The Politics of Fertility in Twentieth-Century Berlin

How a declining population influenced reproductive and sexual health policy in Germany.

Annette F. Timm (Author)

9780521195393, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 August 2010

374 pages, 14 b/w illus. 1 map
24.2 x 16.5 x 2.5 cm, 0.68 kg

'This complex exploration of Berlin's efforts to combat VD and offer marriage counseling argues that the rhetoric of 'sexual duty' served as a basis for German citizenship across four different regimes in the twentieth century. The author offers an innovative interpretation of population policy as an 'inclusionary racism' that attempted to increase fertility through a sense of national responsibility, supplemented by incentives of the welfare state.' Konrad Jarausch, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

What impact does a falling birth rate have on the strength and vitality of a nation? Are citizens duty-bound to think about this question when they make reproductive and sexual choices? Few countries have grappled with these questions so intensely and with such dramatic consequences as Germany. Annette Timm tracks how fears of a declining population influenced reproductive and sexual health policy in Germany from the end of World War I through the period of German division in the Cold War. A case study set in Berlin, the book examines local measures to control venereal diseases and influence reproductive choices in marriage counseling clinics. It investigates how policies meant to encourage higher birth rates created feelings of belonging even as they infringed upon personal autonomy. The idea that sexual duty should be central to conceptions of citizenship only died with the changing circumstances of the late Cold War.

Introduction: birth rates, ideology, and sexual duties
1. Venereal disease and the crisis of sexuality in the Weimar Republic
2. Marriage counseling in the Weimar Republic
3. Nazi Bevölkerungspolitik, health, and the family
4. Venereal disease control in the Nazi era
5. Controlling venereal disease in four-power Berlin
6. Counseling couples in the post-war rubble
7. Guarding the health of workers and families in the German Democratic Republic
8. Sexual duties in Cold-War West Germany
Conclusion: the end of sexual duty and the future of Bevölkerungspolitik.

Subject Areas: Population & demography [JHBD], Social & cultural history [HBTB], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD]