How did the youth Affect Nazi Germany?
In Nazi Germany the youth played a very important role in the years leading up to World War II as well as fighting in the war. Hitler controlled and shaped the youth many ways including The Hitler Youth Program(HJ) for boys or the League of German Maidens(BDM) for girls. In just the HJ, there were 8.8 million youth at the start of the war. That is more than enough people to cause a problem. They could do the most good and cause the most destruction if not controlled and Hitler knew that. He indoctrinated the youth by surrounding them with Nazi propaganda and by rewriting German history. Some other things that influenced Germany were the youth resistances such as the Swing Kids and the Edelweiss Group.
One way hitler planned to control the youth was by starting his Hitler Youth (HJ) program in July 1926. In the HJ boys ages 10-18 had military training such as marching, bayonet drill, grenade throwing, trench digging, map reading, gas defence, use of dugouts, how to get under barbed wire and pistol shooting as well as Nazi ideological indoctrination courses. These were to prepare them for war. Their uniforms even had badges and other decorative insignia to make it easier to transition into the army. For some reason they didn’t suspect something of it. In 1938 meeting attendance dipped
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Without them WW II might’ve had a completely different outcome. Whether they were spying on parents, fighting in wars, or resisting capture and Nazi idealism. Hitler wouldn’t have made it as far if he hadn’t thought of controlling the youth. If the few that resisted didn’t exist he might’ve just as easily be able to have gone farther. Either way the youth provided a very large impact on WW II whether it was for the good or the bad is for you to decide. The importance of youth continues in our day. Even though we don’t fight wars we control the
The root and future of your society is the youth. To have them follow you is to have definite power in the future. Hitler seems to have been aware of this when molding his perfect community, therefore he did many things to have his ideology accepted by
Naziism had a huge impact on German youth during Hitler’s reign of power over the state. The life of a German child changed dramatically during the 1920’s and 30’s, especially for
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.
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.
“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
Schools were riddled with propaganda like a disease, it controlled people instead of just influencing them. “The youth organizations, particularly the Hitler Youth, have been accorded powers of control which enable every boy and girl to exercise authority backed up by threats.”(Spartacus Educational, 1997) Even as the kids were being controlled, adults who worked in certain areas that refused to respect the Nazi Party ultimately became fired. “Teachers who did not support the Nazi Party were sacked.”(Spartacus Educational, 1997) Most of all, almost everyone became submissive and obeyed the Nazis. “Gradually, the old teachers were replaced with younger ones, those with Nazi orientations.”(Spartacus Educational, 1997) As so, the new teachers that had been radicalized conformed with and embraced the new curriculum. This new school curriculum was not very overwhelming but, most of the commands shaped the German children. The Holocaust Explained argues that, “Hitler and the Nazis wanted all young Aryans to be physically fit and perfectly obedient.”(The Holocaust Explained, n.d.) As more people and children submitted to the Nazis, commands that were made out of the bounds of an average school’s limits were enforced. Children were bribed out of their freedoms for money, unknowingly and
Hitler isolated the youth from the rest of Germany to be able to easily manipulate their beliefs. In 1926 the Hitler Youth was founded and was made for the purpose to train boys to enter the SA (Storm Troopers), a Nazi Party paramilitary
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.
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
Adolf Hitler manipulated the Hitler Youth to build up his militaristic power, maintain and strengthen his control over Germany during The Third Reich, and easily purge Germany of “Impure races” with his anti-semitic raised soldiers. Hitler used environmental isolationism to train and gain loyalty from the youth while he manipulated and indoctrinated them to follow his beliefs using propaganda and anti-semitic teachings.
Can young people really make a difference with something as big as the Holocaust?The Hitler Youth affected the Holocaust in many ways even after and before it they learned so much from Nazis we could even consider them one.The Hitler Youth was taught many things about the Nazis and the Holocaust.First the Hitler Youth had a motto they needed to abide by and that is that “We do not tolerate originally or individuality this is one of their main concepts.This motto ended up helping the Jews in the future.
“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
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 the Hitler Youth movement, created in 1922, each child born had to join an extremely tough military training in preparation for any kind of war. Many children did not know why they were training in that way. Yet for them just the feeling in being proud and brave was enough to continue in their tasks. They enjoyed being the center of attention and the object of the adult desires. We can say that the Nazis system in