

   The Reich Leader of Public Health [Conti], in a directive of 11
March 1943, decreed that pregnancy of female Eastern workers may be
interrupted at will. The Reich Leader SS [Himmler], with regard hereto,
on 9 June 1943, issued a decree of implementation proceedings and
extended this decree as of 1 August 1943 also to interruptions of
pregnancy for female Poles. [24]

   As in the occupied territories, the campaign was backed by
propaganda stressing the disadvantages of having children. Emphasis was
placed on separating the working mother from her child soon after birth
to make motherhood less rewarding. [25]

   This extension of legalized abortion within Germany created
controversy within German medicine. A Secret Police report dated 25
October 1943 described objections to the new abortion policy by
physicians.

   "Reactionary" physicians (mostly Catholic) protested "that the
decree was not in accordance with the moral obligation of a physician
to preserve life" and that medicine did not permit distinctions based
on nationality.

   On the other hand, many "politically sound" physicians, while
recognizing "racial ... considerations" still felt the policy was a
"very dangerous experiment." They pointed out that "if the decree
becomes known ... encouragement will be given to ... abortions" by
Germans themselves. [26]

   Bringing To Justice

   Hitler clung to the idea of building a German "living space" in the
East until his suicide in a Berlin bunker with Russian soldiers only a
few blocks away. On 29 April 1945 in his last message to the chief of
the German general staff, Keitel, he stressed, "the aim must still be
to win territory in the East for the German people."

   After the war the Nuremberg Trials brought to justice many of those
involved in Nazi crimes against humanity. Because SS Reichfuhrer
Heinrich Himmler committed suicide, no one involved in RKFDV's
population control program was tried when the International Military
Tribunal judged top Nazi leaders.

   Between October 1947 and March 1948, however, the U.S. Military
Tribunal at Nuremberg did try the leadership of the RKFDV in its Case
8. Among the charges was one that "protection of the law was denied to
the unborn children of the Russian and Polish women in Nazi Germany.
Abortions were encouraged and even forced on these women." [27]

   The defense argued that abortions had not been coerced. While this
was probably true in general, among the Nazi documents was one that
said:

   "It is know that racially inferior offspring of Eastern workers and
Poles is to be avoided if at all possible. Although pregnancy
interruptions ought to be carried out on a voluntary basis only,
pressure is to be applied in each of these cases." [28]

   One defendant was SS Lieutenant General Richard Hildebrandt, Chief
of the RKFDV's Race and Settlement Main Office in Berlin. Under direct
examination by his attorney, he protested that, "Up to now nobody had
the idea to see in this interruption of pregnancy a crime against
humanity." His protest had no effect. In this area like many others the
Nuremberg Trials broke new ground and he was given a 25 year sentence.
[29]

   Other sentences ranged from a life sentence given Ulrich Griefelt,
the chief executive officer of the RKFDV, to the ten years given Fritz
Schwalm, the officer responsible for racial examinations to determine
if a woman could have an abortion.

   The Genocide Convention

   After the war, worldwide condemnation of Nazi behavior led to the
definition of a new crime under international law, that of genocide.
Article II of the "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide" defines genocide as "acts committed with intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical [ethnic], racial, or
religious group."

   Due to the Nazi experience, Article II defines as a genocidal act
"imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group." [30]
Nazi policies in Eastern Europe provide the context for that part of
the Convention. Any nation or organization using similar tactics is
guilty of genocide under international law.

   Summary

   Nazi population control policies had these characteristics: 1.
Medical and legal policies on contraceptives, abortion, and
child-rearing were deliberately set up to reduce the birthrate of
unwanted groups. Contraceptives were freely available and often
supplied without charge. Abortion was made legal, safe, and
conveniently available through special clinics or local physicians.
Mothers were expected to work and were separated from their children at
an early age to make motherhood less meaningful.

   2. Population control appeared voluntary, but coercion was always
present at least to the extent that avoiding birth was made easier than
childbearing. For those living under difficult conditions that itself
constitutes coercion.

   3. The media stressed the personal disadvantages of having children
and told how childbirth could be avoided by birth control and abortion.
Pornography and sex without children were promoted to weaken the
family, destroy spiritual values, and distract from political activity.

   4. The real purpose of these policies, reducing the population of
unwanted groups, was a closely guarded secret. This sometimes lead to
conflict between those who set up the policies and those who carried
them out without knowing their purpose.

   REFERENCES

   [ 1]. Alexander Dallin, German Rule in Russia, 1941-1945 (London,
1957), 141f. Clarissa Henry and Marc Hillel, Of Pure Blood, Trans. Eric
Mossbacher (New York, 1976), 148. Ihor Kamenetsky, "German Lebensraum
Policy in Eastern Europe During World War II" (Ph.D. dissertation,
Univ. of Ill., 1957) (Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilm, # 25,236),
172-73. Ihor Kamenetsky, Secret Nazi Plans for Eastern Europe (New
York, 1961), 143. Joachim C. Fest, Hitler (New York, 1975), 683-84.

   [ 2]. Nora Levin, The Holocaust, The Destruction of European Jewry
1933-1945 (New York, 1973), 232-33.

   [ 3]. Jochen von Lang with Claus Sibyll, The Secretary, Martin
Bormann: The Man Who Manipulated Hitler, Trans. Christa Armstrong and
Peter White, (New York, 1979), 209-11. David Irving, Hitler's War (New
York, 1977), 402-03. Robert L. Koehl, RKFDV: German Resettlement and
Population Policy 1939-1945 (Cambridge, 1957), 227. For a book-length
treatment see: Dallin, German Rule. 4. Dallin, German Rule, 141.

   [ 5]. Leon Poliakov, Harvest of Hate (Syracuse, NY, 1954), 272-74.
Nuremberg: NO-1878. Dallin, German Rule, 457. German text in:
Kamenetsky, Secret Nazi Plans, 197-99.

   [ 6]. For more on RKFDV see: Koehl, RKFDV. Kamenetsky, Secret Nazi
Plans. Michael R. Marrus, The Unwanted, European Refugees in the
Twentieth Century (New York, 1985), 219-227.

   [ 7]. Kamenetsky, "German Lebensraum Policy," 171.

   [ 8]. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of European Jews (Chicago,
1961), 642. Nuremberg: NG-844.

   [ 9]. Dallin, German Rule, 457.

   [10]. Poliakov, Harvest of Hate, 272-74. Nuremberg: NG-2325.

   [11]. Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuremberg Military
Tribunals [Called NMT below] (Washington, 1949-54) V:109. Russian
physicians were familiar with changing abortion laws. In November 1920
Lenin legalized abortion on demand. In 1936, as war tensions grew,
Stalin had abortion declared illegal. Edward H. Carr, Socialism in One
Country, 1924-26, 3 vols. (London, 1958), I:28- 29, 33. Richard Stites,
The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia (Princeton, 1975), 264-65,
355, 385-88, 403-05.

   [12]. NMT, IV:1122. Nuremberg: NO-5311.

   [13]. Kamenetsky, Secret Nazi Plans, 114.

   [14]. Dallin, German Rule, 458.

   [15]. Hermann Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction (New York, 1940),
34-38. Joseph B. Schechtman, European Population Transfers, 1939-1945
(New York, 1946), 266, 296.

   [16]. Rauschning, The Voice, 137-8.

   [17]. Kamenetsky, Secret Nazi Plans, 80.

   [18]. Louis L. Snyder ed., Hitler's Third Reich: A Documentary
History (Chicago, 1981), 46. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Trans. Ralph
Manheim (Boston, 1943), 255, 402-05.

   [19]. Gitta Sereny, Into That Darkness (New York, 1974), 62.

   [20]. Kamenetsky, "German Lebensraum Policy," 175. NMT, IV:1077-79.
Nuremberg: NO-1803, NO-3520.

   [21]. Kamenetsky, "German Lebensraum Policy," 173. From Himmler's
File #1302, Folder H. 11; Nuremberg: NO-3134.

   [22]. Hitler, Mein Kampf, 257.

   [23]. Hitler's Table Talk, 1941-44, Trans. Norman Cameron and R. H.
Stevens (London, n.d.), 112-13.

   [24]. NMT, IV:1082. Nuremberg: 1753-PS, NO-3250 (Eastern workers),
NO-1384 (Polish women).

   [25]. NMT, IV:1122-27. Nuremberg: NO-5311.

   [26]. NMT, IV:1081-84. Nuremberg: NO-3512.

   [27]. NMT, IV:1077.

   [28]. NMT, V:112. A German military report of 13 July 1943 referred
to "an intensification of countermeasures" against Ukrainians including
the "forcible abortion of pregnant women." In William Manchester, The
Arms of Krupp (New York, 1964, 1965, 1968), 486. Many forced abortions
punished women who became pregnant to avoid forced labor in Germany.
See Dallin, German Rule, 435, 458.

   [29]. NMT, IV:1076, 1081, 1090.

   [30]. Nehemiah Robinson, The Genocide Convention, A Commentary (New
York, 1960), 57. Leo Kuper, The Prevention of Genocide (New Haven,
1985), 241f. For the origin of the term "genocide" see Raphael Lemkin,
Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Washington, 1944), 79f.