What is the Hitler youth about?

Answer 1

The Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend, HJ) started life as the youth organisation of the Nazi party. It was founded in March 1922 as Jugendbund der NSDAP, (Youth Association of the NSDAP), and was broken down into "Jungmannschaften" (ages 14- 16) and the "Jungsturm Adolf Hitler" (ages 16-18). The latter was directly subordinate to the SA and was, in effect, its youth organisation.

At the beginning of 1933, the HJ had around 108,000 members. Once in power the Nazis began a huge drive to encourage youths to join the HJ, and later that year, forced other youth organisations to be absorbed into the HJ (Gleichschaltung = forced conformity) or voluntarily liqiudate. Very soon, the only youth organisation in Germany was the HJ and at its height, had over 8.5 million members. Children who did not join the HJ were treated as outsiders, civil servants were obliged to enroll their children in the organisation. The Nazis attempts to forcefully incorporate the youth organisations of the evangelical churches backfired when they simply voluntarily wound themselves up.

The national socialist state saw itself as the embodiment of a "youthful" Germany, and saw in Germany's youth the most important element in shaping a politico-military future. The objective of the HJ was to prepare the youth for their role as a racial elite, teach them to despise and eradicate anything weak and prepare them for war.

Hitler expressed his ideals of German youth in his book Mein Kampf, according to which, a physically and mentally pure race was to be raised, that "consciously found its way back to primitive instinct" and would fight anything that led to "effeminacy" and "subversion" of national self-assertion.

Hitler took every opportunity to announce his "educational" goals at mass rallies in propagandistic similies and in a speech before 50,000 Hitler Youths in Nuremberg on 14 September 1935 demanded that they should be "swift as greyhounds, tough as leather and hard as Krupps steel" (flink wie die Windhunde, zäh wie Leder, hart wie Kruppstahl).

The Hitler Youth was broken down as follows:

Deutsches Jungvolk (DJ), for 10- to14-year-old boys, known as Pimpfe (titches),

Jungmädelbund (JM), for 10- to 14-year-old girls,

The actual Hitlerjugend for 14- to 18-year-old boys,

Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM), for 14- to 18-year-old girls (later reduced to 17 years),

BDM-Werk Glaube und Schönheit (Faith and Beauty),for 17- to 21-year-old girls.