The Family as “Best Weapon.” Instrumentalizing German Health Care Discourses in Upper Silesia During the Interwar Period

Abstract

Pro-German family and health policies were, at their core, anti-Polish measures that cleared the path for later racially determined politics. The sources demonstrate how these policies were justified and how their character developed from protective to invasive. Therefore, I examine first protective discourses about the fight against venereal diseases, then analyze supportive regulations such as the midwifery policies and the later invasive measures like sterilizations. Although these seem to be different topics, I show that the German “people's family” (Volksfamilie) and its significance for the health of the German “people's body” (Volkskörper) is always implied. Using a close-reading approach that considers newspaper articles, administrative and private files, I show the extent to which national and nationalist beliefs interfered with the everyday life of citizens. The text thus scrutinizes unpublished sources regarding the strategic importance of families in German biopolitics and its interpretation in the conflicted border region of Upper Silesia. In 1921, a plebiscite was held to decide on the division of the region. This intensified conflicts between Germany and Poland, which had just gained independence in 1918. I argue that the unstable position of the new emerged country was instrumentalized in German discourses to underline the image of the disorganized and underdeveloped East.