Master Race: The Lebensborn Experiment in Nazi Germany

by Catrine Clay

Book Overview

During World War II, many Polish children were stolen from their families by the Nazis as part of "Lebensborn" - the programme to create racially pure Aryans. This book investigates the history and ideology of racial hygiene and interviews some of the children whose lives were ruined by the war.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0340589787
• ISBN13: 9780340589786
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
• Length: 211 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.

Customer Reviews

An unending nightmare

This is an excellent book, well written, indexed, and thoroughly resesarched. A painstaking review of the history of the Nazi experiment whereby the "science" of Eugenics became manifest due to the "fortuitous" opportunity of WWII. The authors are clear that "Lebensborn" did not have its roots in Nazi Germany -- Eugenics was a worldwide movement that did not begin, nor end, in Nazi Germany. In fact, the best chapter is the last chapter. In the conclusion, the case is made that those in favor of the "scientific" breeding of the human race are not, themselves, a dying breed. Those who were part of the project during the war had no problem finding powerful positions after the war, and their work does, indeed go on. The fact that it is, so to speak, "hidden in plain sight" is what makes it so dangerous. There needs to be more of a dialogue, a public consensus, as it were, that we know that this is happening, and an accountability for what is taking place. Decisions are being made by an elite few that may or may not benefit the human race as a whole. The fact that so few people know about it or have anything to say about it is what makes Lebensborn an unending nightmare for us all.