Adolf Hitler orders the sterilization of the Rheinlandbastarde

1937. Adolf Hitler orders the sterilization of the Rheinlandbastarde, a derogatory term referring to the mixed children of German mothers and Africans who served as French colonial troops during the French army occupation of Rhineland, after World War I. It was during this period that the Nazi regime implemented laws to pursue racial segregation and exclude individuals labelled as “racially undesirable,” and was one facet of Nazi eugenics.

Rheinlandbastarde were not considered "pure Aryans." Their very conception was considered evidence of fraternization, and was thus both a racial and moral contamination of the German population. In Mein Kampf, Hitler denounced the mothers of the Rheinlandbastardes as whores. It was implied that these women were involved in a French plot against the German people, in order to justify the sterilization of mixed children.

There were many other children of both German and African heritage resident in Germany who were not Rheinlandbastarde. These were the children of German settlers and missionaries who had married or had out-of-wedlock relationships with ethnic women. Though the sterilization law was not aimed at them, the Nuremberg Laws of September 1935 prohibiting miscegenation forbid them from entering into mixed marriages.

-Erna Kurbegovic and Amy Dyrbye

  • Weindling, P. (2010). German Eugenics and the Wider World: Beyond the Racial State. A. Bashford & P. Levine (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Adolf Hitler orders the sterilization of the Rheinlandbastarde

1937. Adolf Hitler orders the sterilization of the Rheinlandbastarde, a derogatory term referring to the mixed children of German mothers and Africans who served as French colonial troops during the French army occupation of Rhineland, after World War I. It was during this period that the Nazi regime implemented laws to pursue racial segregation and exclude individuals labelled as “racially undesirable,” and was one facet of Nazi eugenics.

Rheinlandbastarde were not considered "pure Aryans." Their very conception was considered evidence of fraternization, and was thus both a racial and moral contamination of the German population. In Mein Kampf, Hitler denounced the mothers of the Rheinlandbastardes as whores. It was implied that these women were involved in a French plot against the German people, in order to justify the sterilization of mixed children.

There were many other children of both German and African heritage resident in Germany who were not Rheinlandbastarde. These were the children of German settlers and missionaries who had married or had out-of-wedlock relationships with ethnic women. Though the sterilization law was not aimed at them, the Nuremberg Laws of September 1935 prohibiting miscegenation forbid them from entering into mixed marriages.

-Erna Kurbegovic and Amy Dyrbye

  • Weindling, P. (2010). German Eugenics and the Wider World: Beyond the Racial State. A. Bashford & P. Levine (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.