. NMT05-T0122
Volume V · Page 122
| Decree 12/C, issued by Himmler
on 9 February 1942, provided that marriages and adoptions by the persons
classified in group 3 of the German People's List with each other or with
Germans was permissible but further provided that restrictive regulations might
be issued by the Staff Main Office. The decree further provided that persons in
group 3 were prohibited to marry persons in group 4, person's of alien race, or
with Germans holding citizenship subject to revocation who were not classified
in group 3. There were further restrictions on persons of group 3 prohibiting
marriages to an enumerated group of persons, such as civil service employees,
without a special license. On 6 August 1944 in a memorandum issued by the Prague Office of RuSHA, it was stated that persons of Polish descent and persons of Ukrainian descent were to be prevented from marrying each other "as a matter of principle;" because "experience has shown that such marriages do not tend to split up, but rather to camouflage the Polish factor; thus the children of these marriages usually are brought up as Poles." Notwithstanding the many decrees enacted to hamper reproduction, the Nazis suddenly awakened to the realization that their measures, as occurred in other cases, were not bringing forth the desired results, and in the words of the Nazis, as shown by the report of a conference on the question, attended by the defendant Brueckner of VoMi and representatives of RuSHA, it was discovered that "because of the raising of the marriage age for Poles the number of legitimate children is reduced resulting in an increase of the number of illegitimate children. The information memorandum recently obtained showed that the number of illegitimate children is increasing to an even greater extent than the number of legitimate children is decreasing." The conference met this problem in the following manner: |
"With regard to the question of reducing the number of illegitimate children, it was the general consensus of opinion to allow the unwed Polish mothers a minimum subsistence for the care of the child, the subsistence to be paid for by the Polish fathers and to be paid out only if the care of the child is not assured by either the unwed mother or her family. This was to prevent any negligence. Here it must be the primary principle not to spend one German penny for Polish welfare. This method of putting the illegitimate, racially undesirable Polish child at a definite disadvantage, even though it will not, in general, reduce the number of illegitimate children, will at least not encourage a rise in the number of illegitimate children. The Race and Settlement Main Office suggested that the father of the illegitimate child be required to make es- […pecially] |
