Hitler Youth: Home

"Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend in German) was the Nazi organization for young Germans aged between 10 and 18. Like other Nazi institutions, its primary purpose was to foster or coerce blind allegiance to the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler. In the case of the Hitler Youth, its additional purpose was to reshape the minds of young Germans from an early age and turn them into committed Nazis to be used in Hitler’s war machine ... "

Written in 1934, this article addresses an example of German nationalism in the Hitler Youth. "Erroneous ideas are easy to acquire and hard to lose. One who visited England in 1933 or early 1934 could not help but gather the same idea about Germany that most Englishmen have of Chicago—that it is an unhealthy place for any visitor with whom bullets and beatings disagree ... "

" The early history of the National-Socialist youth movement was characterized by its fragmentation and ineffectiveness, and it was not until Adolf Hitler took the initiative in establishing the Hitler-Jugend (HJ) as the official youth organization of his party (NSDAP)2 that there was any semblance of cohesion in this sphere of the party's activity. The overriding purpose of the HJ was to attract the political support of young Germans for National-Socialism ... "

"The Boy Scouts’ motto was “Be Prepared.” But nothing could prepare Max Ebel, a German teenager, for what happened after Hitler banned the Boy Scouts. As other boys cheered, the 17-year-old was surrounded by a gang of Nazi Youth—one of whom had a knife. Ebel’s refusal to leave scouting behind had just turned into a fight for his life ... "

"One of the most enduring myths about Hitler's Third Reich is its supposed ability to command the fanatic loyalty and devotion of an entire generation of youth enrolled in the Hitler-jugend, or HJ as the National Socialist youth organisation was commonly called ... "

"Among the organisations of the National Socialist Party the Hitler Youth has long been regarded as unique because of its large working-class membership, estimated as high as seventy percent, its egalitarianism, and its espousal of social revolutionary doctrines ... "

"Losing the First World War, unemployment, the generation gap and the cult of youth led to the party of Adolf Hitler gaining popularity in the Weimar Republic. Using slogans of the restoration of a strong Germany the national socialists organised structures, which formed and educated German Youth. Hitler Youth - brought up according to the rule: "youth leads youth" - was a very fertile environment for the spread of the idea of national-socialism ... "

"The youth organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei−NSDAP) was founded in Munich in 1922 and included only boys. It was given the name Hitler Youth (Hitler Jugend) in 1926, when a parallel organization for girls (Schwesterschaften) was established, which was known from 1930 as the League of German Girls (Bund Deutscher Mädel–BDM). By the end of 1932 the Hitler Youth had no more than 108,000 members, but when the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, the organization's growth potential and functions were decisively altered ... "

"Hitlerjugend, or The Hitler Youth (HJ), was the National Socialists’ organization for children and young adults. The HJ had its origins in the Jungsturm Adolf Hitler (Adolf HITLER Boys’ Storm Troop), an offshoot of the SA (Sturmabteilung; Storm Troopers) that was founded in 1922 and changed its name to Hitlerjugend ... "

"By the early twentieth century, industrialization and urbanization had given rise to a gross demographic anomaly in Europe: Middle-class boys were having to undergo a prolonged adolescence. Though their working-class counterparts were beginning work in adult occupations at age fourteen or earlier, middle-class boys faced another six to ten years in school ... "