GERMAN BIRTHRATE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXII, Issue 263, 6 October 1942, Page 5

GERMAN BIRTHRATE

LONDON, Oct. 4

When Hitler seized power in 1933, the German birthrate was 31 per cent, below the rate requisite to maintain the population of the Reich at the existing level, says the Times in reference to the failure of the German birthrate campaign. Then began the most tremendous experiment ever undertaken to control and direct biological trends. Every conceivable weapon was used marriage loans, allowances, tax .rebates, free holidays, reduction of educational fees, travelling rates, house rents, closing birth control clinics and outlawing birth control advice. German women were degraded by deliberate attempts to encourage illegitimacy and promiscuous relationships. Doctor Ley announced :• “The unmarried mother who gives birth to a child from health impulse should enjoy the same protection as the married mother.” Statistics show that the German birthrate actually increased between 1933 and 1939. Nevertheless, at no time since Hitler’s accession, has the birthrate been high enough to maintain the population, let alone provide for an increase. The birthrate for Greater Germany, including Austria, Sudetenland, Aleinel, and Danzig in 1939-40 was 20.4 per cent., and the birthrate in 1941 19.1 per cent. The rate continues to fall more steeply in the first four months of 1942. This reduction, compared with the four months’ period of 1939-40 represented a decline of from 24 to 40 per cent. Tho level to which the rate dropped by April, 1939, means a loss of more than 450,000 births in a single year. The decline in 1942 was far heavier than that experienced early in the 1930’s during, tho world slump. The marriage rate in Gel-many in January and February of 1942 was lower than the corresponding period of any year since 1920.