Hitler Jugend / Hitler Youth

"The National Socialist State will have to take care that it obtains. through an appropriate education of youth the generation which is ready for the final and greatest decisions on this globe. The people, moreover, that first start on this road will be victorious. "
- ADOLF HITLER

The English Boy Scouts were organized in 1907 and developed under the personal supervision of Lieutenant-General Sir Robert S.S. Baden-Powell. The Boy Scouts of America were formed on February 8th, 1910. The Boy Scout movement was a composite of the most appealing and useful ideas in a number of organizations for boys such as: the Boys' Brigade, the Knights of King Arthur, Woodcraft Indians, Sons of Daniel Boone, and numerous other brotherhoods, all designed to stimulate organized activities for boys. Sir Robert Baden-Powell was a soldier in the English army servicing as an officer among the Boers and British recruits in South Africa. During this experience he made the startling discovery that natives enlisting for service were better soldiers than were the recruits (products of social conditions in congested manufacturing cities and the English publicschool system) sent from Great Britain. They were with all their lack of text-book education more resourceful, more enterprising, and more capable of handling themselves in the exigencies of camp life. No sooner was the organization of the Boy Scouts of America formed than many similar organizations calling themselves Boy Scouts were created. Their most outstanding difference was the fact that they emphasized military training rather than peace scouting as preparation for citizenship. Frequently the Boy Scouts of America suffered from the deeds of these others, and was mistaken for a military organization with a military backing.

Before Hitler came to power, the German youth of school age was solely under the influence of the family and the school. They were polite, kind, thoughtful, respectful to their elders, and obedient to their parents. "Danke" and "Bitte" were always on their lips; they were always ready to assist others. There were some young people who sympathized with the Socialist and Communist doctrines, and held that only by militant action will the masses of the people achieve their rights. But even those militant youths displayed the same affability in their social relations as the youths belonging to the petty bourgeoisie. When the Nazis came to power, the main object of the school became the teaching of the National Socialist philosophy in order to make perfect Nazis of the German youth.

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. Kurt Gruber formed the first group of young members of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) in 1926. Rudolf Hess suggested the name of the Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend) and later that year transferred the leadership of the movement to Franz von Pfeffer of the Sturm Abteilung (SA). The Hitler Youth (HJ) were taken over by Ernst Roehm in 1930 and remained as a adjunct to the SA. 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).

In April 1932 the Hitler Youth (as part of the SA) was banned by Chancellor Heinrich Brüning to stop the widespread political violence. But by June 1932 the ban was already lifted by his successor Franz von Papen as a way to appease Hitler. After Roehm was murdered during the Night of the Long Knives the group came under the control of Baldur von Schirach, the Reich youth leader. Schirach asked Adolf Hitler to allow him to create an independent youth movement. Hitler agreed and Schirach made several important changes to the way it was organized. 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.

The Deutsches Jungvolk was a Hitler Youth group intended for younger children, both boys and girls. At the age of 10, German boys were brought into the Nazi scheme as members of the "Young Folk" (Jung Yolk) organization, and receive their first taste of official indoctrination. Real shaping for the army began at 14, when they entered the "Hitler Youth" (Hitler Jugend). Even before the war, this organization was mainly concerned with preparing boys for the army, both by instilling military mental attitudes and by military training.

The Hitler Youth was organized into corps under adult leaders, and the general membership comprised 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 Bund Deutscher Mädel (German Girls' League) was the female counterpart of the Hitler Youth. Up to the age of fourteen girls were known as Young Girls (Jungmädel). At 14 they entered the Bund Deutscher Mädel (German Girls' League). This included a year of farm or domestic service. They were trained by female guardians and their overall leader was Gertrud Scholtz-Klink. From seventeen to twenty-one they formed a special voluntary organization called Faith and Beauty (Glaube und Schonheit). The duties demanded of Jungmädel were regular attendance at club premises and sports meetings, participation in journeys and camp life. The ideal German Girls' League type exemplified early nineteenth-century notions of what constituted the essence of maidenhood. Girls who infringed the code by perming their hair instead of wearing plaits or the 'Grechen' wreath of braids had it ceremoniously shaved off as punishment.

Girls joined the National Socialist Women's Organization (NS-Frauenschaft) upon reaching the age of 21. The NS Frauenschaft trained women in propaganda, press relations, personnel organization, office administration, welfare, nursing and red cross. Graduates of the NSF moved on to administer many important functions relating to the use of women in war production. The age group of the NSF ranged from 18 to 30 years.

In 1939 the Storm Trooper section of the Nazi party took charge of the Hitler Youth, and after the start of war boys 16 to 18 years of age were compelled to take 6 months of regular pre-military work. The aim was to provide the army with the largest possible reserve of "mentally, physically, and militarily trained young men." The training includes infantry fundamentals, care and use of weapons, and signaling. The Hitler Youth was used in a variety of auxiliary services during the war: spotting aircraft, performing office work at airports, painting runways, harvesting crops, tending children in day nurseries, collecting useful junk and trash, soliciting for the Winter Help, singing at hospitals, and putting on entertainment for soldiers at the front.

United States military forces had certainly faced children with weapons. Perhaps the most infamous and organized such force in the near past was the Hitler Jugend, or Hitler Youth, during World War Two, who made up a notable aspect of Hitler's last armed defense of Berlin. When the military invasion of Nazi Germany loomed, Hitler organized the "Volkssturm" under the command of Heinrich Himmler. Every male between the age of 16 and 60 were conscripted. However, pleas to allow the use of even younger boys were rejected as too barbarous. Even though younger children later fought, and many of these children under arms killed and were killed in combat, the Allied military rejected any suggestion that they should be subjected to military punishments for those acts

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 Hitlerjugend leaders were put on trial by Allied authorities, with Baldur von Schirach sentenced to twenty years in prison. Schirach was convicted on crimes against Humanity for his actions as Gauleiter of Vienna, not his leadership of the Hitler Youth.