Gathering of 'Hitler's chosen children'

A group of Germans who as children were selected by the Nazis for their Aryan qualities as part of Adolf Hitler’s quest to build a master race, were gathering publicly today for the first time.

They are meeting to discuss the secretive programme, in an attempt to make sense of their hidden pasts.

The so-called “Lebensborn children” were part of a lesser-known side of Nazi racial experiments. While millions of Jews and others deemed “undesirable” were being slaughtered, thousands of children were carefully selected for Aryan physical qualities and given to families of SS members to be raised.

The meeting, of 60 members of a group formed last year called Lebensspuren, or Traces of Life, is being held in the eastern German town of Wernigerode, where the Nazis ran the Harz Lebensborn home.

Some two-thirds of the group’s members were Lebensborn children, and their meeting will be open to the public.

They are gathering to ask questions, trace their roots and demand that the truth be told about SS chief Heinrich Himmler’s Lebensborn, or Source of Life scheme.