It is estimated that some 20,000 such babies were bred during the 12 years of the Third Reich (1933–45), mainly in Germany and Norway. Here, Giles Milton explores Hildegard Trutz's experience of her and reveals why the young German woman was so eager to give birth for Hitler…
Hildegard Trutz had been a loyal supporter of the Nazis ever since Hitler came to power. She had joined the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM, the female equivalent of the Hitler Youth) in 1933 and loved attending its weekly meetings. ‘I was mad about Adolf Hitler and our new better Germany,’ she later admitted. ‘I learned how tremendously valuable we young people were to Germany.’
Trutz quickly became a figurehead of her local organization, in part because of her Germanic blonde hair and blue eyes. ‘I was pointed out as the perfect example of the Nordic woman,’ she said, ‘for besides my long legs and my long trunk, I had the broad hips and pelvis built for child-bearing.’
In 1936, when she was eighteen, Trutz finished her schooling and was at a loss as to what to do next. She chatted with a BDM leader who made a suggestion that was to change Trutz's life for her forever. 'If you don't know what to do,' said the leader, 'why not give the Führer a child? What Germany needs more than anything is racially valuable stock.’