Nazi Beliefs: The Hitler Youth

In 1920, Adolph Hitler started a youth group called Hitler Youth. In about ten years, this group grew to over 2 million kids. They would start at 14 years old and when the kids turned 18, they would have to be in the Nazi party. The article states that, “The Nazis capitalized on the natural enthusiasm of young people, their craving for action and desire for peer approval, hoping, ultimately, each young person would come to regard his or her Hitler Youth or BDM unit as a home away from home, in some case as an alternative to their real home.” As the youth got more comfortable with the group, Hitler could begin to persuade them that the Jews were bad people and get them to want to fight the Jews. It became a way to brainwash them to the Nazi ideas.

This proved to be relatively easy, because often the leaders of the other youth groups sympathized with Hitler and were easily lured into Hitler youth. By the end of 1933 membership had increased to two million and by 1936 it had risen to five million.

The education of the children was key in perpetuating the beliefs of the Nazis and the Party. In Nazi Germany, children were taught to relish bloodshed and violence and to hate Jews ("Modern World History: Nazi Germany"), and the Party used this technique as well (Orwell 23). If children were taught to delight in bloodshed, they would be more accepting of violence aimed at a particular group; the children would not protest against this violence because of their morals or values. Instead, they would go beyond accepting the violence to cheering on the violence and enjoying it immensely.

The Hitler Youth, also known as the Hitlerjugend, was designed specifically for young Germans who wanted to fulfill their duties to the Fatherland and its leader, Adolf Hitler. Founded in 1926, this helped Hitler gain support from children throughout the entire country. Children as young as 6, with good records could join and become apprentices. By 1933, there were 100,000 members of the Hitler Youth and by 1940, 90% of all German children were members of the organization. Children were encouraged directly, mostly through school teachers. Parent permission was not necessary, making it easier for children to join. There were different sections of the Hitler Youth, based on age. It also had several divisions much like a real army. The boys were treated much like real soldiers at Hitler Youth training camps. They practiced military marching daily, strengthened their bodies, and had their hair shaved in military

Children were not only drawn into Nazi ideology through education reforms, but the creation of Nazi Youth Organizations also attracted a majority of German youth to the Nazi belief system. The single greatest tool used by Hitler to convince the youth to work towards the Volksgemeinschaft was the Hitler Youth. The goal of this party-run youth organization was to brainwash children to think and act German, and to wipe out class distinction and individualism. Like the education system, the Hitler Youth also emphasized physical fitness, as a key part of Aryan superiority. It also provided a plethora of group activities, the goal of these activities was to build trust for your

The first way Adolf Hitler used education to make students into good Nazis, was to change their textbooks and their school curriculum to further Nazi ideals. Doing this would make every student learn the Nazi ideas, whether they wanted to or not. For example, paragraph 10 states, “For Hitler, education had one purpose: to mold children into good Nazis. As soon as the Nazis came to power, they took control of the public schools, called National Schools. They threw out old textbooks and implemented new ones. They rewrote the curriculum from top to bottom, so it only taught Nazi-approved ideas.” This means Hitler wanted the children to

“The Hitler Youth was founded in 1926” (“The Nazi Party”). As stated by Meinecke, “The Hitler Youth is not a boy scout or a girl guide organization… it is a compulsory Nazi formation which has consciously sought to breed hate, treachery, and cruelty into the minds and souls of every German child. It is in the true sense of the word education for death” (Conley). Hitler “based the Hitler Youth on anti-intellectualism, focusing on military training in preparation for becoming a soldier at 18” ("The Nazi Party”). The Hitler Youth was split up throughout the world, with some of the groups sent as far away as South America. “Baldur von Schirach was appointed the Reich Youth Leader” (“The Nazi Party”). There were age restrictions for the German Youth under Hitler. “German Youth could join the Hitler Youth beginning at the age of 10” (“The Nazi Party”). Hitler thought that the Hitler youth would help the “Third Reich last 1000 years” (Conley). The Hitler Youth played a major part in Hitler’s ultimate plan to eliminate the Jews, the

The Nazis left a lasting legacy that is still felt around the world today. The Nazi past weighs most heavily on Germany and its citizens who still grapple today with what the Nazis mean to their identity. This struggle was much different in the years immediately following World War II and the subsequent creation of divided Germany than today. In the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), the Nazi past was completely ignored. Instead focused on the West as the enemy. In the Federal Republic of Germany the government also attempted to ignore the Nazi past, with the government focusing more on building a democracy rather than emphasizing the brutal past. However, in a free society issues of identity are much harder to contain . The Nazi past began to come up despite these concerted efforts to bury it, yet even when questions about the past began to be raised, people in the 1960s were nearly ignorant about the real atrocities that the Nazis had committed . From 1963-1965, State Attorney Richard Bauer indicted 22 Nazi officials who had worked at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp . These trials attempted not only to educate average Germans about what had truly happened during World War II, but also to eliminate the idea that everyone who had committed these crimes were abnormal monsters, the concept that allowed the German population of the post-war era to distance themselves from this evil.

After Hitler Youth was founded in 1926, Gruber divided the members into separate groups under adult leaders. Once an individual was over 18 years old, they were to officially become a Nazi Party member. At the end of 1927, the rules were changed to stating that most members over 18 would have to join the stormtroopers, also known as the SA (The Hitler Youth, Lisciotto). In 1936, all boys and girls between the ages of ten and seventeen were forced to be a member of a Nazi youth group. The girls’ groups were sponsored by the League of German Girls, which were held separate from the boys’ groups. The League of German Girls had a strong emphasis on light athletics such as gymnastics, as they wanted them to be in healthy shape for motherhood. The children in both male and female groups would have to do physical activities that would shape them to the Aryan ideal held by the Nazis (Indoctrinating Youth, USHMM). Writer John Tunis in 1936 recorded that the boys of the Hitler Youth engaged in many “military athletics”. This included marching, grenade throwing, trench digging, map reading, and pistol shooting (Hitler Youth Movement,

“ When he wrote ‘Mein Kampf’ while serving out a prison sentence at Landsberg, Hitler wrote “whoever has the youth has the future”(trueman). Hitler wanted the education to first make the kids see who the pure german is and that the jews were bad and second make them stronger than before, and make them very loyal and see how proud they should be of their country. This education was mostly used on the younger kids because they would grow up with it burned into their memory because they had grown up with it their whole life. The first thing that was taught in kindergarten in nazi germany was to never trust a jew.The first book a child in Nazi Germany came across after kindergarten was “Primer”. On the front cover was a caricature of a Jew with the words: “Trust no fox on the green heath; Trust no Jew on his oath.”(trueman). This shows how serious the germans were when it came to their

In October of 1936 the Hitler made Hitler youth a mandatory membership, conscripted all German boys aged ten into the HJ as well. The laws required boys age ten and over to join but there were younger boys as little as 6 years old fighting to join the Jungvolk, which was the voluntary HJ. The young boys wanted to be a part of a group and fit in, and most of all wanted to wear a uniform. Alfons Heck described his infatuation with the HJ uniforms, comparing it to being part of a sports team and having pride in wearing your own teams’ jersey.

In addition, the Hitler Youth was led by a particular person. “In the early 1920’s, the Nazi Party has established a youth movement led by Kurt Gruber, with the aim of attracting young man who could be trained to become members of the SA.” (“Nazi Germany…”). Germans were part of the Hitler Youth. They were the “German Youth” but they were allowed to join. They had to be at the age of 10. The German women were to be prepared for motherhood just like the Hitler Youth. They almost had the same requirements, especially if they were able to join. (“The Nazi Party”). At first only 30 percent of the German Youth had joined. They then encouraged more to join such as the Nazis. There then was 80 percent that had joined. This increase in the percentage took about 6 years to go up. (“Why did the

Hitler also persuaded "his" children into thinking that, since Hitler was their "father", this also meant that he also cared about them, and about their future. Of course, Hitler actually only cared about one man -- himself. Hitler's Youth were just his "pawns" in his great political and military scheme to take over the

The most widely known aspects of Nazi ideology are their hatred of Jewish people and their tireless efforts to exterminate the entire race during their rule. This distinctly Nazi belief of antisemitism is not one that the Nazis created. It instead had existed for several thousand years throughout Germany and all of Europe. As Stackelberg and Winkle explain, “The origins of the stereotype of Jews as immoral materialists can be traced to the unwillingness of Jews to give up their religion in favor of world-renouncing Christianity” (Stackelberg and Winkle, Anti-Semitism, p. 2). This feeling of hatred towards Jews persisted for centuries, especially in countries that had a majority of Christian citizens. There were a number of people that continually perpetuated these anti-Semitic views with the works that they published and their actions towards Jews. A great

The youth group was started off small and had to compete with the other groups in the country ran by the different churches. In 1923, the group only had about 1000 members. Within only 10 years, the group increased to 2.3 million members. By the time of Hitler’s chancellorship, it became a required part of every German youth’s life; all other youth programs were prohibited and the membership number grew to 5.4 million members. In 1939 when Germany officially entered war, there were almost 8 million Hitler Youth