Kidnapping of Eastern European Children By Nazi Germany - Heu-Aktion

Heu-Aktion

In a plan called "Heu-Aktion", described in a "top secret" memorandum submitted to German Interior Minister Heinrich Himmler on 10 June 1944, SS–Obergruppenfuehrer Gottlob Berger — Chief of the Political Directing Staff (head of the SS main leadership office in Berlin), a co-author of Himmler's pamphlet Der Untermensch, and a promoter of the pamphlet Mit Schwert und Wiege (With Sword and Cradle) for the recruitment of non-Germans — proposed that the German 9th Army "evacuate" 40,000–50,000 children between 10 and 14 from the "territory of Army Group 'Center' " to work for the Third Reich.

Heu-Aktion was not widely implemented, due in part perhaps to the following arguments against it: "The Minister feared that the action would have most unfavorable political consequences, that it would be regarded as abduction of children, and that the juveniles did not represent a real asset to the enemy's military strength anyhow. . . . The Minister would like to see the action confined to the 15–17 year olds." Between March and October 1944, however, 28,000 children between the ages of 10 and 18 were deported from Belarus for work at the Luftwaffe and in the arms industry supplying the Wehrmacht, which also unofficially included the Waffen-SS.