15. Bizarre Baptisms
About 60 percent of Lebensborn mothers were unmarried, and if they chose not to keep the child, the program ran nurseries where the children were cared for until adopted. At least they were adopted if they were healthy and hale. Even before the Holocaust, the Nazis had launched an extermination program, Aktion T4, that euthanized the disabled and undesirable. It would eventually claim about 300,000 lives. Lebensborn children with disabilities were prime candidates for euthanasia – they were literally born in the clutches of the SS.
Many newborns were baptized in bizarre SS occult ceremonies, not with a priest holding a pitcher of holy water over the infant’s head, but with an SS official holding a dagger. Instead of reading from a prayer book, the SS man would read from Mein Kampf. Instead of vowing to be good Christians, the children, through their SS interlocutors, swore lifelong allegiance to the Fuhrer and the tenets of Nazism.
