Hitler Youth
From Freepedia
The Hitler Youth (German: Hitler-Jugend, abbreviated HJ) was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party that existed from 1922 to 1945. The Hitler Youth was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after the Sturmabteilung (SA) Stormtroopers.
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Origins
The Hitler Youth was founded in 1922 as the Jungsturm Adolf Hitler. The group was based in Munich, Bavaria, and served as a recruiting ground for new Stormtroopers of the SA. The group was disbanded in 1923 following the abortive Beer Hall Putsch but was re-established in 1926, a year after the Nazi Party had been reorganized.
The second Hitler Youth began in 1926 with an emphasis on national youth recruitment into the Nazi Party. Baldur von Schirach served as the first Reichsjugendführer (Reich Youth Leader) and devoted a great deal of time, finances, and manpower into the expansion of the Hitler Youth. By 1930, the group had over 25,000 members with the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM) (League of German girls) , for girls aged from fourteen to eighteen). The Deutsche Jungvolk was another Hitler Youth group, intended for still younger children, both boys and girls.
Doctrine
The Hitler Youth had the basic motivation of training future "Aryan supermen" and future soldiers who would serve the Third Reich faithfully. Physical and military training took precedence over academic and scientific education in Hitler Youth organizations. Youths in HJ camps learned to use weapons, built up their physical strength, learned war strategies, and were indoctrinated in anti-Semitism. After outlawing the Boy Scout in all the lands Germany controled the Hitler Youth adopted many of the scouts activities, though changed in content and intention. A limited amount of cruelty of the older boys toward the younger was tolerated and even encouraged, since it was believed this would weed out the unfit and harden the rest.
Members of the Hitler Youth wore paramilitary uniforms very similar to the Nazi Party, and the ranks and insignia of the Hitler Youth were similar to the ranks and insignia of the Sturmabteilung.
Organization
The Hitler Youth was organized into corps under adult leaders, and the general membership comprised of boys aged fourteen to eighteen. After 1938, the Hitler Youth was a compulsory organization, mandatory for all young German men. The group was also seen as a recruiting ground for several Nazi Party paramilitary groups, with the Schutzstaffel (the SS) taking the most interest in the Hitler Youth. Members of the HJ were particularly proud to be bestowed with the single Sig Rune (victory symbol) by the SS. The SS utilized two Sig Runes as their mark, and this gesture served to symbolically link the two groups.
The Hitler Youth was organized into local cells on a community level. Such cells had weekly meetings where various Nazi doctrines were taught by adult Hitler Youth leaders. Regional Hitler Youth leaders typically organized rallies and field exercises in which several dozen Hitler Youth cells would participate. The largest Hitler Youth gathering usually occurred once a year at Nuremburg, where Hitler Youth members from all over Germany would converge for the annual Nazi Party rally.
The Hitler Youth also maintained training academies comparable to preparatory schools. Such academies were considered breeding grounds for future Nazi Party leaders, and only the most radical and devoted Hitler Youth members could expect to attend.
Several corps of the Hitler Youth also existed to train members who wished to become officers in the Wehrmacht. Such groups were usually devoted strictly to officer training in the particular field to which a Hitler Youth hoped to become an officer. The Marine Hitler Youth was the largest such corps and served as a water rescue auxiliary to the Kriegsmarine.
Membership
The original membership of the Hitler Youth was confined to Munich, and in 1923, the organization had just over one thousand members. In 1925, when the Nazi Party had been refounded, its membership grew to over 5,000. Five years later, the national Hitler Youth membership was at 25,000, at he end of 1932 (a few weeks before the Nazis came to power) it was at 107,956, and at the end of 1933, the Hitler Youth held a membership of 2,300,000. This rise for a large part came from the members of several other youth organizations the HJ had (more or less forcefully) been merged with, including the rather big one of the "evangelische Jugend" (600,000 members at the time), the YO of the Evangelical Church in Germany.
In December of 1936, Hitler Youth membership stood at just over 5 million. That same month, the Hitler Youth became obligatory and membership was required by law (Gesetz über die Hitlerjugend). This obligation was affirmed in 1939 with the Jugenddienstpflicht. Membership could be enforced even against the will of the parents. From that point, most of Germany's teenagers were incorporated into the Hitler Youth, and by 1940, the total membership reached eight million. Later war figures are difficult to calculate, since massive conscription efforts and a general call-up of boys as young as ten years old meant that virtually every young male in Germany was, in some way, connected to the Hitler Youth.
Many of the "Hitler Youth Generation" were born in the 1920s and '30s and, as such, became the adult generation of Germany during the years of the Cold War in the 1960s and 70s. It was not uncommon, therefore, that many senior leaders of both West and East Germany had held membership in the Hitler Youth. Since the organization was compulsory after 1938, there was little effort to "black list" political figures who had once been members of the Hitler Youth, since it was considered that they had no choice in the matter.
Although the Hitler Youth was compulsory, and many of its members had no choice but to participate as members, several notable figures have drawn attention in the media as former Hitler Youth members. Such persons include Stuttgart mayor Manfred Rommel, former foreign minister of Germany Hans-Dietrich Genscher, and the then-14-year-old Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger). The April 2005 media frenzy involving the Pope's membership in the Hitler Youth drew angry responses from the German government, which felt that the Pope's Second World War activities had little bearing on his religious convictions or his ability to lead the Roman Catholic Church as Pope.
Hans Scholl, one of the leading figures of the anti-Nazi resistance movement White Rose (Weiße Rose), was also a member of the Hitler Youth. This fact is emphasised in the film The White Rose which speaks of how Scholl was able to resist Nazi Germany ideals while still serving in a Nazi organization. The Thomas Carter film Swing Kids also focuses on this topic.
Hitler Youth in World War II
In 1940, Artur Axmann replaced Schirach as Reichsjugendführer and took over leadership of the Hitler Youth and began to reform the group into an auxiliary force which could perform war duties. The Hitler Youth became active in German fire brigades and assisted with recovery efforts to German cities affected from Allied bombing. The Hitler Youth also assisted in such organizations as the Reich Postal Service, Reichsbahn, fire services, and Reich radio service, and served among anti-aircraft defense crews.
By 1943, Nazi leaders began turning the Hitler Youth into a military reserve to draw manpower which had been depleted due to tremendous military losses. In 1943, the 12.SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend, under the command of SS-Brigadeführer Fritz Witt, was formed. The Division was a fully equipped Waffen-SS panzer division with the majority of the enlisted cadre being drawn from Hitler Youth boys between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. The division was thrown into action during the Battle of Normandy against the British and Canadian forces to the north of Caen. During the following months, the division earnt itself a reputation for ferocity and fanatacism. When Witt was killed by allied naval gunfire, SS-Brigadeführer Kurt Meyer took over command and became the youngest divisional commander at age 33.
As German casualties mounted with the combination of Operation Bagration and the Lvov-Sandomierz Operation in the east, and Operation Cobra in the west, members of the HJ were recruited at ever younger ages. By 1945, the Volkssturm was commonly drafting Hitler Youth members into its ranks as young as ten years old.
During the Battle of Berlin, Axmann's Hitler Youth formed a major part of the last line of German defense. Although city commander General der Artillerie Helmuth Weidling ordered Axmann to disband the Hitler Youth combat formations, the confusion meant that this was not carried out. The Hitler Youth child-soldiers inflicted heavy losses on the Red Army, and outperformed most other units of the Volkssturm.
Post World War II
After the defeat of Germany, some Hitler Youth served as members of Werwolf cells, continuing to resist the Allied Powers as snipers and saboteurs.
The Hitler Youth was disbanded by Allied authorities as an integral part of the Nazi Party. Some members of the Hitler Youth were accused of war crimes; however, as the organization was staffed with children, no serious efforts were made to prosecute these claims.
While the entire Hitler Youth was never declared a criminal organization, the Hitler Youth adult leadership corps was deemed to have committed crimes against peace in corrupting the young minds of Germany. Many top HJ leaders were put on trial by Allied authorities, with Baldur von Schirach sentenced to twenty years in prison.
See also
- Związek Harcerstwa Polskiego Boy Scout organization that fought Nazi's
- Szare Szeregi Boy Scout organization that fought Nazi's
