Reichsbund Deutsche Familie

The Reichsbund Deutsche Familie – Kampfbund für den Kinderreichtum der Erbtüchtigen (English: Reich League German Family – Fighting Alliance for the Abundance of Children of the Hereditarily Sound; RDF) was an organization of the NSDAP Office of Racial Policy (Rassenpolitisches Amt der NSDAP; RPA) to promote healthy, large families in National Socialist Germany, although the origins go back to the Weimar Republic.

History

The "Reich Association / Reich League of Large Families in Germany for the Protection of the Family e. V." (RDK) was founded at the first general meeting on 24 and 25 June 1922 in Weimar. The league's main range of services consisted of advice and help for self-help for families with at least four children and widows with at least three children, but after a few years it was no longer only for marginalized lower-class families with large children. As early as 1925, the topic of hereditary health was adopted from the national socialist ideology on the issue of eugenics and racial hygiene, and the federal government was considered a supporter and propagandist regarding National Socialist population and family policy.

From 1933, the RDK was affiliated with the Racial Policy Office of the NSDAP and at the same time a member of the Reich Committee for Public Health Service (Reichsausschuß für Volksgesundheitsdienst) at the Reich Ministry of the Interior. In 1940, the association was renamed "Reichsbund Deutsche Familie – Fighting Alliance for the Abundance of Children of the Hereditarily Sound e. V.". The logo has now been omitted from the five eaglets under the mother eagle and instead the Algiz rune ›ᛉ‹, which has since been transformed into a life rune (from the so-called Armanen-Futhark by Guido von List), as well as a frame around the logo that suggests a Fyrfos (swastika).

Fight is the meaning of all life. The German people have heard the voice of their ancestors again in their blood. In believing in the mission of our people, the new idealism of our worldview struggles against the most terrible enemy of all civilized peoples: the declining birth rate. From our biological knowledge we look backwards at the tragic downfall of high civilized peoples who died without knowledge of racial laws. Immeasurable guilt would rest on the German people if the same fate were to be accepted after we know the biological connections. - From National Socialism we draw the strength to plant the unfailing belief in an eternal Germany in every German heart. The Reich League of Large Families lives this belief in a happy commitment to a healthy number of children. The hereditary German families who want to fight our Führer's fight against the extinction of our people are gathered around his flag [...] We recognize that for the first time in history in two decades our people have set foot on the path that leads to death and would have to succumb to national death if National Socialism does not bring about an inner reversal. The fertility of our people, who have always had many children, has never diminished in German history, which has been so full of hardship and suffering. It never happened that the Vaterland's offspring was no longer raised. It was only through Germany's blessing of children that our people were able to overcome the plague, the Thirty Years' War and other difficult times. For the first time in 1915, the number of children was no longer sufficient to replace the parents' generation. Since then, the decline in birth rates has continued. Today we have reached the point where only three-fifths of the parents' generation are replaced by the children's generation. According to the numerical results, we are still in the clutches of national death. A new attitude of moral commitment to the German future increases the faith from which the power of overcoming flows. We know that no people who were once threatened with national death have yet overcome it. Those peoples perished along with their valuable cultural assets, were wiped out – disappeared.

Upon request, the Reich League awarded its members the Book of Honor for the German Family with an Abundance of Children (Ehrenbuch für die deutsche, kinderreiche Familie), which was an award for fulfilling their duty to secure the future of the German people and was considered a certificate for claiming all benefits for large families. As a visible sign of gratitude as mothers with many children, the Cross of Honor of the German Mother (Ehrenkreuz der Deutschen Mutter) was donated on 16 December 1938. As the father of ten children, NSDAP Gauleiter Fritz Sauckel was chairman of the “Ehrenführerring” of the Reich Association / Reich League.

Post-war

With the Control Council Law No. 2 (Dissolution and Liquidation of NS Organizations) of 10 October 1945, the organization was banned by the Allied Control Council and its property was confiscated. After the end of National Socialism, the Reichsbund der Kinderreichen Deutschlands zum Schutze der Familie e. V. (RDK) gave rise to the Association of Large and Young Families in Germany (Bund kinderreicher und junger Familien Deutschlands; BKD), which merged in 1970 with the German Family Association (Deutscher Familienverband e. V.; DFV), founded in Munich in 1950. According to its own statements, the DFV is independent of party politics and denomination and sees itself as a lobby for families in Germany, like the RDK when it was founded in 1922 and later the BKD.

Publications

• Völkische Wacht (since 1921); later Völkische Wacht – Kampfblatt für national-sozialistische Bevölkerungspolitik
• Völkischer Wille – Kampfblatt für Familien- und Bevölkerungspolitik (since 1933)

See also

• Organization of the NSDAP

Further reading

• Organisationsbuch der NSDAP., 7. Edition, 1943, p. 333