Hitler Youth

Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend), Nazi organization for young men aged from 14 to 18 which was founded in 1922. From 1929 it also embraced the League of German Maidens (Bund deutscher Mädel, or BdM) for the same age group and, from 1931, two organizations for the 10–14 age group, the German Young People (Deutsches Jungvolk) for boys and the Young Maidens (Jungmädelbund) for girls. Girls from 18 to 21 became part of the BdM called Glaube und Schönheit (Faith and Beauty). The boys joined the State Labour Service in which they served for six months before joining the German armed forces (Wehrmacht) or the SS, with which the Hitlerjugend was closely linked and for whom a Hitlerjugend Division was formed within its combat wing, the Waffen-SS, in 1943.

Members of the Hitler Youth were required to be, according to Hitler, ‘slim and slender, swift as greyhounds, tough as leather, and hard as Krupp steel’. The organization was a mainstay of the Nazi regime and its influence, which became all-pervasive in Germany, was extended into occupied countries. Baldur von Schirach (1907–74), who ran it from 1931 to 1940, increased its membership from 2.3 million at the end of 1933 to 7.7 million by 1939. It was made a state organization in April 1933 and membership became compulsory in 1940. When in the summer of 1940 Schirach was appointed state governor of Vienna, he was succeeded by Artur Axmann (b.1913).

As the Hitler youth grew its power and influence grew with it. It was a propaganda machine for inculcating Nazi ideology into the young; it dominated the schools and formed the Patrol Service (Streifendienst), which functioned as a kind of junior Sipo; and as the war progressed the youthful loyalty of its members was ruthlessly exploited. At twelve a boy was trained in the use of a rifle and machine gun and at fourteen he attended a military training camp for a month. From 1943, 15–17-year-olds manned anti-aircraft guns and youngsters performed many civil defence duties, such as fighting fires, patrolling the streets, and digging tank traps. They were an especial menace to shot-down Allied airmen. During the last months of the war the Hitler youth also became an important part of the Volkssturm (see Germany, 5); during the battle that led to the fall of Berlin, Axmann committed young teenagers to front-line combat in which few survived; and a number were enlisted into the abortive Werewolves guerrilla organization. See also children.

Bibliography

Rempel, G. , Hitler's Children (Chapel Hill, NC, 1989).
Sosnowski, K. , The Tragedy of Children under Nazi Rule (Poznań, 1962).