The Pros And Cons Of Hitler Youth

The Nazi Party considered the youth of Germany as an important component for the future. Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nationalist Socialist German Worker’s Party (Nazi Party) wrote in his autobiography Mein Kamp (My Struggle), “whoever has the youth has the future” . Hitler considered the Germany’s youth and the treatment of the youth to be an imperative aspect to guarantee a secure future for Germany and Nazi party and he aimed to create a nation dedicated to the Nationalist Socialist view. In order to achieve this, Hitler exploited the education system and took control of the Youth movement. The Reich Ministry of Education took power of the schooling system permeated it with propaganda to indoctrinate the youth. The majority of the young people in Germany participated in youth groups such as the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls which trained them for military service and motherhood.

With many young receptive minds at his disposal Hitler initiated the plans that saw all members of Hitler youth indoctrinated into the Nazi ideals. Hitler made it publicly clear what his plans for brainwashing the youths would consist of: “After these youths have entered our organisations at the age of ten, and there experienced, for the first time, some fresh air….. We shall under no circumstances return them into the hands of our old champions of class and social standing, but instead place them immediately in the party, or the labour front, the SA or SS….. And thus they will never be free again for the rest of their lives.” The Nazis successfully achieved the indoctrination by employing many different subtle brainwashing techniques. For example, at drill times, the repetitive use of a song helped numb the young minds of the Hitler Youth. These songs would invariably be related to duty, blood, honour, soil and above all death and fighting. The lyrics of one such song goes like this: “We are marching for Hitler through night and dread/ with the banner of youth for freedom and bread.” This indoctrination

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.

This source’s context contains information about how the youth were trained in preparation for the war and what they were trained for. It gives information about the age ranges for the different groups and rites of passages. It also describes the separation between boys and girls in these youth camps, and is thus valuable to one researching Hitler’s Youth. A limitation of this is that does not reveal anything about Hitler’s success or failure in his military involvement, or reveal anything about his invasions into other countries but simply informs about his Youth programs. It does not reveal his military involvement and is thus not valuable to one researching Hitler’s Involvement in other countries.

“Once Hitler rose to power, he banned all other groups, even Boy Scouts, and only allowed for the Hitler Youth Program,” (Trueman). Hitler strongly believed that the youth was the future of Germany (Trueman). Additionally, he gradually started assigning adult roles to

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

Then the Nazis had to prepare for the future and the future of Germany was the youth. Many organisations like the Hitler youth and the league for German Maidens were set up to teach the youth to follow the Nazis. In the Hitler youth they were taught like the military, neat, tidy and organised. The youth saw Hitler as a father figure in the fatherland and obeyed him. Then Hitler used indoctrination in the education system to recruit them into the army as loyal Nazis. There were subtle Nazi views added into all school work to brainwash the youth, as they were naive and didn’t see the wrong side of the Nazis true nature. The future of the people’s community was successfully secure and the Nazis would keep control for years to come.

“Young boys were organized into the Deutches Jungvolk (German Young People, informally called Pimpfe), older boys into the Hitlerjugend (HJ). The Deutches Jungvolk could have boys from the ages of 10-14 and the Hitlerjugend could have boys from the ages of 14-18. When World War II started, more than ninety percent of German youth were members of these organizations. Ninety percent is a huge percentage. That means that almost every teenage German, Gentile was a member of some kind of Nazi Youth Organization. Many of these youth organization actually over rid the parental control on the children. Many were told that the individual or the family was less important than the state. If children had disloyal parents, they were encouraged to report them. When the boys weren’t in school or at home with their parents, they were with their youth organization learning military maneuvers and different chants. An example of the one the chants that the Hitler Youth used to march around chanting are: “Comrades, we march to the field, red today, tomorrow dead, Comrades it must be that way.” If the boys made any achievement in the Hitler Youth, credit in school would be given to the student. The teacher must respect the authority of the youth leaders, regardless of their age or attitude towards them. Blind obedience seems to be a common theme. Children are taught these ideologies without knowing the true real reason. Teachers are forced to believe and follow these ideologies if they wish to

"The first time I went to use the latrine located at the end of the children's barrack, I was greeted by the scattered corpses of several children lying on the ground ... It was there that I made a silent pledge - a vow to make sure that Miriam and I didn't end up on that filthy floor." (Eva Mozes, The twins Eva and Miriam Mozes survived Auschwitz) During World War 2, A power hungry leader called Hitler started taking many places and countries. Hitler was trying to make a master of blued eyed blonde hair pure German people. People who believed him were called Nazis.He also did not like the Jews saying they were “corrupting the German race” (Jones,67). Nazis would take prisoners of war, or Jews, or anyone he needed for experiments, and put them into concentration camps. In these concentration camps the Nazi would do many things to the prisoners to torture, kill, or learn to help their cause. The Nazis conducted cruel experiments on prisoners to help their cause. Some of these experiments included tests involving freezing temperatures, high altitudes, and twins.

“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

Founded in the early 1920’s, as a side project of the the Nazi party, Hitler Youth was formed to educate children about Nazism and to turn them into future members, or even leaders, of the Nazi party. Hitler did this by using propaganda and manipulation which included movies and posters of Hitler being an all powerful being ( Darman 68 ), and the major power he had in Europe at that time. This went on for many years, some of the older Hitler Youth members saw combat in WWII ( historyplace.com ). Upon of the many atrocities that Hitler committed, manipulating millions of children to have nothing but hate for a whole race of people, one of the worst things Hitler, or anyone, could ever do. And because of that, the Hitler youth was truly a great

The children in WWII worshiped and praised Adolf Hitler and strived to follow in his footsteps. Hitler Youth was a youth organization that was used to promote Hitler Adolf’s rise in power. Children loved Hitler Youth, but little did they know what and who they were supporting. The children did many activities that made it look like all fun and games, but in disguise they were being taught horrible things. Hitler Youth had a negative impact on children’s lives in Germany because it turned them against family and friends, brainwashed children’s minds, and taught them to hate Jews.

“ 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

From the time Adolf Hitler came into office in 1933, up to the time when Germany surrendered to the Allied forces and Hitler committed suicide in 1945; the future for Germany became strongly invested in the hands of the younger generations. The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization formed in 1926. It gave kids excitement, adventure and new heroes to idolize. Hitler admired young kids drive, energy and strong love for Germany. He recognized these qualities and made it part of his plan to control the future world but the real question is why did Adolf Hitler pick children for his future? The education and the lack of schooling in independent thinking that instilled the ideology that brainwashed the Hitler- Jugend and eventually led

In this essay I will discuss the methods that Hitler used to influence the young Germans until the end of the World War II. To analyze this topic will be considerable to show several points. I will discuss the people who supported Hitler in his rise to the power as background, how the Nazis used Nazi Propaganda to influence to youngsters, clarify why the young people