Foreign News: National Treasure

Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler and Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess last week set the seal of qualified official approval on bastardy. Herr Himmler sounded off in an "order to the entire SS (Elite Guard) and the police":

"The ancient saying that only he can die peacefully who has sons and daughters must be translated into fact during this war by the SS. Beyond the limits of bourgeois laws and customs which ordinarily are probably necessary, it can become an exalted task even outside of wedlock for German women and girls of good blood to become—not frivolously but imbued with deepest moral concern—mothers of children begotten by soldiers moving to the front without knowing whether they will return or die for the Fatherland."

In a letter to an unmarried expectant mother whose fiancé was killed in Poland, Deputy Führer Hess declared: "During war especially, which so often means death for the best men, every new life is of extraordinary importance. Hence, if young soldiers fall on behalf of the Fatherland who, for some reason or other, could not marry and who leave children behind, the State will take care of this national treasure."