Program for the feature film Lebensborn, West Germany, 1961. From the series Illustrierte Film-Bühne – popular German cinema brochures featuring advertisements and images from newly released films screened in theaters. The film was produced in Germany by the DFG company and directed by Werner Klingler.
“In the twisted, sadistic minds of the era of the ‘Thousand-Year Reich, ’ the idea of Lebensborn was born, an attempt to elevate the concept of ‘hereditary breeding of the noble German race’ above the love between two people. A group of very young members of the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM – League of German Girls) also joined this institution in a frenzy of idealism and took part in a course titled ‘Renewal of Pure-Blooded Germanness’ at Sternberg Castle in the Wartheland region. These BDM girls were selected to give birth to racially valuable children who, like bearers of light, were meant to secure the future of the nation. At least, that’s what Hauptsturmführer Meyer Westerhof told the youth with deceptive pathos.” (from the film synopsis in the program).
The film Lebensborn deals with the Lebensborn system – a program run by the Nazi SS to produce “racially pure” Aryan children through women selected for this purpose, often involving the forced removal of children kidnapped from occupied territories and adopted by German families. Originally conceived by the Nazi Party during World War II, it was a program aimed at the “improvement” of the Aryan race. It was operated under the SS Main Office for Race and Settlement. The program was presented as a welfare initiative, under which children of Aryan descent and with suitable physical attributes were placed with “pure” foster families or raised in “pure” institutions, where they would be educated and trained as members of the so-called master race. Some of the infants were born to racially pure German or Scandinavian mothers who were paired with SS men of Aryan traits. Others, who matched the racial criteria, were kidnapped from their mothers – a horrific phenomenon that forms the central theme of the film. The film is a post-war drama produced within the framework of shock cinema (Aufklärungsfilm) – a German sub-genre of films meant to expose the atrocities of the Nazi era through human drama and sometimes sensationalist elements. The film portrays the moral corruption inherent in the Lebensborn program and the lasting trauma it inflicted upon its victims. The program booklet is filled with stills from the film, including scenes such as: the measuring of a German woman’s skull; a medical examination by an SS doctor – “Tika understood her future task. SS doctor Dr. Hagen fought with fanatical zeal to finally apply the results of his research. It seemed the devil himself possessed this cold cynic…”, a woman after a suicide attempt, having learned her child was taken by the Lebensborn authorities, ultimately losing her son when he was deemed unfit for the “program, ” and more.
[8] pp. 27 cm. Very good condition.
