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The Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend) was the youth organization of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. At first membership was voluntary, but after December 1936 all non-Jewish boys in Germany aged 10-18 were required to join.^[1] The girls' branch of the Hitler Youth was called the League of German Girls.^[2]

Parents who stopped their children from participating in the Hitler Youth could be sent to prisons or concentration camps.^[3] A child who was not in the Hitler Youth could be refused a high school diploma, a job, an apprenticeship, and/or entrance to university.^[4]^[5]

Membership

The Hitler Youth Law

At first, membership in the Hitler Youth was voluntary (though strongly encouraged). This changed in December 1936 with the Gesetz über die Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth Law). The law required all "Aryan" boys aged 10-18 to join the Hitler Youth.^[1]

The law also banned every other youth organization in Germany, including the Boy Scouts, and added their members to the Hitler Youth. It stated: "All of the German youth in the Reich is organised within the Hitler Youth".^[6]

Growth in membership

Before the Nazis made membership mandatory in 1936, the Hitler Youth already had over 5 million members.^[7] After the Hitler Youth Law, membership grew very quickly.

In 1935, 60% of boys in Germany belonged to the Hitler Youth.^[8] By 1939, 90% did.^[9]

In 1940, eight million children were members of the Hitler Youth.^[1]

Branches

When they entered the Nazi Party's youth organization at age 10, boys entered the Deutsches Jungvolk in der Hitler Jugend ("the Young Folk of the Hitler Youth"). At age 14, they graduated to the regular Hitler Youth.^[8]

The girls' branch of the Hitler Youth was called the League of German Girls. It taught girls to help the Reich by raising families, collecting supplies (like coats and scrap metal), and raising money. Like the Hitler Youth, it focused on physical fitness through activities like rhythmic gymnastics.^[2]

Purposes

Teaching ideology

One purpose of the Hitler Youth was to teach children Nazi ideas and values. These ideas were racist and antisemitic.^[10]

Children were taught that:^[1]^[7]^[10]^[11]

"Aryan" people were better than Jews, Slavs, Soviets, and many other groups
Jews were conspiring to destroy Germany, and were a threat to every German
They had a duty to the Reich, and should be ready to give their lives for it
They should be loyal to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party before anyone else
They should report anyone who disagreed with Hitler or broke Nazi rules (even if this meant reporting their own friends or parents)

"Education for death"

A report written by the Supreme Headquarters Allies Expeditionary Force during the war concluded that the Hitler Youth was extremely dangerous:^[12]

The Hitler Youth is not a Boy Scout or Girl Guide organisation. It is [unlike] any organisation for young people known to the Western World. It is a compulsory Nazi formation, which has consciously sought to breed hate, treachery and cruelty into the mind and soul of every German child. It is, in the true sense of the word, "education for death". Under no circumstances should the Hitler Youth be taken lightly ... from an operational or occupation point of view.

Preparing for military service

Another purpose of the Hitler Youth was to turn children into eager, effective soldiers for the Reich.^[13]

Many Hitler Youth activities involved physical fitness and military-style training.^[11] Members were trained to use weapons and basic fighting techniques.^[12]

Creating loyal Nazis

In his book Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote: “Whoever has the youth has the future.” With the Hitler Youth, he wanted to make children into loyal Nazis who would ensure the future of the Reich by:^[7]

Continuing Nazi policies, ideas, and values after their parents died
Creating "pure" German families
Being the next generation of soldiers and protectors for the Reich

In 1938 Hitler explained:

These boys and girls enter our organizations with their ten years of age, and often for the first time get a little fresh air; after four years of the Young Folk they go on to the Hitler Youth, where we have them for another four years...And even if they are still not complete National Socialists, they go to Labor Service and are smoothed out there for another six, seven months...And whatever class consciousness or social status might still be left...the Wehrmacht will take care of that.^[14]

Use

Non-military

Hitler Youth members were used to achieve the Nazi Party's goals. For example, they:^[8]^[15]^[16]

Spied on religious youth groups and classes
Tried to keep people from attending church
Delivered messages for the civil service
Collected supplies like recyclable materials in order to help the Nazi war effort
Helped to work on farms and build infrastructure (like roads)

Military

Many Hitler Youth entered the German Army. As members of the Wehrmacht were killed in the war, Hitler Youth members were expected to take their place.^[12] When Allied forces invaded German-occupied France on D-Day, over 20,000 German youth participated in the attempt to fight them off.^[17]

As the war became more desperate, the Nazis pulled younger children out of school to fight as child solders. They were often sent on missions they were not expected to survive, and if they refused to go, they were executed.^[9] On various occasions in 1945, Hitler Youth members formed death squads, participated in executions, and committed other wartime atrocities.^[12]

Related pages

References

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 ^1.3 Stachura, Peter (1998). "Hitler Youth". In Buse, Dieter K.; Doerr, Juergen C. (eds.). Modern Germany: An Encyclopedia of History, People, and Culture, 1871-1990. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities. New York: Garland Pub. ISBN 978-0-8153-0503-3.
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 "Female Hitler Youth". The National Holocaust Centre and Museum. 2016-02-22. Retrieved 2024-09-25.
↑ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, ed. (2007). Nazi ideology and the Holocaust. Washington, D.C: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. ISBN 978-0-89604-712-9.
↑ Evans, Richard J. (2006). The Third Reich in Power. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-303790-3.
↑ Fulbrook, Mary (2011). Dissonant Lives: Generations and Violence through the German Dictatorships. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-928720-8. OCLC 687683015.
↑ Shirer, William L. (1990). Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York, NY: MJF Books. p. 253. ISBN 978-1-56731-163-1.
↑ ^7.0 ^7.1 ^7.2 Rempel, Gerhard (1995). Hitler's Children: The Hitler Youth and the SS. Chapel Hill, NC: Univ. of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-4299-7.
↑ ^8.0 ^8.1 ^8.2 "Hitler Youth: Definition, History, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. 2024-09-13. Retrieved 2024-09-25.
↑ ^9.0 ^9.1 "How the Hitler Youth Turned a Generation of Kids Into Nazis". HISTORY. 2023-06-29. Retrieved 2024-09-25.
↑ ^10.0 ^10.1 Bennecke, Fritz (1937). Vom deutschen Volk und seinem Lebensraum. Handbuch für die Schulung in der HJ" [From the German people and their living space. Manual for the training in the HJ]. German Propaganda Archive.
↑ ^11.0 ^11.1 Kater, Michael H. (2004). Hitler Youth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01496-1.
↑ ^12.0 ^12.1 ^12.2 ^12.3 The Hitler Jugend (The Hitler Youth Organization) (PDF). Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force Evaluation and Dissemination Section: G-2 Counter-Intelligence Sub-Division.
↑ Zentner, Christian; Bedürftig, Friedemann; Hackett, Amy, eds. (1991). The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. New York: Collier Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-02-897500-9.
↑ Fritzsche, Peter (2009). Life and Death in the Third Reich. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 98–99. ISBN 978-0-674-03374-0.
↑ Bonney, Richard (2009). Confronting the Nazi War on Christianity: The Kulturkampf Newsletters, 1936-1939. Studies in the History of Religious and Political Pluralism. Oxford: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-03911-904-2.
↑ Koch, Hannsjoachim Wolfgang (1975). The Hitler Youth: Origins and Development 1922-45. New York: Dorset Pr. ISBN 978-0-88029-236-8.
↑ Bartoletti, Susan Campbell (2005). Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow. New York: Scholastic Nonfiction. pp. 133. ISBN 978-0-439-35379-3.