To What Extent Did the Nazis Succeed in Their Attempt to Transform Germanys Youth?

To What Extent Did the Nazi’s Succeed in Their Attempt to Transform Germany’s Youth?

     The Nazi’s believed the youth were the future of Germany and therefore had to be brought up to be strong both politically and physically. The boys were the future leaders and the girls were future mothers of leaders. However it can be argued that the Nazi’s failed in their attempts to transform the youth into what they wanted, which could be perceived to be a number of different things. The aims of the Nazi’s towards the German youth were clear and simple, build a strong and powerful Germany for the future through any means possible. Hitler wanted the young people to idolise him, he wanted the boys to be fit strong and ready to sacrifice themselves for Germany without hesitation. Hitler had a number of different methods in his attempt to revolutionise the youth and create a new “Volksgemienschaft” which he believed to be a new Germany in which everybody supported the nation and what they were fighting for, including the youth.

     The first method used to try and transform the German youth was Hitler’s involvement in education at schools. The Nazis were trying to cultivate a loyal following to the Fuhrer and the Nazi’s. Hitler believed schools were to play a critical part in the development of a loyal following and believed he could effectively brainwash the students into believing what he wanted. Hitler began to enforce his own curriculum on the schools two weeks after he came to power, to do this though they had to get the support of the teachers, the teachers were threatened, they had to either obey the Nazi curriculum or they would be fired, 97% of teachers in Germany delivered the curriculum, to the Nazi’s pleasure. A group was formed for the teachers called the Nazi Teachers Association. Any teacher suspected to be disloyal would be fired immediately and students were encouraged to inform the Nazi’s of such teachers. The main subjects to be affected by the new curriculum were History and Biology. History now became all about the glory of Germany’s past and anything that went wrong wasn’t their fault. Most of the time the bad things were blamed on the Jews, including the loss of the First World War. Jew’s weren’t the only ones blamed for this though; Marxist spies were also to blame, according to the new curriculum. Even the treaty of Versailles was the fault of Jewish saboteurs. History was taught with a very Nationalist viewpoint. Biology was taught in such a way that the German race was superior in every way to any other race on the planet. They were fitter, stronger, smarter and better looking. Hitler himself declared that “No boy or girl should leave school without complete knowledge of the necessity and meaning of blood purity”, by blood purity he meant German parents, grandparents, great grandparents and even further back. The importance of selecting the right “mate” was highlighted as well, it was said that marriages of racial mix would only lead to a decline in racial purity. Other subjects such as PE, geography and science were affected drastically as well, PE became a test of strength for the boys, they had to be able to suffer pain, and Hitler stated “Young Germans must be as swift as a greyhound, as tough as leather and as hard as Krupp’s steel”. The boys who failed these tests were expelled from schools and received no education whatsoever. Geography taught pupils about the lads Germany had taken away from it after the First World War and the need for lebensraum, and science was taught with a military slant.