Note 52
From German Wife and Mother by Joachim C. Fest — See further Notes

On Himmler's Engagement and Marriage Order (Verlobungsund Heiratsbefehl), whose most important clause is the obligation for SS members to obtain permission to marry, see IMT, XXXI, 2825-PS. On the Head Office for Race and Settlement, a description on the organizational structure and rules of the SS on 1st August 1942 says:

'The SS Central Office for Race and Settlement [RuSHA] is engaged through its offices in the racial selection of SS offspring, guides SS men in their choice of a spouse, and promotes the creation of large biologically-hereditarily valuable families. It is made possible for suitable and willing SS settlers to obtain their own farms' (IMT, XXXI, 2825-PS).

The fact that this was of course only a small part of the function of the RuSHA and that it was described in exceedingly favourable terms needs no special emphasis and is also less important in this context. Himmler ordered the nomination of Munich as the 'capital of the new order and of the family' in a letter to SS Obergruppenfuhrer Pohl on 8th May 1942; see Conrad-Martius, Utopien der Menschenzüchtung.