By 1939 some 8 million had joined the Hitler Youth Movement.
Every year Hitler youth had to go to training camps where they learnt to read maps, did sports, gymnastics and they were taught Nazi ideas.
Training was taken very seriously. A fourteen year-old guard at the entrance shot dead a ten year-old boy who could not remember the password.
Every child had a “performance book” where marks for athletics, camping and fighting skills were recorded. Those with the highest scores went to special schools were they were trained to be leaders of the future. The Adolf Hitler Schools took boys from the Young Folk at the age of 12, gave them 6 years of tough training before sending them to university or the army. The very best pupils) were sent to school called Order Castle were they were pushed to their limits of endurance. Students, who were not injured or killed, graduated to be the very models of Hitler’s idea of youth- swift, tough, and very hard.
Shortly after coming into power in 1933, Hitler made a law for the encouragement or marriage.
It said the government would give newly married couples a loan of 1000 marks (9 months wages)
1 child = ¼ of the marks (250 marks)
Hitler summed up a woman’s places with ‘the three K’s’ – Kinder, Kircher, und Kuche (Children, Church and Cooking).
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Women were forced to stay at home, sacked from their jobs as doctors, civil servants, lawyers and teachers. By 1939 there were only a few women left in professional jobs.
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Even at home the Nazi’s tried to stop women from following fashions. Wearing make- up and jeans were frowned upon.
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Hair in a bun or two plaits, not died, not permed and slimming was discouraged as it was not good for carrying a child.
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The only thing women were encouraged to do was have children.
12 august (Hitler’s mothers birthday) the women with most children was awarded the motherhood cross.
The Nazi’s set up homes for unmarried mothers these were called Lebensborn (the spring of life). Recognised by a white flag with a red dot in the middle (in a way these were brothels). An unmarried could go there with the aim of getting pregnant and be introduced to ‘racially pure’ SS men
