something to believe in after they were blamed for World War I. Hitler and the Nazi Party

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1 1 Nazi Germany may have been a time of terror, destruction, and war, but it was also a time of pride and nationalism for the German people. The downtrodden citizens of Germany needed something to believe in after they were blamed for World War I. Hitler and the Nazi Party offered the German people a sense of purpose and determination, and easily tapped into the vulnerability of the Germans to get them involved in both the Party and the war effort. The Nazis were not content to simply recruit the adult population, however; they had plans to grasp the attention and excitement of the young people. There were programs installed to gain the support of the youth in Germany that targeted not only teenagers but young children as well. Collectively known as the Hitler Youth, 1 these young citizens joined programs that sought to prepare them to be productive, enthusiastic, and healthy members of the state. Though pictures of the past depict thousands of children participating in Nazi activities, there were many German youths who were indifferent to the Hitler Youth 2 or who openly resisted its ideologies and so these pictures should not be used to make assumptions about the German public. It is therefore important to assess the popularity of the Hitler-Jugend 3 and to uncover history to discover more about those members of the organization and about the varying groups in opposition, including those that were ideological, political, or religious. Young people were extremely important to Nazi Germany because they were the next generation of what would supposedly be the fantastical Thousand-Year Reich. The Hitler Youth offered an outlet to not only organize these children into the future leaders of the country but to also gain their support and trust in order to mold them into ideal citizens. The HJ was also 1 Susan Campbell Bartoletti. Hitler Youth (New York: Susan Campbell Bartoletti, 2005), 9. 2 For the sake of avoiding redundancy, in this paper the Hitler Youth will be synonymous with HJ, Hitler- Jugend, and Nazi youth. When just referring to German youth at the time, German or Germany will be present in the terminology or description. 3 Hitler Youth

2 2 used to encourage young people early on to pursue careers in many German programs including the Sturmabteilung 4 and other forms of military and public service. The Hitler Youth came to existence as early as 1922, when the beginnings of many youth movements erupted across Germany. Though Germany had an extensive history of youth involvement, after World War I dozens of organizations were created for varying purposes, particularly in religious, ideological, or political aspects, such as the Young Conservatives or Young Protestants. 5 The prominence of the youth culture and these organizations made it easier for the HJ to gain momentum because the young people of Germany were already so aware of politics and the world around them that many of them were willingly caught up in the popularity of the Fuhrer. There were several parts to the overall program of the HJ that were installed as an extension of the adult programs. The first, and most prominent, was the Hitler-Jugend, which was a paramilitary organization for males aged 14 to 18. There was the Deutsches Jungvolk, 6 which was developed for boys as the younger version of the Hitler-Jugend. There was also the girls section, the Bund Deutscher Madel, 7 which originally consisted of two groups, the Jungmadel 8 for girls 10 to 14 and the regular BDM for girls aged 14 to 18, but eventually the girls section was consolidated into one part. 9 Hitler created a preliminary Nazi youth organization in 1922, and though it did not last long, it provided a precedent for the creation of the official Hitler Youth in At its earliest Storm Troopers, or SA 5 H. W. Koch. The Hitler Youth: Origins and Development (New York: H. W. Koch, 1975), 6 German Youth 7 League of German Maidens (BDM) 8 Young Girls 9 Gerhard Rempel. Hitler s Children: The Hitler Youth and the SS (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1989), Michael H. Kater. Hitler Youth (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2004), 10.

3 3 existence, the Hitler Youth had about 5,000 members. The rise of the Hitler Youth slowly grew along with the rise of the Nazi Party; when the Nazis took power in 1933, membership in the HJ grew significantly to over a hundred thousand when the previous year had only held about 28 thousand members. 11 By 1938, nearly 8.7 million German youths were a part of the Hitler Youth; these young people account for about 60 percent of the eligible young people in Germany. These numbers are significant because over half of the youth population was involved in the organization, and at this point membership was completely voluntary. However, this changed with a law in 1939 making participation for eligible youth compulsory, and so all youth were essentially members of the Hitler Youth. 12 The advent of this law definitely makes the Hitler Youth appear quite large in number, but it is not an accurate assumption based on popularity of the movement. If membership was compulsory, then it is not fair to say that all members were supportive and excited about the Nazis and their ideologies. Membership holds even less value when taking into account that many of the dissenters of the Hitler-Jugend began as enthusiastic members themselves before swapping sides. One such pair of dissenters was a brother and sister who began one of the most wellknown German youth resistance movements, the White Rose. Siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl started as excited members of the HJ, despite their parents disapproval. As a teenager, Sophie was an ardent supporter of National Socialism and also a leader of the Jungmadel, the BDM segment of the HJ for girls She was extremely involved, as was her brother Hans who, after joining the HJ in 1933, became a junior chief in the Ulm section of the Hitler-Jugend. 14 By 11 Rempel, Koch, Bartoletti, Kater, 122.

4 4 1935, however, Hans became disillusioned with Hitler and the Nazis based on their pronounced racism and victimization of the weak 15 and began to join resistance movements. Sophie likewise became a distanced member of the movement and soon dropped out as well. While at Gymnasium 16 in 1941, Hans and his friends Willi Graf, Alexander Schmorell, Christoph Probst, and Jurgen Wittenstein, along with Sophie, began their own resistance organization by distributing flyers of the Weisse Rose, or the White Rose. Together with their professor Kurt Huber, the group was able to sporadically print and distribute flyers over the course of the next few years, until they distributed their sixth and final issue in February While passing out the flyers, they were noticed by a caretaker at the University and were subsequently arrested, along with their friend Christoph Probst, and the three of them were tried before the People s Court where they were sentenced to execution by the guillotine. A few months later, White Rose members Schmorell and Graf, along with Professor Huber, were sentenced to similar fates. 18 Though Hans and Sophie Scholl were executed for their bravery and resistance to the Nazi movement, their efforts did not go unnoticed. They had distributed their flyers to thousands of their fellow students at the University of Munich, and many friends back home in Ulm and elsewhere remained sympathetic to their cause and the ideals that this pair maintained. The Scholls showed a sense of courage that did not go unnoticed by those who also disapproved of Hitler s regime, but their untimely execution no doubt hindered others actions for fear of receiving similar punishments. 15 Kater, University 17 Peter Hoffman. German Resistance to Hitler (Cambridge, Massacusetts: Harvard University Press, 1988), Kater, 131.

5 5 This did not mean that the Scholls and the White Rose Resistance were the sole opposition group of the Hitler Youth. On the contrary, there were many cases of individuals who took desperate measures on their own to voice their disagreement with the Fuhrer. Some banded together with a few friends, while others found like-minded rebels who shared similar resistance ideals. In the case of Wolf Jobst Siedler and Ernst Junger, the two teenage friends banded together after having first experienced the brutality of the Hitler Youth s military machine. 19 They recruited others to join their group and discussed the outcome of the war and listened to enemy radio stations, but eventually both were sentenced to time in prison for their dissidence. Not all opposition groups began with members who were at one time part of the Hitler Youth, however. There had always been differences between Nazis and Catholics based on issues of ideology and dogma, and so many Catholic youth organizations remained despite the Nazi takeover of all German groups for young people. The Church opposed the Hitler Youth not only because of its militarism but even more because it was afraid the HJ would take the youth away from faith. 20 Despite the compulsory laws put into place by the Nazis to get more volunteers for the Hitler Youth, the Catholic Church and its young members, especially in southern Germany, remained staunchly opposed to participation. This resistance was largely due to the anti-catholicism ideologies of the HJ, as well as the immorality of the entire movement. 21 The Catholic youth organizations were able to withstand the threats that the HJ made to them about compulsory membership due to the continued resistance by the Church as well as the fact that there were harsher resisters that the HJ had to deal with first. Because of 19 Kater, Daniel Horn. The Struggle for Catholic Youth in Hitler s Germany: An Assessment. The Catholic Historical Review 65 no. 4 (October 1979), Horn p. 569

6 6 their defiance, the Catholic youth organizations maintained a fairly high number of members despite the Nazi attempt at recruitment within the Church. Officially, the Protestant youth accommodated and joined the Nazis, though many of them were not ardent supporters of Hitler or his regime. There were even some groups who persistently resisted the Nazis despite the official allegiance and complacency. Many Protestants believed the Hitler Youth and the Nazi government in general to be pagan and therefore opposed to any and all religious teachings and ideas. There were groups of Protestant HJ and BDM members who would join together on Sundays, but eventually they were disbanded by Nazi officials. 22 The Confessing Church and several Lutheran churches resisted the integration of all religious groups into the Hitler Youth by ending their programs so the young people could, for the time, escape this form of compulsory membership. 23 Of the Protestant opposition groups, the Confessing Church was the most vocal, and, as a consequence, faced the same type of intimidation that the members of the Catholic youth organizations encountered. 24 Not all dissenters of the Hitler Youth were in opposition for religious reasons; many were distanced by the organization s highly militaristic formation. Gangs of young men rejected the compulsory military service part of the HJ and, though some were members of the organization themselves, banded together to oppose this aspect. Such groups called themselves the Edelweiss Pirates or the Black Gang, though perhaps the term gang is not appropriate in today s terms since these groups of young men did little more than gather in pubs and dress in rebellious 22 Richard Steigmann-Gall. Christianity and the Nazi Movement: A Response. Journal of Contemporary History 42 no. 2 (April 2007), Koch, Edward J. Kunzer. The Youth of Nazi Germany. Journal of Educational Sociology 11 no. 6 (February 1938), 348.

7 7 clothing. Nonetheless, the Gestapo kept a close eye on these organizations, considering them a danger and fearing cases of juvenile delinquency. 25 Aside from the White Rose Resistance, probably the largest and most well-known youth resistance group in Germany was the Swing Youths. These usually privileged young people resisted the militaristic and forceful atmosphere of the Hitler Youth and found themselves attracted to the swing music that was popular in America and England, liking the sense of ease and excitement of the 1920s. 26 The Gestapo got wind of the underground activities of the Swing Youth and bans on swing music and dancing were soon enacted across Germany. Many members of the Swing Youth were arrested, tortured, and detained by the Gestapo, and some were even sent to youth detention camps, a sort of concentration camp for young people. 27 These dangers eventually created rifts in the movement because while some youth wanted to continue in defiance, others believed the consequences were too serious that losing their lives was not worth the risk. Regardless, the Swing Youth provided an example to the young people of Germany that resistance without violence was indeed possible. Taking into consideration those youths who joined the HJ and those who resisted brings up the question about the German families who neither accepted nor completely opposed the Hitler Youth. Though these people existed, not much is known about them since they were not actively joining or resisting but rather remaining neutral. 28 Their passiveness shows that some Germans tried to stay indifferent to the Nazi Party and its extensions, including the Hitler Youth. Even when membership in the HJ became compulsory, those membership numbers would then 25 Koch, Kater, Kater, Koch, 204.

8 8 also include these indifferent young people and so would not be an accurate testament to the popularity of the movement itself. Another reason to diminish the effectiveness of statistics in regards to the popularity of the Hitler Youth is that many members of the organization quit the group as the war continued to wage. One such youth, Willie Schumann, remembered at first enjoying the duties and activities that the Hitler Youth provided, until the fateful day when, at the age of sixteen, he became a soldier for Hitler. 29 Schumann also described the feeling of discontent within the youth branches of the military, especially over mundane details such as being forced to wear the HJ armband at all times. More importantly, Schumann explained that even those who did not readily agree with Hitler or his policies joined the HJ because they believed they were fighting for a better Germany, not because they agreed with racism toward the Jewish people. 30 Schumann s argument personifies the Hitler Youth movement and allows for a better understanding of what these young people went through and what exactly they thought about Hitler and the HJ. Another previous member of the Hitler Youth, Alfons Heck, recalled how Germany of the 1930s was the land of promise for everyone except those who were Jewish, gypsies, homosexuals, or political opponents of Nazism. 31 Heck remembered as a small child the integration of the Hitler-Jugend into the educational system and that involvement in the movement happened before one even turned 10, the age when a child could officially join. He also recalled how he watched SS troops destroy Jewish businesses and property on the Night of Long Knives and how appalled he was despite being a member of the Hitler Youth. 32 Heck 29 Willy Schumann. Being Present: Growing Up in Hitler s Germany (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1991), Schumann, Alfons Heck. A Child of Hitler: Germany in the Days when God Wore a Swastika (Frederick, CO: Renaissance House, 1985), Heck, 27.

9 9 claimed to have been victimized by the Nazis and declared that most other former members of the Hitler Youth were also disillusioned by the apparent wonders of the movement. These memoirs help to understand why the young people of Germany were enticed by the Nazi Party and why they ended up joining the Hitler Youth, especially when they did so before it became compulsory to join. Though most of these ex-members, like Heck, claim that they simply joined for nationalistic purposes, these young people must have been aware of their actions and the consequences to some degree. Still, these reflections on the days of Nazi Germany and on their participation in the Hitler Youth also help to prove that although many young people of Germany did join the movement, this did not mean that they did so wholeheartedly and without regret. When studying the Hitler Youth and its effects not only on the young people of Germany but its entire history as well, it is important to note that there are many factors to take into account. This assessment is not simply taking a look at the facts and making assumptions based solely on statistics, for if that were the case it would appear that all German youths at the time were enthusiastic members of the Hitler Youth, which clearly was not the reality. There were many members of the Hitler Youth and the Nazi Party who did remain ardent supporters of the cause until after Germany s loss at the end of World War II, and many youths who willingly lost their lives fighting for Hitler. But there was more to the Hitler Youth than just voluntary participation, however. Intimidation tactics and threats were used to try to convince children and their parents that the Hitler-Jugend was the path to being successful in the new Germany, and that failure to comply could result in punishment. Participation in the HJ also expanded under certain laws making membership compulsory, so these numbers do not solely represent the enthusiasm of the young people for Hitler.

10 10 These facts, along with the knowledge of key youth resistance movements such as the White Rose, the Swing Youths, and several religious organizations, as well as many individuals about who little is known, tell the story a little differently. These brave young people put their lives at risk to stand up against what they believed to be morally and ideologically wrong rather than comply with such a belief system that challenged their rights as individuals. Taking into account all aspects of the Hitler Youth, those who were ardent supporters, those who openly resisted, and even those who were simply indifferent to the movement, it is important to note that the popularity of the Hitler Youth is something that cannot be concretely defined. The evidence shows that membership rates were at one point 60 percent of the population, but at the same time, the scare tactics of the Nazis forced many youths to join for fear of punishment, and so many young people declined the opportunity to resist. Therefore, it is safe to say that although the Hitler Youth was the largest and most powerful youth organization at the time, it may not have held as much authority as Hitler desired when he created the movement.

11 11 Works Cited Bibliography Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. Hitler Youth. New York: Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Heck, Alfons. A Child of Hitler: Germany in the Days when God Wore a Swastika. Frederick, CO: Renaissance House, Hoffman, Peter. German Resistance to Hitler. Cambridge, Massacusetts: Harvard University Press, Horn, Daniel. The Struggle for Catholic Youth in Hitler s Germany: An Assessment. The Catholic Historical Review 65 no. 4 (October 1979): Kater, Michael H. Hitler Youth. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, Koch, H. W. The Hitler Youth: Origins and Development New York: H. W. Koch, Kunzer, Edward J. The Youth of Nazi Germany. Journal of Educational Sociology 11 no. 6 (February 1938): Rempel, Gerhard. Hitler s Children: The Hitler Youth and the SS. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, Schumann, Willy. Being Present: Growing Up in Hitler s Germany. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, Steigmann-Gall, Richard. Christianity and the Nazi Movement: A Response. Journal of Contemporary History 42 no. 2 (April 2007):

12 12 Works Consulted Bibliography Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. Hitler Youth. New York: Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Bergerson, Andrew. Review: Michael H. Kater, Hitler Youth. The Journal of Modern History 79 no. 1 (March 2007): Doblin, Ernest M. and Claire Pohly. The Social Composition of the Nazi Leadership. American Journal of Sociology 51 no. 1 (July 1945): Heck, Alfons. A Child of Hitler: Germany in the Days when God Wore a Swastika. Frederick, CO: Renaissance House, Hoffman, Peter. German Resistance to Hitler. Cambridge, Massacusetts: Harvard University Press, The History of the German Resistance, Kingston, Ontario: McGill-Queen s University Press, Horn, Daniel. The Hitler Youth and Educational Decline in the Third Reich. History of Education Quarterly 16 no. 4 (Winter 1976): The Struggle for Catholic Youth in Hitler s Germany: An Assessment. The Catholic Historical Review 65 no. 4 (October 1979): Kater, Michael H. Hitler Youth. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, Koch, H. W. The Hitler Youth: Origins and Development New York: H. W. Koch, Kunzer, Edward J. The Youth of Nazi Germany. Journal of Educational Sociology 11 no. 6 (February 1938): Rempel, Gerhard. Hitler s Children: The Hitler Youth and the SS. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, Schumann, Willy. Being Present: Growing Up in Hitler s Germany. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. New York: William L. Shirer, Steigmann-Gall, Richard. Christianity and the Nazi Movement: A Response. Journal of Contemporary History 42 no. 2 (April 2007):

13 Tyldesley, Mike. The German Youth Movement and National Socialism: Some Views from Britain. Journal of Contemporary History 41 no. 1 (January 2006):