SS Race and Settlement Main Office

RuSHA

Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt der SS
The RuSHA was under the administration of the SS.
SS christening of a child born through the RuSHA's Lebensborn program in 1936.
Agency overview
Formed	c.1931
Dissolved	May 8, 1945
Jurisdiction	Germany Occupied Europe
Headquarters	SS-Hauptamt, Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, Berlin
Employees	1,500 c.1942
Minister responsible	Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, (1931–1945)
Agency executives	SS-Obergruppenführer Richard Walther Darré, 1931–1938 SS-Gruppenführer Günther Pancke, 1938–1940 SS-Gruppenführer Otto Hofmann, 1940–1943 SS-Gruppenführer Richard Hildebrandt, 1943–1945
Parent agency	Allgemeine SS

The Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt der SS (English: SS Race and Settlement Main Office), (RuSHA), was the organization responsible for "safeguarding the racial 'purity' of the SS" within Nazi Germany.

One of its duties was to oversee the marriages of SS personnel in accordance with the racial policy of Nazi Germany. After Himmler introduced the "marriage order" on December 31, 1931, the RuSHA would only issue a permit to marry once detailed background investigations into the racial fitness of both prospective parents had been completed and proved both of them to be of Aryan descent back to 1800.

The RuSHA was founded in 1931 by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and Richard Walther Darré, who later rose to the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer. It was an SS office. In 1935, it was upgraded to an SS Main Office. Under its first director, Darré, it propagated the Nazi ideology of "Blood and Soil". Darré was dismissed by Himmler in 1938 and was succeeded by SS-Gruppenführer Günther Pancke, SS-Gruppenführer Otto Hofmann in 1940, and SA-Gruppenführer Richard Hildebrandt in 1943.

The RuSHA was created to monitor Himmler's 1931 order that the marital decisions of unmarried SS men should be supervised by the Nazi state. SS men would thereafter have to apply for a marriage permit three months before getting married so that the parents of the fiancée could be investigated to ensure her racial purity. With time, the marriage laws became less strict, but RuSHA's power progressively grew in scope and other organizations came under its umbrella, such as the Ahnenerbe.

In December 1935 Himmler ordered the RuSHA to establish the Lebensborn network of maternity homes, whose purpose was "to accommodate and look after racially and genetically valuable expectant mothers."