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[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Good question. It's incredible how topics like this are neglected among NS adherents. They appear to have more pressing matters to deal with. I myself haven't looked very deeply into the subject...

The historian Michelle Mouton interviewed a Frau Herford Ludwig, recipient of the bronze Mother's Cross. It seems Ludwig was provided with a teenage caregiver, recently graduated, who helped raise her six children. This is mentioned in her book From Nurturing the Nation to Purifying the Volk and her article From Adventure and Advancement to Derailment and Demotion (locked behind paygate).

Ella E. Schneider Hilton mentions her friend Giesela Schwarzer coming from a family with eighteen children, which was "singled out by Hitler himself"(!) and received the Mother's Cross. Regrettably, Schwarzer didn't describe how her own life was affected, but she mentions that her parents didn't have to work, spared from conscription, and were royally treated to the best of everything, such as seats on the bus.

Goebbels mentions Hitler's belief that only the Mother's Cross, at least in the Bronze category, was being justly distributed. A historian draws attention to the deliberate connection between the date selected for awarding the Mother's Cross medal and the birthday of Hitler's mother. It seems the medal meant a great deal to Hitler himself.

If Felix Kersten's memoir is reliable, Himmler goes into great detail on the Mother's Cross, in the context of discussing incentives for civil servants.

Kersten raised a dilemma, what if mothers bring multiple children simply in order to obtain the benefits from receiving the medal? To which Himmler reassured him that mothers were not comparable to civil servants and would undertake it at the risk of their own lives. Ludwig adamantly insisted that child-bearing was of her own initiative and a private responsibility, not an obligation foisted on her by the state.

It seems Himmler wished to foster competition among the women, even instituting polygamy as a reward for brave SS men. Similar sentiment can be read in the letters exchanged between Bormann and his wife. Bormann's son corroborates this inclination towards polygamy.