Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Cradles of the Reich by Jennifer Coburn

Book Description

The Lebensborn project; a Nazi breeding program to create a so-called master race. Through thorough research and with deep empathy, this chilling historical novel goes inside one of the Lebensborn Society maternity homes that existed in several countries during World War II, where thousands of “racially fit” babies were bred and taken from their mothers to be raised as part of the new Germany.

At the Heim Hochland maternity home in Bavaria, three women’s lives coverage as they find themselves there under very different circumstances. Gundi is a pregnant university student from Berlin. An Aryan beauty, she’s secretly a member of a resistance group. Hilde, only eighteen, is a true believer in the cause and is thrilled to carry a Nazi official’s child. And Irma, a 44-year-old nurse, is desperate to build a new life for herself after personal devastation. Despite their opposing beliefs, all three have everything to lose as they begin to realize they are trapped within Hitler’s terrifying scheme to build a Nazi-Aryan nation. 

A cautionary tale for modern times told in stunning detail, Cradles of the Reich uncovers a little-known Nazi atrocity but also carries an uplifting reminder of the power of women to set aside differences and work together in solidarity in the face of oppression.

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Elise’s Thoughts

Cradles of the Reich by Jennifer Coburn explores the Lebensborn project, a Nazi breeding program to create a so-called master race. This historical novel goes inside the Lebensborn Society, where thousands of “racially fit” babies were bred and taken from their mothers to be raised as part of Nazi Germany.

At the Heim Hochland maternity home in Bavaria, three women’s lives intersect as they find themselves there under very different circumstances. The Heim Hochland Estate is a country house in Bavaria. The German’s use it as a maternity home during the Second World War as part of the Lebensborn Society. Here pregnant Aryan women stay in luxury, they receive the best medical care, and their babies are adopted by high-ranking German officer’s families. 

In 1939 Gundi Schiller was unmarried and pregnant, a university student from Berlin. As a member of the Edelweiss Pirates, a resistance group, she met and fell in love with Leo Solomon, a Jewish man, who was now missing. Because she is considered an “Aryan beauty,” she is told that she needs to enter the Lebensborn program at Heim Hochland.  Gundi needs to find a way to hide the identity of her child’s father and protect her baby who will be killed.

Hilde Kramer is a high school student who eagerly supported Hitler’s policies. Hilde, only eighteen, is a true believer and is thrilled to carry a Nazi official’s child. She believed in the cause, where maternity homes had children bred for a superior race for the German future. 

Irma Binz, a 44-year-old nurse, is desperate to build a new life for herself after personal devastation. She will be the one encouraging the unwed mothers to stay healthy, so they deliver these perfect children. Irma just wants to do her job and stay out of trouble, looking the other way. But her closeness with the women in the home has her conflicted about her loyalty to Germany, especially when it comes to the danger faced by Gundi and her baby.

Jennifer Coburn has an incredible knack for being able to entertain while at the same time educate her readers on this important piece of horrific history.  Her characters come alive and are very relatable.

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for the story?

Jennifer Coburn:  It was from a television show, “The Man in the High Castle.”  It imagines the Nazis winning the war and takes place in 1962.  In one of the episodes a German woman said she was bred through the Lebensborn Society. I thought this was a fictional episode, but I googled it.  I found a black and white photograph of this row of nurses standing in a military-like formation holding babies. It was then I realized it was real.

EC:  What exactly is the Lebensborn Society?

JC:  It was a top-secret breeding program that operated for ten years. The nurses were brain washed at best and complicit.  Women were like incubators.  The Nazis had a goal of 2 million racially pure babies for the Reich.  Only 20,000 babies were produced but 200,000 babies were stolen from occupied countries. After the war the women who participated and the children born were shunned. Only 20% of these babies knew about their roots.

EC:  How did the 20% find out they were products of the program?

JC:  When their mothers passed away the children found a silver mug given by Himmler. The mug had the child’s name engraved on the front and his name engraved on the back.

EC:  You have three different women who were associated with the Society in some manner?

JC: Yes. They were meant to represent the three different choices that gentile German women had in 1939. There is the resistor, bystander, and the Hitler true believer.  Those that worked there could have been aware of the plan to create a “Master Race.” I would never give up my child for good of country.

EC:  How would you describe Gundi?

JC:  She is a twenty-year-old university student.  She is everything the Nazis consider perfect: blonde, blue-eyed, and tall.  But she is secretly a member of the resistance and carrying the child of a Jewish man. She is the resistor, the moral conscious of the story, and the heroine of the story.

EC:  What about Nurse Irma?

JC:  She is a typical bystander who wants to keep her head down. She does not do much questioning of the Nazis and goes whichever way the wind blows until the end. She changes the most over time.  She starts out one thing and ends up the opposite.

EC:  Was Hilde naïve or stupid?

JC: She is pathetic and cruel.  She is unloved, neglected, and a second-class citizen.  She is brain-washed, delusional, and went along with the crowd.  She wanted to be the best “Hitler girl.” She enjoyed the power that came with her contacts. She is only eighteen and a little bit naïve and narcissistic. She became a vessel literally. She is based on a real person.  In an interview the real Hilde said that her time in the Lebensborn Society was the best time of her life. She noted she was well fed, well cared for, with a lot of leisure time.  The real Hilde Trutz told of her sexual experience with an SS officer, had a child, and handed it over for adoption, without thinking twice about it.  Till the day she died she thought she had done a great think for her country.

EC:  What was true in the story?

JC:  If the baby was imperfect, that included, a Jewish baby, they were given a lethal injection. They also monitored the skin tone of those women chosen. Regarding Kristallnacht, the 1938 Pogroms, this was considered the official start of the Holocaust. This was widespread. The baby naming ceremony is also true, where the sword tip is laid on the baby’s stomach, like knighthood.

EC:  Your next book?

JC:  It is titled The Girls of the Glimmer Factory, set in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, located in Northern Czechoslovakia.  It was a propaganda camp, set up for films, tours, to show the world the Jews were treated well under Nazi rule.  Hilde is back. She is a filmmaker on the crew for the Nazis who made a movie about Theresienstadt that was filled with false information.  She reunites with an old friend Hannah Kaufman, a Jewish prisoner there. Irma is involved with a baby smuggling program. It will be out in early 2025.

THANK YOU!!

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