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Those women deemed “unfit” to have children included Jews, socialists, pacifists, Roma, Poles and Russians. Within about five and half years after taking power, the Third Reich had performed compulsory sterilization on 320,000 people. Some 400 women died in that time frame as a result. <ref> The Racial State, Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann pg 253 </ref> “Schizophrenia” or “feeble mindedness” were the frequent rationalizations offered for the forced sterilization of German women, and ironically, given the regime’s eagerness to promote even unwed pregnancies among “acceptable” German women, the reasons cited sometimes included promiscuity. In the case of a factory worker sterilized in 1941, a woman with six children, five of them illegitimate, evidence cited for her “feeblemindedness” included, “During a personal interview she was noticeably indifferent towards her shifting sexual relationships.” <ref> The Racial State, Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann pg 258 </ref>

Those women deemed “unfit” to have children included Jews, socialists, pacifists, Roma, Poles and Russians. Within about five and half years after taking power, the Third Reich had performed compulsory sterilization on 320,000 people. Some 400 women died in that time frame as a result. <ref> The Racial State, Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann pg 253 </ref> “Schizophrenia” or “feeble mindedness” were the frequent rationalizations offered for the forced sterilization of German women, and ironically, given the regime’s eagerness to promote even unwed pregnancies among “acceptable” German women, the reasons cited sometimes included promiscuity. In the case of a factory worker sterilized in 1941, a woman with six children, five of them illegitimate, evidence cited for her “feeblemindedness” included, “During a personal interview she was noticeably indifferent towards her shifting sexual relationships.” <ref> The Racial State, Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann pg 258 </ref>

 

[[category: history]]

[[category: history]]