Established in Pernitz/Feichtenbach in 1938, the Heim Wienerwald served the SS association Lebensborn as a maternity home to increase the birth rate of “Aryan” children. This volume brings together recent research on the history of the Heim Wienerwald based upon unique sources: the articles focus on the maternity home in the wider context of National Socialist racial policy, presenting fi ndings on the regulations for keeping births within Lebensborn secret, the requirements for admission to Lebensborn, and the assessment of mother and child. Secondly, the volume examines everyday life in this facility and the extent to which the stay of pregnant women and mothers was regulated in the context of National Socialist ideology. Thirdly, it provides an insight into the experiences and everyday life of the staff, especially the student nurses. Fourthly, the volume deals with the children born in the Heim Wienerwald who did not meet the “selection criteria” of the SS and were murdered as part of the National Socialist child “euthanasia” programme.
Contents
Lukas Schretter / Barbara Stelzl-MarxEditorial 7
ArticlesLukas Schretter / Martin Sauerbrey-Almasy / Barbara Stelzl-MarxNational Socialist Population Policy, Racial Hygiene, and Lebensborn: Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Heim Wienerwald, 1938–1945 23
Barbara Stelzl-MarxLebensborn as a Blueprint for the “Nobility of the Future”. Daily Life and Ideology in the Heim Wienerwald 65
Nadjeschda Stoffers / Lukas SchretterStudent Nurses for Lebensborn. Daily Routines in the Heim Wienerwald, 1940–1945 89
Sabine Nachbaur“Undesirables” among the Lebensborn children. The Heim Wienerwald and the National Socialist child “euthanasia” program 125
Abstracts153
Reviews
Johannes Glack„Let them speak – In search of the drowned“. Eine hybride Online-Plattform von Gabor Mihaly Toth 159
Heimo GruberIna Markova, Otto Koenig (1881–1955). Ein Leben zwischen Arbeiter-Zeitung und Volksbildung 161
Eckhard JesseKatja Hoyer, Diesseits der Mauer. Eine neue Geschichte der DDR 1949–1990 165
Authors169