Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany

Kidnapping of children by Nazi Germany

Letter from Lebensborn office to Reichsdeutsche family of Herr Müller in Germany informing that two perfect boys have been found for them to choose one they like. The boys' names have already been Germanized, 18 December 1943
Non-Germanic children abducted
400,000 throughout Europe 200,000 from occupied Poland 28,000 from territory of today's Belarus 20,000 from the Soviet Union 10,000 from Western and South Eastern Europe Dead in transit, estimated at tens of thousands, and underage inmates used as source of labour supply, not listed

Kidnapping of non-Germanic European children by Nazi Germany (Polish: Rabunek dzieci), part of the Generalplan Ost (GPO), involved taking children regarded as "Aryan-looking" from the rest of Europe and moving them to Nazi Germany for the purpose of Germanization, or indoctrination into becoming culturally German.

At more than 200,000 victims, occupied Poland had the largest proportion of children taken. An estimated 400,000 children were abducted throughout Europe.

The aim of the project was to acquire and "Germanize" children with purportedly Aryan-Nordic traits, who were considered by Nazi officials to be descendants of German settlers that had emigrated to Poland. Those labeled "racially valuable" were forcibly Germanized in centers and then sent to German families and SS Home Schools. In the case of older children used as forced labor in Germany those determined to be racially un-"German" were sent to extermination camps and concentration camps, where they were either to be murdered or forced to serve as living test subjects in German medical experiments and thus often tortured or killed in the process.

In a well-known speech to his military commanders at Obersalzberg on 22 August 1939, Adolf Hitler condoned the killing without pity or mercy of all men, women, and children of Polish race or language.

On 7 November 1939, Hitler decreed that Heinrich Himmler, whose German title at that time was Reichskomissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums, would be responsible for policy regarding the population of occupied territories. The plan to kidnap Polish children most likely was created in a document titled Rassenpolitisches Amt der NSDAP.

On 25 November 1939, Himmler was sent a 40-page document titled (in English translation) "The issue of the treatment of population in former Polish territories from a racial-political view." The last chapter of the document concerns "racially valuable" Polish children and plans to forcefully acquire them for German plans and purposes: