In 1936, Nazi supporter and school graduate Hildegard Trutz was recruited as one of Germany's racially 'pure' women, chosen to have sex with SS officers in the hope of producing an Aryan child. She was part of a state-supported programme called Lebensborn (meaning the 'fountain of life'), a Nazi initiative to counteract falling birth rates in Germany and produce a 'master race' in accordance with Nazi eugenics
It is estimated that some 20,000 such babies were bred during the 12 years of the Third Reich (1933–45), principally in Germany and Norway. Here, Giles Milton explores Hildegard Trutz’s experience 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.’