Between Forced Labor and Racial Policies: Children of Female Slave Laborers from Eastern Europe and Forced Abortions in National Socialism

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Isabel Heinemann
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 397505968

• Final Report Year: 2025

Final Report Abstract

In the final years of Nazi rule, a nationwide network of institutions was set up for the ‚care‘ of children of foreign forced laborers in Germany. These nursing homes, cynically termed by Himmler "Ausländerkinder-Pflegestätten" (foreign children nurseries), were the result of an inhumane policy that both sought to fully exploit foreign workers and to keep the German population racially pure. By the end of the war, tens of thousands of infants and young children had died as a result of inadequate care. Starting in 1943, (forced) abortions were performed on Polish women and "Eastern workers" in order to prevent "racially undesirable offspring" and to get the women back to work quickly. Himmler's racial experts were responsible for autorizing such operations and the "Germanization" of supposedly "goodblooded" children. The treatment of pregnant foreign workers and their children points to a crucial juncture of Nazi racial ideology that sought to prevent racially unwanted“ offspring and the war economy that rested on the exploitation of foreign forced laborers, a third of them women. The project aims to trace the history of the "Ausländerkinder-Pflegestätten" in the German Reich. It focuses on the normative-legal genesis as well as the regional and local implementation of this racist practice. For this purpose, we have examined decision-making and negotiation processes between economic interests, wartime economic constraints and racial ideological goals. We have also analyzed the treatment of pregnant forced laborers and their children during the different phases of the war. Additionally, we have scrutinized the role of central planning in relation to local practices as well as the relationship between different regional levels of actors. The project raised questions about the impact of racist policies on the lives of women, as well as their agency and resilience strategies. Case studies of individual "Ausländerkinder-Pflegestätten" provide a vivid impression of the establishment and operation of such homes and the role of local actors. The project draws on a wide range of sources and brings together the findings of numerous regional studies. The historical analysis promises to provide new insights into the relationship between Nazi racial and demographic policies and the use of foreign forced labor in the war economy. The project also makes an important contribution to research on the control of reproductive decisions and the agency of women who faced intersectional discrimination under National Socialism.

Publications

• The Forced Germanization of Children from Poland, the Soviet Union and Southeastern Europe During World War II. Historical Background, Practice, Consequences, in: Kreisau-Initiative e.V. (Hg.),Uprooted. (Hi)Stories of Stolen Children During World War II
  Heinemann, Isabel
  
• Die „unerwünschten“ Kinder osteuropäischer Zwangsarbeiterinnen, in: Meinrad Maria Grewenig (Hg.): Zwangsarbeit in der Völklinger Hütte – deutsche und europäische Bezüge, Völklingen, S. 35–41. (ISBN 978-3-935692-05-2)
  Brüntrup, Marcel
  
• “Keimzelle des Rassenstaates” oder „privater Rückzugsort“? Die Bedeutung der Familie in der nationalsozialistischen Germanisierungs- und Vernichtungspolitik, in Beiträge zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus, Bd. 34: Geschlechterbeziehungen und Volksgemeinschaft, Hrsg. v. Klaus Latzel, Elissa Mailänder, Franka Maubach, Göttingen, S. 133-153.
  Heinemann, Isabel
  
• Der Lebensborn e.V. und die Zwangsverschleppung „wiedereindeutschungsfähiger Kinder“, in: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Kurzdossiers Zuwanderung, Flucht und Asyl, 30.1.2019
  Heinemann, Isabel
  
• Rassische Bestandsaufnahme, Umsiedlung, Eindeutschung“. Grundlinien der NS-Germanisierungspolitik für Südosteuropa, in: Beer, Mathias (Hg.): Krieg und Zwangsmigrationen in Südosteuropa, 1940-1950, Stuttgart, S. 21-37.
  Heinemann, Isabel
  
• Abtreibungen an Zwangsarbeiterinnen im Nationalsozialismus, in: Digitales Deutsches Frauenarchiv
  Brüntrup, Marcel
  
• Rühen Baby Case. Der Prozess um das „Ausländerkinderpflegeheim“ des Volkswagenwerks, in: KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme (Hg.): Alliierte Prozesse und NS- Verbrechen, Bremen, S. 131–141. (ISBN 978-3-8378-4059-9)
  Brüntrup, Marcel
  
• Vorwort zur deutschen Ausgabe, in: Ewelina Karpińska-Morek et al. (Hg.): Als wäre ich allein auf der Welt. Der nationalsozialistische Kinderraub im Polen, Freiburg i. Br., S. 9-23.
  Heinemann, Isabel
  
• Germanizacja, przesiedlenia, ludobójstwo: koncepcje ethnicznej przebudowy Europy Środkowo Wschodniej podczas II wojny światowej, in: Madajczyk, Piotr (Hg.): Pomorze pod Okupacia Nimiecka. Jesień 1939, Warzawa, S. 71-84.
  Heinemann, Isabel
  
• Fundament der Volksgemeinschaft? Familientrennungen und -gründungen in der nationalsozialistischen In- und Exklusionspolitik. Familientrennungen im nationalsozialistischen Krieg, 57-80. Wallstein Verlag.
  Heinemann, Isabel
  
• Osteuropäische Zwangsarbeiterinnen und ihre Kinder zwischen Zwangstrennung und Familienzusammenführung, 1940 –1945. Familientrennungen im nationalsozialistischen Krieg, 257-279. Wallstein Verlag.
  Brüntrup, Marcel
  
• Zwischen Arbeitseinsatz und Rassenpolitik: Die Kinder osteuropäischer Zwangsarbeiterinnen und die Praxis der Zwangsabtreibungen im Nationalsozialismus, Dissertation Universität Münster, Göttingen.
  Brüntrup, Marcel