Johanna Haarer (3.10.1900 Tetschen-Bodenbach/Bohemia – 30.4.1988 Munich)

Johanna Barsch was born in the Sudetenland, the child of the merchant Alois Barsch and his wife Anna. After attending elementary and secondary school from 1906 to 1914, she worked at her parents’ stationery store. At the age of 17 she decided to study medicine against her parents’ wishes and initially attended the country boarding schools founded by Hermann Lietz in the Rhön Mountains, where she completed her secondary school leaving examinations. Johanna Barsch then studied in Heidelberg, Göttingen and Munich. After marrying a fellow student, she passed the state medical examination as Johanna Weese, obtained a doctorate, received her license to practice medicine after completing a practical year and was finally employed at Harlaching Sanatorium as an assistant physician for pulmonary diseases. Having divorced in 1929, she married senior physician and clinic colleague Otto Friedrich Haarer in 1932 and gave up her profession.

After giving birth to twins in 1933 – three more children followed – Johanna Haarer began to write on the subject of infant care, even though she had no pediatric training. In 1934 she published a book about child-raising, ‘ Die deutsche Mutter und ihr erstes Kind’ (The German mother and her first child), that was clearly inspired by the political views on education and women set out in Hitler’s My Struggle, which promotes a style of parenting that involves ‘toughening up’ infants. Published up until 1972 in numerous new editions and running to a total of 1.2 million copies, the book soon became the basis for the so-called ‘Reich mothers’ training’ pursued by the National Socialist Women’s Organization. Haarer herself was ‘Regional coordinator for affairs of racial policy’ for a while, joined the Nazi Party in 1937, and in 1939 wrote the anti-semitic Nazi children’s book ‘Mutter, erzähl‘ von Adolf Hitler!’ (Mother, tell me about Adolf Hitler!)

When the war ended she was interned in US camps for a year. After her release, she worked once again as a pulmonologist in the public sector and wrote self-improvement books. She died in Munich in 1988.