Himmler’s Bridal Bootcamp: School For Nazi Brides

Located one Berlin’s Grunewald and considered one of the most romantic spots in Germany, Schwanenwerder Island was named like this after the swans that swim on its beautiful lake.  At No 28 Inselstrasse is where Himmler’s bridal school was established to train young women to become wives of Nazi men, housekeepers and mothers, but most importantly, it was the place where they learnt to love and obey the Fuhrer.

The schools for Nazi brides were long forgotten until last year, when one of the school’s manuals was revealed at Koblenz, in Germany’s Federal Archive. The manual detailed several rituals and routines, involving ceremonies where women had to swear sinister vows.

The head of and behind the schools for SS brides was no other than Hitler’s right hand and head of SS, Heinrich Himmler. Apparently, Himmler was obsessed with making sure that SS men married the right women, so he decided to train young women to become the perfect wives for his men and this is how the schools were established in 1935.

However, not any young girl could join the school. Not only that they had to have pure German blood, but since Himmler insisted to have a ‘racially pure’ women force, he ordered for every woman to be assessed by the SS Race and Settlement Office, before being accepted for training, the Mail Online reports.

The rules were very strict and presenting the right documents was100 percent compulsory. Every woman had to provide birth certificates dating back to 1800. To be able to provide those certificates, they often had to visit several churches, as they tried to find out when their ancestors were married and collected the documents from there, before presenting them to the SS Race and Settlement Office. If for example, a woman found out that her great-grandmother was Jewish and she married a German man, the wedding would not take place, unless the SS gave up his job for his fiancee.

The admission involved several humiliating tests that had the women’s noses and upper lips measured, to ensure that they had the correct features of the Aryan race and had to present complete forms of detailed family history and medical history for both themselves and their ancestors.

The training generally involved learning how to eat healthy, how to sew, how to wash their baby children, how to bring up their children and above all, how to make their children love and worship Adolf Hitler. They also learnt about interior decor and the price of the course was 135 Reichmarks – the equivalent of £500 today.

Ian Harvey

Ian Harvey is one of the authors writing for WAR HISTORY ONLINE