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Abstract

The most important conclusion we can draw from this table is that the trend toward smaller families that emerged by the end of the nineteenth century throughout Western Europe continued in Germany in the twentieth century. Despite calls to women by the Nazi regime to embrace childbirth and motherhood, we do not see a dramatic increase in the birthrate in the mid-1930s compared to the previous decade, and at no time during the Nazi regime did the number of births approach those statistics for the pre-World War One years.

Births and Marriages (1900, 1905, 1910 and 1913-1941)

Source

Marriages and births, 1900, 1905, 1910 and 1913-1941

Per 1,000 of the population

Year

Marriages

Live births

Live births per 1,000 women of childbearing age

Illegitimate births per 1,000 births

1900

8.5

35.6

*

8.7

1905

8.1

32.9

*

8.5

1910

7.7

29.8

128.01

9.1

1913

7.7

27.5

*

9.7

1914

6.8

26.8

*

9.8

1915

4.1

20.4

*

11.2

1916

4.1

15.2

*

11.1

1917

4.7

13.9

*

11.5

1918

5.4

14.3

*

13.1

1919

13.4

20.0

*

11.2

1920

14.5

25.9

*

11.4

1921

11.9

25.3

*

10.7

1922

11.2

23.0

90.0

10.7

1923

9.4

21.2

82.3

10.4

1924

7.1

20.6

79.8

10.5

1925

7.7

20.8

80.2

11.9

1926

7.7

19.6

75.4

12.5

1927

8.5

18.4

70.6

12.3

1928

9.2

18.6

71.3

12.3

1929

9.2

18.0

68.7

12.1

1930

8.8

17.6

67.3

12.0

1931

8.0

16.0

62.0

11.8

1932

7.9

15.1

59.5

11.6

1933

9.7

14.7

58.9

10.7

1934

11.1

18.0

73.3

8.6

1935

9.7

18.9

77.2

7.8

1936

9.1

19.0

77.6

7.8

1937

9.1

18.8

77.1

7.7

1938

9.4

19.6

80.9

7.7

1939

11.2

20.4

84.8

7.8

1940

8.8

20.0

84.2

*

1941

7.2

18.6

*

*

1942

7.4

14.9

*

*

1943

7.3

16.0

*

*

* not recorded

1 for 1910/1911

Source: Jill Stephenson. Women in Nazi Germany. London: Routledge. 2001. p. 24.