Aid organization mother and child
10 years of the MuK relief organization: Postage stamp of the Deutsche Reichspost from 1944
The mother and child relief organization (in short: Hilfswerk MuK ) was founded in 1934 during the National Socialist era and had the task of looking after pregnant women and young mothers and their offspring who were considered “ Aryan ”. The relief organization was subordinate to the main office for people's welfare in the Reich leadership of the NSDAP .
The tasks were structured as follows:
- Help for the family through community maintenance by the NS sorority , through additional support, through housing and settlement assistance and through job assistance.
- Care for the mother through help for the expectant mother, the woman who has recently given birth and the single mother, through maternal recovery care , through the establishment of aid centers and through the deportation of mothers. By 1937, 77,169 mothers had been sent on “vacation”.
- Performing educational and health tasks in day-care centers . Establishment of harvest kindergartens , food for the children and health measures for the small children. There were only 3,461 day-care centers with 153,000 children in the entire German Reich at that time . This small number goes back to the National Socialist policy, due to which women were pushed back in public life and their role as mother and educator was emphasized in order to increase the birth rate in line with the Nazi ideology (cf.Women under National Socialism ). With the onset and progress of the war, women were increasingly needed as workers in the war economy and administration, and so the number of kindergarten places rose sharply.
- Youth welfare through youth education counseling centers and NS youth homes.
- Youth recreation by sending schoolchildren and school-leavers to land care centers, homes and day-care centers.
Most of the work was done by volunteers, especially members of the National Socialist Women's Association and the National Socialist Welfare Association .
The Statistical Yearbook of 1938 shows that 7.3 million Reichsmarks were spent on the work of the relief organization in 1935 . In 1936 it was 54.6 million and in 1937 78.4 million were consumed.
literature
- Oliver Kersten: The aid organization "Mother and Child" , in: Oliver Kersten: The National Socialist People's Welfare, especially in the Second World War , [Berlin] 1993, OCLC 917816751 (Master's thesis FU Berlin 1993, II, 160 pages, graphic representations). Pp. 44-49. Locations: SAPMO Federal Archives Library Berlin and Friedrich Meinecke Institute of the Free University of Berlin.
- Work plan for the implementation of the Mother and Child Aid , 1935