As a result of WWI and its subsequent treaties, Germany saw a massive decline in the birthrate of its citizenry. To curb the effects of a declining Germanic population, the Third Reich began an Aryan breeding plan led by Heinrich Himmler and the SS called the Lebensborn program. It was a means to put Josef Mengele's experiments on eugenics into practice. Women from various areas of occupied Europe were selected to sleep with SS officers and give birth to a new generation of “genetically pure” babies.

Between 1936 and 1945, women within the Lebensborn program gave birth to roughly 20,000 children. The Lebensborn program extended beyond a system of eugenics, however; it also served as a method of indoctrination. More than 200,000 children were taken throughout Europe and distributed to German foster homes, where they were forced to integrate into German culture.

When WWII came to a close, the Third Reich tried to hide their experiment. But within many of the countries once involved, the Lebensborn program was a point of persecution. Though their participation was outside of their own volition, the children of the Lebensborn program were shunned and shamed.