Hitler Youth

Nazi-era propaganda poster.

The Hitler Youth (Hitler-Jugend in German) organization was founded by Adolf Hitler, the leader of the NSDAP in 1926 and future dictator of Germany. It was a recreation of an earlier Nazi youth movement known as the Jungenbund der NSDAP . It was designed to integrate teenage boys and young men so that they might become Nazis. There was also another organization called the League of German Girls which trained young women in domestic duties and motherhood.

The Hitler Youth was modelled on similar organisations created by left-wing parties in Germany from the 1920s onwards. The German Communist party had founded a similar movement in the 1920s, albeit attempting to foster opposing political views. The ideal of a political movement which should encompass the individual's life was thus shared between the right-wing and left-wing political movements. However, from its conception the Hitler Youth was entirely a fascist organization.

The leader of the Hitler Youth throughout the Nazi dictatorship was Baldur von Schirach, who was a principal defendant of the Nuremberg Trials.

Beliefs installed

Members of the Hitler Youth were taught the official Nazi racist and anti-Semitic doctrines. The future most encouraged was service in the Wehrmacht, the German army. Thus most Hitler Youth activities were based on fitness and strength, instead of intelligence. Younger boys in the Hitler Youth were occasionally physically abused by older boys; this was unofficially tolerated by the adult leaders.

By the end of the war Hitler Youth members were being used as soldiers, and in 1945 as front line troops and stretcher bearers.