The Politics of Fertility in Twentieth-Century Berlin
Cambridge University Press, 8/30/2010
EAN 9780521195393, ISBN10: 052119539X
Hardcover, 374 pages, 15.5 x 3.3 x 3.3 cm
Language: English
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.
'Timm presents a nuanced and convincing argument on the basis of extensive research, yielding new and important insights. The scope and focus of this book should certainly generate fruitful discussion.' Edward Dickinson, University of California, Davis