Beginnings
Before the Nazi Party was founded, a strong youth movement already existed in Germany. It began in the 1890s and was known as the Wandervögel, a male-only movement featuring a back-to-nature theme.
Wandervögel members had an idealistic, romantic notion of the past, yearning for simpler days when people lived off the land. They rejected the modern, big city era and took a dim view of its predecessor, the industrial revolution, which had been started by their fathers and grandfathers. They scorned greed and materialism, and the new emerging corporate mentality. They found strict German schooling oppressive and rejected parental authority. They saw hypocrisy in politics and the social class system of Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany, which was based entirely on birth and accumulated wealth.
Instead, they longed for a Jugendkultur, a culture of youth led by youth, in which they would be truly valued. They wanted something greater to believe in than the values of their parents.
Wandervögel members distinguished themselves by wearing shorts and hiking boots rather than the starched shirts and creased trousers of the middle class. They delighted in rediscovering nature without any modern conveniences, traveling on hikes and sleeping out under the stars. They sang old German folk songs around the campfire and also developed a custom of greeting each other by saying "Heil."
This youth movement grew rapidly from 1900 to 1914, attracting the attention and grudging admiration of the mainstream political and religious establishment in Germany, which soon created its own competing youth groups, borrowing the back-to-nature theme and other ideas from the Wandervögel.
The Catholic Youth Organization, the Boy Scouts, along with a variety of political, religious, para-military, and sports groups sprang up, organized so that youth was indeed led by youth, with the leader being just a few years older than the boys he led.
At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, most German youths were quickly caught up in the war mania that swept Germany and enthusiastically went off to the battlefield anticipating it as a noble, romantic experience that would mold them into 'new men.' In reality, they died by the millions, cut down by the machinery of modern warfare including machine-guns, mustard gas and explosive artillery shells. By 1918, Germany was defeated and soon plunged into political and social chaos.
New political, para-military, religious, and sports oriented youth groups sprang up all over Germany, including the Young Socialists, Young Democrats, and Young Conservatives. Many of the groups adopted military style uniforms and established a hierarchy of formal ranks, a big change from the informal clothing and rule by consent of the pre-war youth groups. However, they shared some of the same themes, opposing a return to the old social status quo, while working to create an idealistic new era, a better Germany, a better world perhaps.
Among the multitude of post-war political organizations hoping to lead Germany into the future was the German Workers' Party founded in 1919 in Bavaria, now led by young Adolf Hitler. In 1920, he renamed it as the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) called the NSDAP or Nazi Party. That same year, Hitler authorized the formation of a Youth League of the National Socialist Workers' Party under the control of his storm trooper organization known as the SA (Sturmabteilung).
A proclamation published in March 1922 in the official Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter called for new members, declaring, "We demand that the National Socialist Youth, and all other young Germans, irrespective of class or occupation, between fourteen and eighteen years of age, whose hearts are affected by the suffering and hardships afflicting the Fatherland, and who later desire to join the ranks of the fighters against the Jewish enemy, the sole originator of our present shame and suffering, enter the Youth League of the NSDAP..."
Among the rules, no membership fees and an emphasis on "love of one's country and people, enjoyment of honest open combat and of healthy physical activity, the veneration of ethical and spiritual values, and the rejection of those values originating from Jewry..."
Weekly meetings were held featuring lectures and discussions. Every second Sunday was spent in mandatory hiking trips across the countryside. The League also established its own libraries for members excluding "trashy literature." The first uniforms were copied from the brownshirted SA. This caused resentment among the younger SA who were sometimes confused with Youth League members.
The new Nazi Youth League attracted very few members at first, competing against numerous other well established groups. In May 1922, the Nazis held a meeting at the Bürgerbräu Keller, a large beer hall in Munich, to officially proclaim the foundation of League. That meeting attracted only 17 youths.
The Nazi Youth League was headed by Gustav Lenk who established small units in Nuremberg and other cities. As the organization continued its slow but steady growth, Hitler officially named Lenk as national youth leader. In May 1923, Lenk published the first Nazi youth magazine, Nationale Jungsturm, which proved to be a money loser and was then reduced to a supplement of the Völkischer Beobachter.
The Nazis were based in Munich in the German state of Bavaria which was a hotbed of political groups violently opposed to the German democratic government (the Weimar Republic) based in Berlin. By November 1923, the Nazis, with 55,000 followers, were the biggest and best organized. Nazi members demanded revolutionary action. The result was Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in which he attempted to seize power in Bavaria.
On November 9, a column of three thousand Nazis, led by Hitler, marched toward the center of Munich but soon encountered a police blockade. Shots rang out. Sixteen Nazis and three police were killed. Hitler fled the scene then hid out in the attic of a friend's home until he was arrested two days later. Other Nazi leaders were arrested or fled the country to avoid prosecution. Hitler went to prison. The Nazi Party and its Youth League were officially disbanded by the German democratic government. Most observers thought they had seen the last of Hitler.
Following the failed Beer Hall Putsch and Hitler's arrest, the Nazi Party and Youth League of the NSDAP had been outlawed. Gustav Lenk, former leader of the Nazi Youth League, then founded a new group, the Patriotic Youth Association of Greater Germany. However, German officials soon disbanded this group, believing it was just another name for the Nazi Youth League.
Lenk was arrested and briefly imprisoned, but upon his release, founded yet another group, the Greater German Youth Movement. He was arrested again and sent to Landsberg Prison where Hitler was confined. Lenk wound up being released from prison about the same time as Hitler in December of 1924.
After his release, Hitler announced he would re-found the Nazi Party and invited all German nationalists to join the revitalized Nazi Party with him as its undisputed leader. However, Lenk doubted Hitler could maintain his position as absolute leader. Lenk then founded a new nationalist youth group independent of the NSDAP. The Nazis retaliated by discrediting Lenk via trumped up charges that he was a traitor and petty thief. This resulted in Lenk's downfall and complete removal from the entire German youth movement scene. He was replaced by Kurt Gruber, a 21-year-old law student who had joined the Nazi Party in 1923. Gruber had served as a group leader under Lenk and was a skilled organizer.
Gruber introduced the first Hitler Youth style uniforms featuring a brown shirt and black shorts and a unique arm band with a Nazi swastika minus the white circular background, with a white horizontal stripe added to easily distinguish youth members from brownshirted storm troopers, the SA, who resented being confused with the youths.
Hitler was impressed by Gruber's zeal and organizational talent. The Greater German Youth Movement under Gruber became the sole official youth organization of the Nazi Party and was even allowed to retain a degree of independence from the NSDAP leadership.
For Hitler, 1925 was a year spent successfully rebuilding the Nazi Party and consolidating his position as its absolute leader. Amid this success, Hitler called for his first mass rally since his release from prison. He chose the city of Weimar, located in the German state of Thuringia, which was one of the few states where he could legally speak in public. On July 3, 1926, a two day Nazi rally began and was attended by youth group members.
On Sunday, July 4, at the suggestion Julius Streicher, Gruber's Greater German Youth Movement was renamed as the Hitler Jugend, Bund der Deutschen Arbeiterjugend. Thus the Hitler Jugend (HJ) or Hitler Youth was born. Kurt Gruber was then officially proclaimed as its first leader. All other independent National Socialist youth associations, including groups in Austria, were now absorbed into the Hitler Youth organization.
Gruber next established various departments and procedures. Among the 14 separate departments were ones for sports, propaganda and education.
New guidelines stipulated: that all Hitler Youth members over age 18 had to be Nazi Party members; appointments to high ranking positions required Party approval; Hitler Youths must obey all commands issued by any Nazi Party leader; pay a membership fee of four Pfennigs per month; and wear standardized uniforms designed to avoid confusion with storm trooper uniforms.
By the end of 1927, a further requirement was that Hitler Youths turning 18 had to join the storm troopers. However, this resulted in a shortage of trained leaders within the upper echelons of the Hitler Youth. The Youth Committee of the NSDAP then worked out an arrangement with the SA allowing valuable members to stay in the Hitler Youth past age 18.
With new branches in twenty different German Gaue (districts), the Hitler Youth organization faced financial problems associated with its expansion. Paid dues and Party funds only covered a portion of the costs. Hitler Youth members then began the practice of collecting money during propaganda marches.
Those marches always included the attention getting, rousing singing of Hitler Youth boys. Their songs, borrowed mainly from the pre-war German youth movement, were based on old ballards and traditional German folklore. They also borrowed tunes from other nationalist groups and other political organizations, even the Communists, and simply changed the lyrics.
First Nuremberg Appearance
At the Nuremberg Party rally in 1927, about 300 Hitler Youth members marched alongside 30,000 brownshirted storm troopers. This was the first appearance of the Hitler Youth at the annual Nuremberg rallies. Adolf Hitler took notice of his young followers and paid special tribute to them. Due to a lack of money, many of the boys had walked all the way to Nuremberg.
In 1928, the Hitler Youth organization continued its slow, steady growth and began making contacts with groups outside of Germany, including Sudeten German youths in Czechoslovakia and ethnic German youths in Poland.
On November 18, Gruber introduced the first Reichsappell, special days of the year in which all Hitler Youth units were required to simultaneously stage public rallies to listen to special orders of the day and Nazi Party proclamations.
At the end of 1928, Gruber called for a meeting of the entire Hitler Youth leadership to streamline the organization. That meeting resulted in the addition of a new department for boys aged 10 to 14, later known as the Jungvolk. A separate branch was established for girls, later called the Bund Deutscher Mädel, the League of German Girls, or BDM. Another new department was the Hitler Youth news service, set up to assist with Nazi propaganda and publish youth oriented newspapers to overcome the "Jewish monopoly of news."
Gruber also reaffirmed the unique identity of the Hitler Youth as "a new youth movement of young social-revolutionary minded Germans" trained to risk their own lives if necessary to free Germany from "the shackles of Capitalists and the enemies of the German race."
Baldur von Schirach Emerges
Although Gruber was enjoying much success, competition for his position soon arose from an ambitious young upstart. Baldur von Schirach had joined the Nazi Party at age 18 after hearing Hitler speak for the first time. Schirach was the son of a wealthy Prussian army captain and an American mother whose ancestors included two signers of the Declaration of Independence. He was educated at the best German schools and quickly came to the attention of Hitler after joining the Party.
At Hitler's prompting, he attended the University of Munich to study Germanic folklore and art history. He joined the local Nazi Student Association as well as the storm troopers, although they tended to poke fun at him because of his upper class, schoolboy looks. But young Schirach and his wealthy family enjoyed Hitler's friendship and confidence. Hitler made many social visits to his home.
In July 1928, Schirach was appointed Leader of the Nazi Student Association and was made an adviser for student affairs at Nazi Party headquarters in Munich. The ambitious young Schirach soon set his sights on gaining control of the Hitler Youth organization as well.
Gruber soon became aware of Schirach's ambitions and made personal appeals to Hitler Youth leaders for their continued loyalty. He also attempted to make a favorable impression on Hitler by expanding the newspaper activities of the Hitler Youth. Two monthly papers were established, Die Junge Front and Hitler Jugend Zeitung, along with a bi-weekly. But the papers never sold well. Gruber later required boys wanting promotions within the Hitler Youth to sell a fixed quota each month in order to qualify.
In April 1929, the Hitler Youth was declared the only official youth group of the Nazi Party. In September, Hitler Youth made a strong showing at the annual Nuremberg rally as about 2,000 members marched past Hitler amid great applause. Among them was a group of Berlin boys who had marched 400 miles all the way to Nuremberg. This became an instant tradition and would be repeated each year, known as the Adolf Hitler March.
The Hitler Youth organization had grown from 80 branches with 700 members in 1926 to about 450 branches with 13,000 members in 1929. But it was still a tiny organization, considering that throughout Germany there was a total of 4.3 million young people involved in a wide variety of youth groups. But the Hitler Youth movement, like the Nazi Party itself, would soon experience enormous growth as a result of the economic catastrophe brought on by the Great Depression which began in October 1929.
Young Political Activists
In Germany, the severe economic hardships of the Great Depression destabilized the democratic government, spurring anti-democratic groups into action including the Nazis and Communists. On March 20, 1930, Hitler Youth gathered in Berlin for their first solo mass rally. It had the theme "From Resistance to Attack" and featured inflammatory speeches by Berlin Gauleiter Joseph Goebbels and Hitler Youth Leader Gruber.
The radical tone of the speeches attracted the attention of local police and public authorities, resulting in a crackdown on the Hitler Youth. Propaganda marches were banned and German schoolboys were prohibited from joining. Penalties included possible expulsion from school and fines. To get around this, local Hitler Youth groups simply renamed themselves with harmless sounding names such as the 'Friends of Nature.' The official crackdown had little overall effect and actually made this 'forbidden' organization more appealing to adventurous teens.
Parents tried in vain to discouraged their children from associating with Hitler Youths. The Roman Catholic church, which had its own extensive youth organization, restricted young parish members from joining. To keep boys from defecting, Catholic youth groups copied some of the practices of the Hitler Youth such as target shooting with small caliber rifles.
Hitler Youth marches, rallies and meetings continued despite the opposition. Political activities of the boys included disrupting the first showing of the anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front. In the movie, a schoolboy enthusiastically joins the German army in World War I, only to discover the murderous realities of modern warfare. In several German cities and in Vienna, disruptive Hitler Youths inside theaters caused film showings to be cancelled. The film was then taken out of general circulation in Germany.
1930 was a landmark year in the rise of Hitler and Hitler Youth played an important role. Throughout Germany, along with Nazi storm troopers, they tirelessly campaigned to get Nazis elected to the Reichstag in the now-faltering democratic government. In the election held on September 14, 1930, Nazis received 18 percent of the vote, winning 107 seats in the Reichstag, instantly becoming the second largest political party in Germany.
Gruber's Downfall
Despite the success of the Hitler Youth, Kurt Gruber's position as leader became shaky due to the unceasing behind-the-scenes manipulations of Balder von Schirach and the return of Ernst Röhm from South America to assume command of the SA.
Hitler had recalled Röhm from South America after unrest occurred within the ranks of his storm troopers, including an open revolt in Berlin in March 1931. Following the revolt, Hitler named himself Supreme Commander of the SA, with Röhm as its Chief of Staff actually running the organization.
The Hitler Youth organization under Gruber had been operating as a semi-independent entity within the SA. Under Röhm, that was about to change. In April 1931, at Röhm's request, Hitler issued an order placing Gruber directly subordinate to the SA Chief of Staff. The headquarters of the Hitler Youth organization was also moved from Plauen to the main Nazi headquarters in Munich.
Making matters worse for Gruber, he was criticized by Schirach for the heavy financial losses of the Hitler Youth organization. Newspaper sales and fund raising had been hurt by local government bans on Hitler Youth publications as well as bans on general activities. Schirach capitalized on this and now claimed that he, not Gruber, was the man who could successfully lead a reorganized and revitalized Hitler Youth organization on a national level, and that Gruber had shown a lack of vision and organizational ability. Gruber was also criticized by Röhm over the slow growth of the Hitler Youth compared to the huge increase of memberships in the Nazi Party. Gruber countered the growing criticism by promising Hitler that he would double membership by the end of 1931, a promise that would be nearly impossible to keep.
In October 1931, Nazi Party headquarters in Munich abruptly announced it had accepted Gruber's resignation, although in reality he never actually submitted one. After three years of intense work building the Hitler Youth organization, Gruber was gone, replaced by the 24-year-old Schirach.
About Schirach
Schirach had proven himself an able organizer and propagandist while he was a student leader. Although he was from an upper class background, he became a militant opponent of his own social class. He was also an anti-Semite as well as an opponent of Christianity.
As one of the earliest members of the Nazi Party, he was among Hitler's inner circle and was personally well regarded by Hitler. Schirach was a romantic and a self-styled poet who had worshipful admiration for Hitler. He expressed blind devotion in sentimental writings, describing Hitler as "this genius grazing the stars" and stating that "loyalty is everything and everything is the love of Adolf Hitler."
Schirach's flattery was also an effective means of furthering his own advancement. Hitler had a notable weakness for flattery which was well known to members of his inner circle, including Göring, Goebbels, and Himmler. They constantly tried to outdo each other in lavishing praise upon him, but none were better skilled at it than Schirach.
In a directive issued by Hitler on October 30, 1931, Schirach was appointed to the newly created office of Reichsjugendführer (Reich Youth Leader) directly responsible to the Chief of the SA. The Hitler Youth organization, as well as the two Nazi student organizations already led by Schirach, were all combined and placed under Schirach's control. The Nazi student organizations were known for the virulent anti-Semitism of its young members who harassed and sometimes beat up Jewish teachers and administrators as well as anyone expressing anti-Nazi opinions. Immediately after his appointment as Reichsjugendführer, Schirach weeded out any leaders not entirely devoted to Hitler.
Schirach and SA Leader Röhm were allied in internal political squabbles within the Nazi Party and personally got along very well, a relationship that caused malicious gossip. Röhm was a known homosexual and Schirach had a somewhat delicate persona with his upper class schoolboy looks and mannerisms considered effeminate by battle hardened storm troopers. Schirach, like most of the top Nazi leaders, was unable to live up to the Nazi ideal for men -- the tough, athletic, young blond.
Although Schirach enjoyed the support of Hitler and strong backing among the Nazi Party leadership, throughout his entire career as Hitler Youth Leader, he would have to overcome persistent gossip and ridicule, struggling to be taken seriously by the brutal minded Nazi youths under his command. One rumour widely circulated was that Schirach's bedroom was 'girlishly' decorated all in white.
Demise of Democracy
In 1932, Hitler Youth, along with the SA, took part in four separate election campaigns -- two Reichstag elections and two Presidential elections. Hitler's goal was to achieve power democratically and then eliminate democracy. But the campaigns cost a lot of money and the Nazi Party ran into serious financial difficulties. The Hitler Youth organization essentially went broke. Although it continued to attract more members, new boys mostly came from unemployed families.
During overnight camping trips, the new boys relaxed around the camp fire and learned Nazi slogans while joining in sing-a-longs of Hitler Youth and Nazi anthems. Political instruction took place during weekly Heimabends (home evenings) in the houses of Hitler Youth. The agenda was usually set via special educational letters sent to local Hitler Youth leaders giving detailed instructions on how to conduct the meetings. During these meetings, propaganda activities for the following week were also planned.
To the average German, their elected democratic leaders seemed unable to cope with the enormous daily sufferings brought on by the Great Depression. Throughout Germany, thousands of businesses and banks had failed. People lost their life's savings. Millions were now unemployed, struggling just to put food on the table to feed their children.
As the democratic government in Berlin slowly unraveled under this pressure, the Nazis and other rival political groups, especially the Communists, positioned themselves to seize power. The Communists were the Nazis main rivals and had their own storm trooper organization, the Red Front, whose members were always willing to fight Nazis in the streets. Violent street incidents also erupted between Hitler Youths and young Communists.
Uniformed Hitler Youth, like the brownshirted SA, were a visible force in the streets campaigning for Hitler and conducting frequent propaganda marches. Street battles between Communist youths and Hitler Youths occurred regularly. They battled with fists and sticks but increasingly resorted to the use firearms. Between 1931 and 1933, twenty three Hitler Youths were killed in the streets. The best known case involved twelve-year-old Herbert Norkus.
Early on the morning of Sunday, January 26, 1932, he went out with his local Hitler Youth troop posting notices of an upcoming anti-Red meeting. The boys were then attacked by a troop of Communists and scattered, but Norkus was caught and stabbed twice. He ran to a nearby house for help but the owner shut the door in his face. Norkus was then stabbed five more times and left a trail of bloody hand prints along the outside wall of the house as he tried to pull himself up. The incident became the focus of the Nazi feature length propaganda movie Hitler Junge Quex which starred actual members of the Berlin Hitler Youth.
In April 1932, attempting to halt the widespread political violence, the German democratic government banned the SA and the Hitler Youth. However, for German teenagers, the lure of joining this now-forbidden youth organization resulted in a surge of new recruits. A few months later, due to behind-the-scenes political manipulations by Hitler, the ban on the SA and Hitler Youth was lifted.
Hitler and the Nazis were now close to achieving power. In the parliamentary elections held on July 31, 1932, the Nazis became the largest political party in Germany, receiving 13.7 million votes granting them 230 seats in the Reichstag. The tireless propaganda activities of the Hitler Youth had helped enormously to achieve this. All over Germany they had handed out millions of pamphlets and special editions of Nazi newspapers and conducted countless propaganda marches.
In October, to celebrate Hitler's success and the growing strength of the Hitler Youth movement, Schirach asked the entire membership to gather for a Reichsjugendtag der NSDAP (Reich Youth Day) rally at Potsdam.
Although there were initial concerns over the number that would actually show up, over 80,000 members travelled on foot, by bus and rail, converging on Potsdam and overwhelming the city. On October 2, they staged a parade beginning at 11 a.m. lasting until 6 p.m. A teary-eyed Hitler stood on the reviewing stand saluting them, deeply impressed by their resolve and their overwhelming turnout. The organization now had about 107,000 members. It would soon number in the millions.
1933 - 1938
On the night of January 30, 1933, Nazis in Berlin celebrated the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany by conducting massive torchlight parades. Hitler Youth units were among those in the columns passing under the watchful gaze of Hitler and Paul von Hindenburg, the elderly president of Germany.
Within two months, Hitler acquired dictatorial powers resulting from the Enabling Act passed by the Nazi controlled Reichstag. Hitler's acquisition of power meant the Hitler Youth and all other Nazi organizations now had the official power of the State on their side. The period of Nazi Gleichschaltung (forced coordination) immediately began in which all German institutions and organizations were either Nazified or disbanded. Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach now sought to eliminate all 400 of the other competing youth organizations, large and small, throughout Germany.
On April 3, 1933, Schirach sent fifty Hitler Youths storming into the Berlin offices of the Reichs Committee of German Youth Associations, an organization representing nearly six million German children involved a huge array of youth programs. Staff members inside the building were told to continue working and were simply informed they were now under the authority of the Hitler Youth. Thus the majority of Germany's youth organizations had instantly been placed under Schirach's control.
Many leaders among the conservative and nationalist youth groups willingly joined ranks with the Hitler Youth. Others, such as the Communist and Jewish youth organizations were quickly disbanded. Various Protestant groups were pressured by the Nazis to join and soon yielded. Offices of the Socialist Workers' Youth were also raided. Other groups were prevented from holding any gatherings by order of the police and Nazi storm troopers under the pretext of being a "public nuisance." Within months, most of the competing political and religious youth organizations in Germany vanished.
The only major holdout was the Catholic Youth Organization due in part to the international clout of the Church and an agreement (Concordat) that had been signed between the Vatican and Hitler's government protecting Catholic institutions in Germany. In Catholic sections of Germany, high ranking Nazis could still be found at Sunday mass along with groups of Hitler Youth in uniform and Hitler Youths serving at the altar wearing their uniforms beneath altar boy robes.
On June 17, 1933, Hitler promoted Schirach to Jugendführer des Deutschen Reiches (Youth Leader of Germany) answerable only to Hitler, with all youth activities in Germany now placed under Schirach's command. In July, Schirach dissolved the old Reichs Committee of German Youth Associations since it no longer served any purpose.
Reorganization
Schirach soon introduced a new structure to the Hitler Youth based on age. Little boys aged 6 to 10 were allowed to hang around the older boys and participate informally. Boys 10 to 14 belonged to the Jungvolk, then from 14 to 18 were in the actual HJ, the commonly used abbreviation for Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth). Each boy was given a performance booklet recording his progress in athletics and Nazi indoctrination throughout all of his years in the HJ.
Girls 10 to 14 joined the Jungmädel and from 14 to 18 belonged to the BDM, the commonly used abbreviation for Bund Deutcher Mädel (League of German Girls). The girls wore a schoolgirl-style uniform with skirts and blouses along with army-style hiking boots.
However, the Hitler Youth organization was primarily male oriented and would remain so throughout the duration of the Third Reich, although the HJ and BDM did share common traits including a very heavy emphasis on competition.
Just about every task, now matter how big or small, was turned into an individual, team, or unit competition. This included boys and girls sports, the quality of singing during propaganda marches, and Winter Aid collections. Boys and girls were kept constantly busy. The Nazis capitalized on the natural enthusiasm of young people, their craving for action and desire for peer approval, hoping, ultimately, each young person would come to regard his or her HJ or BDM unit as a home away from home, or perhaps as their real home.
Activities for boys included games of hide and seek called 'Trapper and Indian,' and war games in which the boys formed platoons, put on red or blue arm bands, then were supposed to hunt down the 'enemy' and rip off the other color arm bands. This often resulted in fist fights and outright brawls between platoons. Younger, weaker boys got pummeled while platoon leaders stood by or even encouraged the fighting. Ripped shirts, along with scrapes and bruises were common during these field exercises which were intended to toughen them up.
Leadership Schools
By the end of 1933, the Hitler Youth organization had absorbed twenty German youth leagues and totalled over 3.5 million members, an enormous increase from a year earlier, before Hitler's acquisition of power, when it had numbered just 107, 956. But this rapid increase also brought big problems, namely the lack of trained, politically reliable local youth leaders. New members absorbed from non-Nazi youth groups brought along non-Nazi sentiments and also struggled to adjust to the strict regimentation and tighter discipline of the Hitler Youth.
To resolve this problem, Reichsführer (leadership) schools were established throughout Germany offering three week cram courses on Nazi racial principles and German history along with practical leadership training, rigorous physical activity and rifle shooting. By August 1934, Schirach reported that over 12,000 Hitler Youth leaders and 24,000 Jungvolk leaders had completed these courses.
The Year of Training
Schirach labeled 1934 as "The Year of Training," and proclaimed during a speech, "...Whoever marches in the Hitler Youth is not a number among millions but the soldier of an idea. The individual member's value to the whole is determined by the degree to which he is permeated by the idea. The best Hitler Youth, irrespective of rank and office, is he who completely surrenders himself to the National Socialist world view."
Vocational training was also emphasized as Schirach and Nazi labor leader Robert Ley initiated the annual National Vocational Competition for Hitler Youth in which teens learning various trades were judged and rewarded, with the winners in each catagory getting to meet Hitler.
In September, Hitler Youth made a notable appearance at the annual Nuremberg rally, an event well-documented in the propaganda film Triumph of the Will by Leni Riefenstahl. A ten minute sequence shows Hitler's emotional appearance before the enthralled assembly inside the sports stadium amid frequent shouts of "Heil." In his speech he told them, "Regardless of whatever we create and do, we shall pass away, but in you, Germany will live on...And I know it cannot be otherwise because you are flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood, and your young minds are filled with the same will that dominates us...And when the great columns of our movement march victoriously through Germany today I know that you will join these columns. And we know that Germany is before us, within us, and behind us."
In October, amid the slogan "Blood and Soil," the Reich's Land Service was introduced, offering young city dwellers the opportunity to experience life on German farms. All HJ and BDM members were expected to participate, helping to bring in the harvest, while learning the value of hard labor and the simple life.
Junior Gestapo Agents
An ominous new development within the HJ was the appearance of HJ-Streifendienst (Patrol Force) units functioning as internal political police, maintaining order at meetings, ferreting out disloyal members, and denouncing anyone who criticized Hitler or Nazism including, in a few cases, their own parents.
One case involved a teenaged HJ member named Walter Hess who turned in his father for calling Hitler a crazed Nazi maniac. His father was then hauled off to Dachau under Schutzhaft (protective custody). For setting such an example, Hess was promoted to a higher rank within the HJ.
HJ-Streifendienst members also secretly infiltrated remnants of the old German Youth Movement and provided tips to the Gestapo which led to the arrest of several leaders of these now-clandestine youth groups.
During the 1934 Blood Purge, the top leadership of the SA was systematically murdered on Hitler's orders. The Nazis also used the occasion to settle old scores with a variety of political foes. Several former rival youth leaders were executed including Catholic Youth leader Adalbert Probst who was "shot while trying to escape."
The close working relationship between the HJ-Streifendienst and the Gestapo aroused the attention of SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler. Members of the HJ-Streifendienst were targeted for recruitment into the SS and proved to be very valuable recruits. Many entered directly into SS officer training schools. Others joined the SS Totenkopfverbände, the Death's Head Brigades that operated Dachau and other concentration camps, and later operated the extermination centers in occupied Poland.
Bronze Over Brains
By 1935, about 60 percent of Germany's young people belonged to the Hitler Youth. Schirach declared it "The Year of Physical Training" and introduced the second major annual HJ event -- the Sports Competition. Medals were awarded to youths who performed rigorous athletic drills and met strict physical fitness standards. Every summer, a day would now be set aside as the "Day of the State Youth" for these events.
Physical fitness, according to Hitler, was much more important for his young people than memorizing "dead facts" in the classroom. In his book Mein Kampf, he stated that "...a less well-educated, but physically healthy individual with a sound, firm character, full of determination and willpower, is more valuable to the Volkish community than an intellectual weakling."
School schedules were adjusted to allow for at least one hour of of physical training in the morning and one hour each evening. Prior to this, only two hours per week had been set aside. Hitler also encouraged young boys to take up boxing to heighten their agressiveness.
Hitler believed tough physical training would instill confidence and that "...this self-confidence must be instilled from childhood into every German. His entire education and training must be designed to convince him of his absolute superiority over others." He viewed education as a means of raising nationalist enthusiasm in German boys while teaching them to be ready to sacrifice themselves for the Fatherland. Special assemblies were often held in school halls featuring themes of heroism and readiness to die for "the cause."
The Nazi Classroom
A portrait of Hitler hung in every classroom. Particular emphasis was paid to the subject of history, which was rewritten to emphasize Nazi themes of racial struggle and German pride. "It is the task of the racial state," Hitler declared, "to ensure that at long last world history will be written and that within its context the racial question will be elevated to the dominant position...so that a generation will emerge capable of facing the final and decisive decisions on this globe..."
Hitler's struggle for power from 1918 to 1933 was emphasized, glorifying events such as the Beer Hall Putsch and offering hero-worship of Nazi figures such as Horst Wessel (a Berlin SA leader killed by Communists) along with Nazi mythology concerning Hitler's liberation of Germany from the international Jewish/Bolshevik world conspiracy.
Racial indoctrination in the classroom included teaching young children how to spot a Jew by describing the physical traits which Nazis believed were associated with inferior peoples. In some classrooms, where Jews were still present, a Jewish child would be brought to the front of the class as an example. The teacher would then use a pointer, highlighting certain facial characteristics.
Hitler Youth songs also contained anti-Semitic lyrics including one song that said: "Yes, when the Jewish blood splashes from the knives, things will go twice as well."
In addition to the traditional German school system, the Nazis established three types of elite schools for the training of the young Nazis: the Adolf Hitler Schools run by the Hitler Youth organization; the Napolas (National Political Institutes of Education) and the Ordensburgen (Order Castles) both run by the Nazi Party.
There were eventually ten Adolf Hitler Schools which took boys at age 12 from the Jungvolk and provided six years of intensive, highly disciplined leadership training under Spartan-like conditions. Top rated graduates of these school were eligible for the exclusive Ordensburgen for another three years of training after which they would be ready to assume high level positions in the Nazi Party. It was from these Ordensburgen, steeped in Teutonic mythology, that Hitler hoped would emerge a "violently active, dominating, brutal youth...indifferent to pain, without weakness and tenderness."
Lowered Educational Standards
Throughout Germany, the entire teaching profession all the way up to university level had been purged of Jewish professors and anyone deemed politically unreliable regardless of their proven teaching abilities or achievements, including Nobel Prize recipients. Teachers who remained in the college classroom lived under the constant fear they might be denounced by one of their students and wind up in a concentration camp. This insecurity resulted in academic timidity which further lowered educational standards.
National Socialist teachers of questionable ability stepped into grammar school and high school classrooms to form young minds, strictly abiding by the Party motto, "The supreme task of the schools is the education of youth for the service of Volk and State in the National Socialist spirit." They taught Nazi propaganda which was then recited back by their students as unshakable points of view with no room for disagreement or discussion.
Over the years, the Hitler Youth organization would gradually supplant the traditional elementary and secondary school system and become the main force educating German youth. And the quality of that education would get worse. Students emerging from the elite Adolf Hitler Schools were in superb physical condition and thoroughly drilled in Nazi ideology, but lacked basic skills in math and science. Biology, for example, had been completely corrupted to advance Nazi racial doctrine.
Under Hitler, a school system that had once been considered among the finest in the world, became substandard almost overnight. Nazi scientists, educated before Hitler, would later complain they were partially hindered in developing new super weapons by the recruitment of young graduates from the elite Nazi schools.
In 1936, all of the Catholic parochial and Protestant denominational schools were abolished. Church holy days which had usually meant a day off from school were now ignored and classroom prayers were banned. Celebrations of Christmas and Easter were discouraged, replaced by pre-Christian Yule or Solstice celebrations. The Nazis later forced teachers to renounce any affiliation with professional church organizations.
Year of the Jungvolk
Schirach's goal in 1936 was to enroll the entire population of ten-year-olds throughout Germany into the Hitler Youth as a present for Hitler on his 47th birthday. Called "The Year of the Jungvolk," enormous pressure was put on young children to join. In school, they were pressured by Nazi-affiliated teachers. At home and at play, they were aggressively pursued by individual Hitler Youths and through neighborhood propaganda marches, meetings for parents, and special childrens' sing-a-longs.
On April 20, Hitler's birthday, a ceremony was held inside the ancient Marienburg Castle of the Teutonic Order. Amid the glow of torchlights, solemn beating of drums and fanfare of trumpets, ten-year-old boys entered the Jungvolk by swearing the following oath: "In the presence of this blood banner which represents our Führer, I swear to devote all my energies and my strength to the saviour of our country, Adolf Hitler. I am willing and ready to give up my life for him, so help me God." This was followed by the singing of the Hitler Youth anthem, the Fahnenlied (Banner Song) written by Schirach.
After first joining the organization, the boys spent a few months on probation while undergoing training by older HJ members. A test was then given in which they had to recite all the verses of the Horst Wessel Song and answer basic questions concerning Nazi ideology and the history of the Party. They also had to prove physical fitness by running 60 meters in twelve seconds, and take part in a cross country hike lasting a day and a half.
A Mutprobe (courage test) was then given such as jumping from a first or second story ledge into a large canvass held by older HJ. After passing all of the tests, each boy was entitled to wear the brown shirt bearing the Jungvolk insignia with a leather shoulder strap and the coveted Hitler Youth dagger bearing the inscription Blut und Ehre (Blood and Honor).
Mandatory Participation
On December 1, 1936, Hitler decreed "The Law concerning the Hitler Youth" which mandated that all young Germans (excluding Jews) would "be educated physically, intellectually and morally in the spirit of National Socialism" though the Hitler Youth from the age of ten onward. This law also effectively ended the Catholic Youth Organization which had managed to hold for three years amid continual Nazi harrassment.
Parents who prevented their children from joining the Hitler Youth were subject to heavy prison sentences. Membership thus grew to nearly six million. As a result, the organization sprouted into a giant bureaucracy in Berlin and began to acquire the dreariness of a big governmental institution in marked contrast to the dynamic organization it had been in the 1920s and early '30s when members battled daily to bring Hitler to power. The compulsory nature of weekly HJ meetings for everyone led to a gradual decline in morale and discipline.
To add more excitement, a new phase began for the Hitler Youth with increased emphasis on para-military training in direct association with the Wehrmacht (Army) Luftwaffe (Air Force) and Navy. In 1937, a Hitler Youth rifle school was also established. About 1.5 million boys were trained in rifle shooting and military field exercises over the next few years with over 50,000 boys earning a marksmanship medal that required near perfect shooting at a distance of 50 meters (164 feet).
Special Hitler Youth para-military formations for boys eventually included: the Flieger-HJ in which aviation enthusiasts built gliders, participated in annual glider flying competitions, visited Luftwaffe facilities and went for rides in fighters and bombers; the Motor-HJ for boys 16 and older in which they acquired their driver's license and learned to ride motorcycles; and the Marine-HJ in which they obtained sailing certificates, learned river navigation, and participated in naval exercises aboard German training ships.
Hitler's Plan
In 1938, Hitler expanded Germany's borders by absorbing neighboring Austria and the Sudetenland (western portion of Czechoslovakia) with their large populations of ethnic Germans. As a result, Hitler Youth membership swelled to 8.7 million.
In September, the last peacetime Nuremberg rally took place. It had the theme Grossdeutschland (Greater Germany) and was the largest one ever held, with nearly 700,000 members of various Nazi Party organizations participating during the week-long festivities.
On Saturday, September 10, over 80,000 Hitler Youths marched into the city stadium and performed military-style parade maneuvers which they had been practicing for an entire year, ending with a grand finale in which they spelled out the name 'Adolf Hitler' in the grandstand. After a tumultuous welcome, Hitler gave a speech in which he spoke candidly about his own youth and painful adolescence and then ended by telling them, "You, my youth, are our nation's most precious guarantee for a great future, and you are destined to be the leaders of a glorious new order under the supremacy of National Socialism. Never forget that one day you will rule the world!"
In November, Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) occurred in which Nazi storm troopers, the SS and Hitler Youths attacked Jews throughout the Reich. Police stood by and crowds watched as Jews were beaten while their shops and synagogues had their windows smashed and contents wrecked. Special pleasure was taken in the desecration of sacred religious scrolls. Over 25,000 Jewish men between the ages of 18 and 65 were hauled off to concentration camps.
Local Hitler Youths participated in the violence voluntarily but had not been officially instructed to do so. Schirach, on hearing of the extent of their participation, called a meeting of all high level group leaders and expressly forbade further participation in such "criminal actions."
But the violence was just beginning. Germany was on the path toward achieving Hitler's two main goals which he had stated years earlier in Mein Kampf -- the forced acquisition of living space to the east of Germany (resulting in World War II) and destruction of 'international Jewry' (resulting in the Holocaust).
Many Hitler Youths now regarded Hitler as their Führer-god and even recited prayers to him such as: "Führer, my Führer, give me by God. Protect and preserve my life for long. You saved Germany in time of need. I thank you for my daily bread. Be with me for a long time, do not leave me, Führer, my Führer, my faith, my light, Hail to my Führer!"
Hitler, in a somewhat cynical mood in 1938, expressed his attitude toward them. "This youth learns nothing but to think German and to act German. When these boys enter our organization at the age of ten, it is often the first time in their lives that they get to breathe and feel fresh air; then four years later they come from the Jungvolk into the Hitler Youth, and we keep them there for another four years, and then we definitely don't put them back into the hands of the originators of our old classes and status barriers; rather we take them straight into the Party or into the Labor Front, the SA, or the SS, the NSKK [motorized corps] and so on. And if they are there for another two years or a year and a half and still haven't become complete National Socialists, then they go into the Labor Service and are polished for another six or seven months, all with a symbol, the German spade. And any class consciousness or pride of status that may be left here and there is taken over by the Wehrmacht for further treatment for two years, and when they come back after two, three, or four years, we take them straight into the SA, SS, and so on again, so that they shall in no case suffer a relapse, and they will never be free again as long as they live."
By 1939, about 82 percent (7.3 million) of eligible youths within the Reich belonged to the Hitler Youth, making it the largest youth organization in the world. A new law was issued on March 25, 1939, conscripting any remaining holdouts into the organization amid warnings to parents that their children would be taken from them and placed in orphanages unless they enrolled. On September 1, 1939, Hitler's armies invaded Poland. Six years of war would follow with the full participation of the Hitler Youth eventually down to the youngest child.
At the onset of war, the Hitler Youth totaled 8.8 million. But the war brought immediate, drastic changes as over a million Hitler Youth leaders of draft age and regional adult leaders were immediately called up into the army.
This resulted in a severe shortage of local and district leaders. The problem was resolved by lowering the age of local Hitler Youth leaders to 16 and 17. The average age had been 24. These 16 and 17-year-olds would now be responsible for as many as 500 or more boys. Another big change was the elimination of the strict division between the Jungvolk (boys 10 to 14) and the actual HJ (Hitler Youth 14 to 18).
The HJ organization had sprawled into a giant bureaucracy with 14 different regional offices. It was now cut back to just six main offices. Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach, not wanting to be left out of the war, received Hitler's permission to volunteer for the army. He underwent training and received a rapid rise through the ranks, becoming a lieutenant in just a few months. He was replaced by Artur Axmann, who had headed the HJ Social Affairs Department and had been involved with the organization since the late 1920s.
The war returned a sense of urgency to the daily activities of the Hitler Youth. The organization had experienced a bit of a slump after 1936 when participation had become mandatory. For many young Germans, HJ meetings and activities had simply become part of the weekly routine. The original mission of the HJ had been to bring Hitler to power. Victory in the war became the new mission and HJ boys enthusiastically sprang into action, serving first as special postmen delivering draft notices in their neighborhoods along with monthly ration cards. They also went door to door collecting scrap metals and other needed war materials.
BDM - Girls
Girls also enthusiastically participated, although they were assigned duties in keeping with the Nazi viewpoint on the role of females. An old German slogan, popular even during the Nazi era, summed it up -- Kinder, Kirche, Küche (Children, Church, Kitchen). The primary role of young females in Nazi Germany was to give birth to healthy, racially pure (according to Nazi standards) boys. All women's organizations were thus regarded as auxiliaries ranking below their male counterparts.
BDM girls were assigned to help care for wounded soldiers in hospitals, to help in kindergartens, and to assist households with large families. They also stood on railway platforms, offering encouragement and refreshments to army troops departing for the front.
Following the rapid German victory over Poland, girls from the Land Service were assigned to the acquired territory in northern Poland (Warthegau) to assist in the massive Nazi repopulation program in which native Poles were forced off their homes and farms by Himmler's SS troops to make way for ethnic Germans. Hitler Youth assisted in this operation by watching over Polish families as they were evicted from their homes making sure they took only a few basic possessions. Everything else of value was to be left behind for the Germans.
Hitler considered the war in the East to be a "war of annihilation" in which those considered racially inferior, the Slavs and Jews, would be forcibly resettled or destroyed. Masses of unwanted humanity were thus forced into the southeastern portion of Poland where ghettos sprang up along with slave labor camps and eventually the extermination camps.
Following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, ethnic Germans began arriving into the Warthegau from areas of Russia and central Europe. Hitler Youth were utilized to help resettle and Nazify the new arrivals, many of whom did not even speak German. Children of the arrivals were also subject to mandatory participation in the HJ.
Flak Crews
In August 1940, British air raids began against Berlin in retaliation for the German bombing of London. Hitler Youth boys had been functioning as air raid wardens and anti-aircraft (flak) gun assistants in Berlin and other cities since the outbreak of war, and now saw their first action.
America's entry into the war in December of 1941 resulted in a massive influx of air power into England. The first thousand bomber raid occurred in May 1942 against Cologne. In that same month, newly created Wehrertüchtigungslager or WELS (Defense Strengthening Camps) went into operation in Germany providing three weeks of mandatory war training for all boys aged 16 to 18 under the supervision of the Wehrmacht. They learned how to handle German infantry weapons including various pistols, machine-guns, hand grenades and Panzerfausts (German bazookas).
By the beginning of 1943, Hitler's armies were stretched to the limit, battling the combined forces of the Soviet Union, United States, England and other Allies. By this time, most able-bodied German men were in the armed services. As a result, starting on January 26, 1943, anti-aircraft batteries were officially manned solely by Hitler Youth boys.
At first they were stationed at flak guns near their homes, but as the overall situation deteriorated, they were transferred all over Germany. The younger boys were assigned to operate search lights and assist with communications, often riding their bicycles as dispatch riders. In October 1943, a search light battery received a direct bomb hit, killing the entire crew of boys, all aged 14 and under.
Following each bombing raid, Hitler Youths assisted in neighborhood cleanup and helped relocate bombed out civilians. They knocked on doors looking for unused rooms in undamaged houses or apartments. Occupants refusing to let in the new 'tenants' were reported to the local police and could likely expect a visit from Gestapo.
KLV Camps
As the Allies stepped up their bombing campaign, the Nazis began evacuating children from threatened cities into Hitler Youth KLV (Kinderlandverschickung) camps located mainly in the rural regions of East Prussia, the Warthegau section of Poland, Upper Silesia, and Slovakia.
From 1940 to 1945, over 2.8 million German children were sent to these camps. There were separate KLV camps for boys and girls. About 5,000 camps were eventually in operation, varying greatly in sizes from the smallest which had 18 children to the largest which held 1,200. Each camp was run by a Nazi approved teacher and a Hitler Youth squad leader. The camps replaced big city grammar schools, most of which were closed due to the bombing. Reluctant parents were forced to send their children away to the camps.
Life inside the boys' camp was harsh, featuring a dreary routine of roll calls, para-military field exercises, hikes, marches, recitation of Nazi slogans and propaganda, along with endless singing of Hitler Youth songs and Nazi anthems. School work was neglected while supreme emphasis was placed on the boys learning to automatically snap-to attention at any time of the day or night and to obey all orders unconditionally "without any if or buts."
Isolated in these camp and without any counter-balancing influences from a home life, the boys descended into a primitive, survival of the fittest mentality. Weakness was despised. Civilized notions of generosity and sympathy for those in need faded. Rigid pecking orders arose in which the youngest and most vulnerable boys were bullied, humiliated, and otherwise made to suffer, including sexual abuse.
Total War - The 12th SS-Panzer Division Hitlerjugend
1943 marked the military turning point for Hitler's Reich. In January, the German Sixth Army was destroyed by the Soviets at Stalingrad. In May, the last German strongholds in North Africa fell to the Allies. In July, the massive German counter-attack against the Soviets at Kursk failed. The Allies invaded Italy. An Allied front in northern Europe was anticipated.
The war would only end with the "unconditional surrender" of Germany and its Axis partners, as stated by President Franklin Roosevelt at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943. In February, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels retaliated by issuing a German declaration of "Total War."
Amid a dwindling supply of manpower, the existence of an entire generation of ideologically pure boys, raised as Nazis, eager to fight for the Fatherland and even die for the Führer, could not be ignored. The result was the formation of the 12th SS-Panzer Division Hitlerjugend.
A recruitment drive began, drawing principally on 17-year-old volunteers, but younger members 16 and under eagerly joined. During July and August 1943, 10,000 recruits arrived at the training camp in Beverloo, Belgium.
To fill out the HJ Division with enough experienced soldiers and officers, Waffen-SS survivors from the Russian Front, including members of the elite Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler, were brought in. Fifty officers from the Wehrmacht, who were former Hitler Youth leaders, were also reassigned to the division. The remaining shortage of squad and section leaders was filled with Hitler Youth members who had demonstrated leadership aptitude during HJ para-military training exercises. The division was placed under of the command of 34-year-old Maj. Gen. Fritz Witt, who had also been a Hitler Youth, dating back before 1933.
Among his young troops, morale was high. Traditional, stiff German codes of conduct between officers and soldiers were replaced by more informal relationships in which young soldiers were often given the reasons behind orders. Unnecessary drills, such as goose-step marching were eliminated. Lessons learned on the Russian Front were applied during training to emphasize realistic battlefield conditions, including the use of live ammunition.
By the spring of 1944, training was complete. The HJ Panzer Division, now fully trained and equipped, conducted divisional maneuvers observed by Gen. Heinz Guderian and Field Marshal von Rundstedt, both of whom admired the enthusiasm and expressed their high approval of the proficiency achieved by the young troops in such a short time. The division was then transferred to Hasselt, Belgium, in anticipation of D-Day, the Allied invasion of northern France. A few days before the invasion, SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler visited the division.
On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the HJ Division was one of three Panzer divisions held in reserve by Hitler as the Allies stormed the beaches at Normandy beginning at dawn. At 2:30 in the afternoon, the HJ Division was released and sent to Caen, located not far inland from Sword and Juno beaches on which British and Canadian troops had landed. The division soon came under heavy strafing attacks from Allied fighter bombers, which delayed arrival there until 10 p.m.
The HJ were off to face an enemy that now had overwhelming air superiority and would soon have nearly unlimited artillery support. The Allies, for their part, were about to have their first encounter with Hitler's fanatical boy-soldiers.
The shocking fanaticism and reckless bravery of the Hitler Youth in battle astounded the British and Canadians who fought them. They sprang like wolves against tanks. If they were encircled or outnumbered, they fought-on until there were no survivors. Young boys, years away from their first shave, had to be shot dead by Allied soldiers, old enough, in some cases, to be their fathers. The "fearless, cruel, domineering" youth Hitler had wanted had now come of age and arrived on the battlefield with utter contempt for danger. This soon resulted in the near destruction of the entire division.
By the end of its first month in battle, 60 percent of the HJ Division was knocked out of action, with 20 percent killed and the rest wounded and missing. Divisional Commander Witt was killed by a direct hit on his headquarters from a British warship. Command then passed to Kurt Meyer, nicknamed 'Panzermeyer,' who at age 33, became the youngest divisional commander in the entire German armed forces.
After Caen fell to the British, the HJ Division was withdrawn from the Normandy Front. The once confident fresh-faced Nazi youths were now exhausted and filthy, a sight which "presented a picture of deep human misery" as described by Meyer.
In August, the Germans mounted a big counter-offensive toward Avranches, but were pushed back from the north by the British and Canadians, and by the Americans from the east, into the area around Falaise. Twenty four German divisions were trapped inside the Falaise Pocket with a narrow 20 mile gap existing as the sole avenue of escape. The HJ Division was sent to keep the northern edge of this gap open.
However, Allied air superiority and massive artillery barrages smashed the HJ as well as the Germans trapped inside the pocket. Over 5,000 armored vehicles were destroyed, with 50,000 Germans captured, while 20,000 managed to escape, including the tattered remnants of the HJ.
By September 1944, the 12th SS-Panzer Division Hitlerjugend numbered only 600 surviving young soldiers, with no tanks and no ammunition. Over 9,000 had been lost in Normandy and Falaise. The division continued to exist in name only for the duration of the war, as even younger (and still eager) volunteers were brought in along with a hodgepodge of conscripts. The division participated in the failed Battle of the Bulge (Ardennes offensive) and was then sent to Hungary where it participated in the failed attempt to recapture Budapest. On May 8, 1945, numbering just 455 soldiers and one tank, the 12th SS-Panzer Division Hitlerjugend surrendered to the American 7th Army.
Volkssturm - The Final Defence
Hitler's own generals tried to assassinate him on July 20, 1944, to end Nazi Germany's all-out commitment to a war that was now clearly lost. But the assassination attempt failed. Hitler took revenge by purging the General Staff of anyone deemed suspicious or exhibiting defeatist behavior. Nearly 200 officers and others were killed, in some cases, slowly hanged from meat hooks.
Germany under Hitler would now fight-on to the very last, utilizing every available human and material resource. In September, Hitler Youth leader Artur Axmann proclaimed, "As the sixth year of war begins, Adolf Hitler's youth stands prepared to fight resolutely and with dedication for the freedom of their lives and their future. We say to them: You must decide whether you want to be the last of an unworthy race despised by future generations, or whether you want to be part of a new time, marvelous beyond all imagination."
With the Waffen-SS and regular army now depleted of officers, Hitler ordered Hitler Youth boys as young as fifteen to be trained as replacements and sent to the Russian Front. Everyone, both young and old, would be thrown into the final fight to stop the onslaught of 'Bolshevik hordes' from the East and 'Anglo-American gangsters' from the West.
On September 25, 1944, anticipating the invasion of the German Fatherland, the Volkssturm (People's Storm) was formed under the overall command of Heinrich Himmler. Every available male aged 16 to 60 was conscripted into this new army and trained to use the Panzerfaust anti-tank weapon. Objections to using even younger boys were bypassed.
In the Ruhr area of Germany, HJ boys practiced guerilla warfare against invading U.S. troops. In the forests, the boys stayed hidden until the tanks passed, waiting for the foot soldiers. They would then spring up, shoot at them and throw grenades, inflicting heavy causalities, then dash away and disappear back into the forest. The Americans retaliated with air-attacks and leveled several villages in the surrounding area.
If the boys happened to get cornered by American patrols, they often battled until the last boy was killed rather than surrender. And the boys kept getting younger. American troops reported capturing armed 8-year-olds at Aachen and knocking out artillery units operated entirely by boys aged twelve and under. Girls were also used now, operating 88mm anti-aircraft guns alongside boys.
In February 1945, project Werewolf began, training German children as spies and saboteurs, intending to send them behind Allied lines with explosives and arsenic. But most of these would-be saboteurs were quickly captured or killed by the Allies as they advanced into the Reich.
The Soviets by now were rushing toward Berlin, capital of Nazi Germany, where Hitler had chosen to make his last stand. On April 23, battalions made up entirely of Hitler Youths were formed to hold the Pichelsdorf bridges by the Havel River. These bridges in Berlin were supposed to be used by General Wenck's relief army coming from the south. That army, unknown to the boys, had already been destroyed and now existed on paper only. It was one of several phantom armies being commanded by Hitler to save encircled Berlin.
At the Pichelsdorf bridges, 5,000 boys, wearing man-sized uniforms several sizes too big and helmets that flopped around on their heads, stood by with rifles and Panzerfausts, ready to oppose the Soviet Army. Within five days of battle, 4,500 had been killed or wounded. In other parts of Berlin, HJ boys met similar fates. Many committed suicide rather than be taken alive by the Red Army.
All over the city, every able bodied male was pressed into the desperate final struggle. Anyone fleeing or refusing to go to the front lines was shot or hanged on the spot by SS executioners roaming the streets hunting for deserters.
In his last public appearance, just days before his death, Adolf Hitler ventured out of his Berlin bunker on his 56th birthday into the chancellery garden to decorate twelve-year-old Hitler Youths with Iron Crosses for their heroism in the defence of Berlin. The extraordinary event was captured on film and remains one of the most enduring images chronicling the collapse of Hitler's thousand year Reich, as the tottering, senile-looking Führer is seen congratulating little boys staring at him with worshipful admiration. They were then sent back out into the streets to continue the hopeless fight.
On April 30, 1945, as the Russians advanced to within a few hundred yards of his bunker, Hitler committed suicide. The next day, Hitler Youth leader Artur Axmann, who had been commanding an HJ battalion in Berlin, abandoned his boys and fled to the Alps. In Vienna, Baldur von Schirach abandoned HJ fighting to defend that city.
The war ended with Germany's unconditional surrender on May 7, 1945. However, it was soon realized that this defeat was unlike any other in history. In addition to his war of military conquest, Hitler had also waged a war against defenseless civilians. The events of that war, revealed in the coming months during the Nuremberg trials, would stun the world, and even resulted in a new term to describe the systematic killing of an entire race of people -- genocide.
Months before the end of the war, Allied troops plunging first into Poland and later into Germany came upon sights that made battle-hardened men weep. The liberation of concentration camps in Germany and extermination centers in occupied Poland shocked the unprepared troops who entered them.
Related Photos
Eisenhower at Ohrdruf
GIs explore Dachau
Execution of Dachau SS
On April 12, 1945, Generals Eisenhower and Patton visited Ohrdruf, a sub-concentration camp of Buchenwald, the first camp liberated on the Western Front. After viewing the carnage and listening to accounts by survivors, Eisenhower insisted that a filmed record be made, saying he believed that in the future there would be those who would say such things never happened, given the magnitude of the crimes.
A few weeks later, Dachau, located near Munich, was liberated by Americans who became so enraged at what they found that they began conducting on the spot executions of captured SS until they were halted by senior American officers.
Allied soldiers then made a practice of forcing captured Hitler Youths and nearby townspeople to view the carnage inside liberated camps up close and also made them bury piles of decomposing, emaciated corpses. Germans not living near the camps, especially young people, were later forced to watch Allied documentary films at their local theaters.
The scope of Nazi mass murders committed throughout Europe soon gave rise to the question of justice. The SS itself was declared a criminal organization. All over Germany, surviving leaders of Nazi Germany were hunted down. The Hitler Youth organization, however, was written off by the Allies as consisting of misguided children and thus, as a group, young members were not targeted for prosecution.
Schirach on Trial
Related Documents
The Nuremberg Defendants
Eyewitness Account of Einsatz Executions
Affidavit Excerpt of Auschwitz Kommandant Rudolf Höss
On November 20, 1945, the first Nuremberg War Crimes Trial began with four Allied nations (USSR, USA, England, France) charging 22 principal Nazi leaders with crimes against peace, against humanity, and against defenseless civilians. Former Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach was among those charged.
Evidence included the Allied films of concentration camps showing scenes such as a bulldozer pushing enormous piles of bodies into a mass grave. The footage had an extraordinary effect on the accused Nazis, directly confronting them for the first time with the atrocities of Hitler's regime, and also with the realization that they would likely hang for such offenses.
Witnesses for the prosecution included Auschwitz Kommandant Rudolf Höss and Hermann Graebe, a German businessman who stunned the courtroom with his first-hand account of an SS Einsatz unit systematically shooting Jewish families in Lithuania.
To the surprise and scorn of his fellow Nazis, Baldur von Schirach expressed remorse upon taking the witness stand, bitterly denouncing Hitler and labeling Auschwitz as "the most devilish mass murder in history."
"The murders were ordered by Adolf Hitler," Schirach testified. "That can be seen from his last testament. That last testament is genuine. He and Himmler together committed that crime which for all times is the darkest blot on our history. It is a crime which is shameful to every German."
"It is my guilt," said Schirach, "which I will have to carry before God and the German nation, that I educated the youth of that people; that I raised the youth for a man who, for many years, I considered impeccable as a leader and as a head of state; that I organized youth just as I did. It is my guilt that I educated German youth for a man who committed murder by the millions."
Schirach had also overseen the deportation of 65,000 Jews from Vienna to ghettos in occupied Poland, following his appointment as Gauleiter (governor) of Vienna. Evidence against Schirach included a speech he had given in 1942 stating that the "removal" of Jews to the East would "contribute to European culture."
On October 16, 1946, sentences were handed down. Schirach got twenty years, found guilty of crimes against humanity for educating German youth in the spirit of National Socialism and subjecting them to an extensive program of Nazi propaganda. Eleven former top Nazis including Hermann Göring were sentenced to be hanged.
Life Among the Ruins
Outside of the courtroom and throughout Germany, people hardly took notice of the fate of their once-vaunted leaders. They were now engaged in a desperate daily struggle for survival. Germany and much of Europe lay in absolute ruins following Hitler's war, the most destructive conflict in the history of humanity, in which an estimated 50,000,000 persons had died. For the average German, basic necessities such as food, water, and a safe place to sleep, were now the overriding concerns.
Living among the ruins, former Hitler Youths used survival skills they had learned as young Nazis to stave off starvation. They became efficient scavengers, always looking for bits of coal and wood for heating their homes, and delighted in stealing food and cigarettes, or anything, from American soldiers.
In October 1945, compulsory schooling was reintroduced, in part just to get them off the streets. Most of them had been poorly educated during Hitler's Reich. When school resumed, it was not unusual to see 16 and 17-year-olds sitting in grammar school classrooms.
Among university students there was now a great thirst for knowledge. German universities had once been ranked among the finest in the world. Now, absent the corrupting influences of Nazi ideology, students devoured reliable knowledge and instruction.
Western Germany was placed under American, British and French jurisdiction. East Germany was under the control of the Soviet Union. Remnants of the Hitler Youth in East Germany eventually became the FDJ, the Free German Youth, trading their brown uniforms for new blue uniforms and marching under Soviet Unity Party banners amid pictures of their new leader, Joseph Stalin.
Divided Germany became the front line in a new war, the Cold War, between the two new Super Powers, the USA and USSR, casting a shadow over the lives of all Germans until the collapse of the USSR and reunification of Germany in 1990.
Organization
Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth for Boys aged 14 to 18)
Smallest to Biggest Units
Kameradschaft was the smallest unit with 10 to 15 boys.
Schar consisted of 3 Kameradschaften totaling 50-60.
Gefolgschaft consisted of 3 Scharen totaling 150-190. Each Gefolgschaft, roughly the size of a military company, had its own flag and was the primary unit each Hitler Youth boy identified himself with.
Unterbann consisted of 4 Gefolgschaften totaling 600-800.
There were 223 Banne with each Bann consisting of 5 Unterbanne totaling about 3,000.
An Oberbann consisted of 5 Banne totaling 15,000.
The 223 Banne were divided into 42 Gebiete with each Gebiet totaling about 75,000.
The 42 Gebeite were divided into 6 Obergebiete with each Obergebiete totaling about 375,000 boys.
Hitler Jugend Ranks
lowest to highest Deutches Jungvolk Ranks
lowest to highest
(Boys 14 to 18) (Boys 10 to 14)
Hitlerjunge Pimpf
Kammeradschaftsführer Jungenschaftsführer
Scharführer Jungzugführer
Gefolgschaftsführer Fähnleinführer
Stammführer Unterbannführer
Bannführer Jungbannführer
Oberbannführer
Gebietsführer
Obergebietsführer
Stabsführer
BDM - Bund Deutscher Madchen (League of German Girls 14 to 18)
Smallest to Biggest Units
Mädelschaft was the smallest unit with 10 to 15 girls.
Mädelschar consisted of 3 or 4 Maedelschaften totaling 50-60.
Mädelgruppe consisted of 3 or 4 Maedelscharen totaling 150-190.
Mädelring consisted of 4 to 6 Gefolgschaften totaling 600-800.
Untergau consisted of 5 Maedelring totaling 3,000.
Gau consisted of 5 Untergaue totaling 15,000.
Obergau consisted of 5 Gaue totaling 75,000.
Gauverband consisted of 5 Obergaue totaling 375,000.
BDM Ranks
lowest to highest Deutsche Jungmädel Ranks
lowest to highest
(Girls 14 to 18) (Girls 10 to 14)
Mädel Jungmädel
Mädelschaftsführerin Jungmädelschaftsführerin
Mädelscharfürerin JM-Scharführerin
Mädelgruppenführerin JM-Gruppenführerin
Mädelringführerin JM-Ringführerin
Untergauführerin JM-Untergauführerin
Hauptmädelführerin
Obergauführerin
Reichsreferentin
Pre-war Membership HJ DJV BDM DJM Combined
1923 1,200
1924 2,400
1925 5,000
1926 6,000
1927 8,000
1928 10,000
1929 13,000
1930 26,000
1931 63,700
1932 99,586
1933 2,292,041
1934 3,577,565
1935 3,942,303
1936 5,437,602
1937 5,879,955
1938 7,031,226
1939 7,287,470
Quotes and Sayings
Jungvolk Oath (taken by ten-year-old boys on first entering the Hitler Youth)
"In the presence of this blood banner which represents our Führer, I swear to devote all my energies and my strength to the saviour of our country, Adolf Hitler. I am willing and ready to give up my life for him, so help me God."
Pledge of Allegiance
"I promise to do my duty in love and loyalty to the Führer and our flag."
Hitler Youth 'Prayers' (modeled after the Lord's Prayer)
"Adolf Hitler, you are our great Führer. Thy name makes the enemy tremble. Thy Third Reich comes, thy will alone is law upon the earth. Let us hear daily thy voice and order us by thy leadership, for we will obey to the end and even with our lives. We praise thee! Heil Hitler!"
"Führer, my Führer, give me by God. Protect and preserve my life for long. You saved Germany in time of need. I thank you for my daily bread. Be with me for a long time, do not leave me, Führer, my Führer, my faith, my light, Hail to my Führer!"
Mottos for Boys
"Live Faithfully, Fight Bravely, and Die Laughing!"
"We were born to die for Germany!"
"You are nothing--your Volk is everything!"
Motto for Girls
"Be Faithful, Be Pure, Be German!"
Sayings of Hitler Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach
"We do not need intellectual leaders who create new ideas, because the superimposing leader of all desires of youth is Adolf Hitler."
"Your name, my Führer, is the happiness of youth, your name, my Führer, is for us everlasting life."
"He who serves Adolf Hitler, the Führer, serves Germany, and whoever serves Germany, serves God."
Quotes of Adolf Hitler
"I begin with the young. We older ones are used up. We are rotten to the marrow. We are cowardly and sentimental. We are bearing the burden of a humiliating past, and have in our blood the dull recollection of serfdom and servility. But my magnificent youngsters! Are there any finer ones in the world? Look at these young men and boys! What material! With them, I can make a new world. This is the heroic stage of youth. Out of it will come the creative man, the man-god."
"When an opponent declares, 'I will not come over to your side,' I say calmly, 'Your child belongs to us already...What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing but this new community'."
"...Knowledge would spoil my young people. I prefer that they learn only what they pick up by following their own play instinct. But they must learn self-control. I will have them master the fear of death through the most difficult trials. That is the heroic stage of youth. Out of it will grow the stage of the free man, a human being who is the measure and center of the world."
"The German youth must be slender and supple, fast as a greyhound, tough as leather, and hard as Krupp steel. He must learn to do without, to endure criticism and injustice, to be reliable, discreet, decent, and loyal."