Explain the nature and purpose of the 'Hitler Youth' movement.

Natalie Constantine 11V

Year 11 Coursework- Autumn Term

Assignment 1- Nazi Germany

Candidate 7214

(a) Explain the nature and purpose of the ‘Hitler Youth’ movement.

The Hitler youth movement was a reasonable addition to Hitler’s belief that the future of Nazi Germany relied on its children. Hitler used the naivety, vulnerability and easily influenced youth of Germany to be directly involved with his efforts to generate his superior German race. From the very beginning of his rule Hitler made it very clear of what he expected German children to be like, he wanted ‘… young men and women who can suffer pain’, and ‘A young German must be swift as a greyhound, as tough as leather, and as hard as Krupp’s steel’. Hitler wanted total control over the minds of the young in Nazi Germany, even more than was already present.

After Hitler came to power all other youth organisations were abolished and because of this, the number of members in the Hitler Youth was quickly increased. In 1933 its members stood at 100 000, but by 1936 the figure had largely improved to 4 million members, and in the same year it became compulsory to join the Hitler Youth. They catered for 10 to 18 year olds, both male and female, but there were separate organisation for boys and girls, and the purpose of these two organisations was exceptionally different. In order for a child to join these groups they needed to have the proof that they were from pure German blood, therefore they had to outline their family tree as far back as possible.

At the age of 10, boys joined German Young People (Detsches Jungvolk) up until the age of 13 when they were moved to the Hitler Jugend, or Hitler Youth, (which began in 1926) until they reached the age of 18. The Hitler Jugend’s main purpose was to teach boys to be aggressive and they largely focused on physical conditioning and to educate ‘…physically, morally and spiritually in the spirit of the National Socialist idea of the state’. Outdoor activities conquered the program and the older boys especially delt with military skills. From the start of the Hitler Youth, Hitler clearly saw this movement as a key to strengthening boys for their expected role of soldiers. He believed this movement was set out to have a generation of ‘…victorious, active, daring youths, immune to pain’. Because of the great emphasis on military skills, most of the activities were outdoor ones, they included, camping skills, fireman training, grenade throwing, laying communication cables, and wrestling matches, field combat, pistol shooting, paramilitary drills, marches, weekend outings and many more. These activities had one purpose, to develop a strong sense of solidarity within the group. The boys also partook in daily formal procedures for them to be taught discipline and respect in order to create utter devotion to Hitler. Not only did they prepare them physically but they drew together a psychological programme in order to prepare them mentally for war.

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The Nazis believed women should play the role of submissive wives and devoted mothers, and so girls were therefore prepared for this role. At the age of 10 girls joined the League of Young Girls (Jungmadelbund) and at the age of 14 were transferred to the League of German Girls (Bund Deutscher Madel). The League of German Girl’s poster stated ‘Every girl belongs to us’ and they were taught that their bodies were no longer their own, but they belonged to the state. The girl’s organisations all revolved around Hitler’s view that a woman’s world was her family, her children, her husband and her house. Girl’s had a far lesser physical demand than the boys. They minimally needed to be able to run 60 metres in 14 seconds, throw a ball 12 metres, complete a 2 hour march, swim 100 metres and know how to make a bed. Girls were trained and taught eugenics, domestic science, and preparation for marriage and motherhood. From an early age girls were educated that the roles they should have was to be good mothers bringing up children while their husbands worked. All schools that either sex attended had the emphasis on P.E, racial theology, and biology became the study of racial stereotype and the supposed superiority of the Arian race. This all happened because it was now believed ‘The purpose for education is to create Nazis’.

The Nazi party’s youth movement was set out to indoctrinate the German youth to maintain the ‘1000 year Reich’. This indoctrination was one of the Nazi party’s key goals. They did this by using the clever indoctrination of susceptible youth that were easily influenced. By doing this the Nazi party were assured of their key goal, to sustain total obedience in years to come. In essence Hitler’s purpose of targeting and owning the youth was to ‘… gain the future! ’ Hitler believed ‘The youth is the stone which is to go to the building of the new Reich’, and the way he would achieve this was by wiping out any preconceived ideas and from an early age mesmerise the youth with the spirit of National Socialism. The Hitler Youth, the SA and the SS tried to bewilder the youth, undermine them and regiment them in the brightest and most vulnerable years of their lives.

Explain the reasons for Nazi policies towards women.

There were many policies towards women during the Nazi rule and this became very clear when Hitler came to power. He believed that a woman’s ‘…true life work lies at home’. The Nazis up held the traditional idea that the two sexes should fulfil entirely different roles, and it was simply their task to maintain this distinction.

The outcomes of the Depression also worked in favour of Nazi policies as it not only condensed the amount of female workers but it also authorised the government to justify it reasons for wanting women to give up work, for the benefit of unemployed men. As a result of this although employment of women rose from 4.8 to 5.9 million, it fell from 37% to 31% of the total.

Hitler demanded Lebensraum in Eastern Europe, but this was hard to do if the population of Germans was levelling out and over the past few years the birth rate was in fact declining. It was consequently considered crucial to increase the population and evidently women were the key to this objective. To bring this about the Nazis enforced anti-abortion laws, the restriction of contraceptive advice and facilities, improved the maternity benefits and allowances and brought about the conversion of the marriage loan to a straight gift from the state for each child born. In addition to this Hitler believed as Germany grew she would need more soldiers and mothers, thus a booming population was needed to groom both boys and girls into fulfilling these roles.

Hitler wanted to undoubtedly build up the master race and therefore came to the conclusion that women should be sacked from the jobs and commit their lives to the three K’s ‘ kinder, kuche, kirche’ (‘children, kitchen and church’). One of the pillars of the Nazi thinking was developing pure race Aryans and so a policy introduced was that women could only marry purely racial men because this would lead to Aryan babies to be created and therefore was largely encouraged, even if the women were not married. Hitler also supposed that if women became house wives and were at home when soldiers came back from the upcoming war they would create social security for them leading to content cared for returns thus raising their spirits and making them happy to return.

All of these policies stood towards women because Hitler believed in the ideological view of a woman’s role. The Nazis wanted to fulfil some of their objectives such as a racially pure Germany, a ‘1000 year Reich’, more soldiers and mothers, a more powerful Germany and lebensraum, and all these mainly revolved around the next generation of Germany which would solitarily come about by women becoming mothers. Consequently the Nazis needed to introduce all these policies towards women to enslave them into revolving their lives around their husbands, children and homes. As well as playing as integral part in achieving this goal, Hitler believed it did not stop there, but not only did women have to have children they also had to bring them up in the most National Socialist way. Enslaving women in society not only meant the Nazis had their support but they were almost ensured they had their children’s support as the youth were to be brought up to follow who their parents followed (Hitler) as Hitler believed the greatness of the nation in the future was dependent on how well the children were raised and educated by their parents. The government even went so far as establishing Nazi taught seminars to teach women how to promote the proper upbringing of children with a devoted commitment to Germany and its culture. This therefore proved how the Nazis were to use women to further indoctrinate their children and sustain ultimate commitment to Hitler and Nazi rule in future times. To make Germany more powerful Hitler believed that the population needed to increase thus this was an additional reason why Hitler introduced the many policies that he did, as he needed women to devote their lives to creating children and therefore he would achieve his more prevailing nation.

(c) The most important reason why there was little opposition in Germany towards the Nazi regime was its use of propaganda.’ Explain how far you agree with this statement.

Germany’s totalitarianism command made it hard for there to be any opposition, and in comparison to the amount of support the Nazis received the resistance was meagre. Goebbels was the man responsible for selling the 3rd Reich to the German people and he attempted to direct and control all aspects of people’s lives on both an individual and broad spectrum. The Nazis didn’t receive a lot of opposition and this was mainly because of the fear of Hitler’s armies: the Gestapo and SS. If anyone was to be caught opposing the Nazi regime they were to be dealt with severely, they were to be put in prison, beaten up on the streets, killed or sent to concentration camps. With the risk of this happening to the people who didn’t like the National Socialist way of life, they were made to have to keep their views hushed.

Propaganda controlled people’s lives, many didn’t know any different to what they were told. The media was one aspect of Germany that was entirely controlled as this was an essential factor in the maintenance of the Nazi rule. The media was the biggest means of entertainment in Nazi Germany and as propaganda ruled it, it was made hard to oppose the thoughts that were drummed into you. The Reich Chamber Commerce came about and this was to control and take over art, music, literature and films. Gobbles made sure to burn any books that were in any way opposing the National Socialists and he allowed cheap radios to be sold so everyone could afford one and thus listen Hitler and the Nazis make speeches and eventually make the public hear what he wanted them to hear. Goebbels took propaganda on to a new level and successfully ruled what people saw, read and heard. One of the Gestapo’s jobs was to patrol streets, houses and factories to make sure the whole nation listened to Hitler’s speeches and therefore it was made difficult not to listen to the propaganda influenced speeches give almost daily. All the constant guidelines of what to believe complicated the ability to form an opinion and as propaganda operated on such a large scale the opposition that the Nazi party received was little.

Additional to this there were also more reasons why people did not oppose the Nazi regime and a very big one was the fear they faced. The Gestapo and SS made it extremely difficult to physically resist the Nazis and the terror many came across was enough to stop them from going against what was supposed to be believed. The policy of intimidation was so widely used that everyone lacked courage to stand up to the Nazis. In Nazi Germany no other opposing parties were present therefore the only views people received were that of the National Socialists and thus all the knowledge they had came from them.

Many were simply happy with Hitler and this may have been because of the limited information the Nazis presented the public with. The slight resistance of the Nazis came from the fact that they appeared to be bringing prosperity back into Germany when it was needed most whilst inspiring the German patriotism that had been lost during the after math of Versailles. In comparison to the terrible rule that the Weimar presented Germany with Hitler appeared to be their liberator and therefore many were pleased with the job the party was doing. He reduced unemployment made Anschluss with Austria and took over the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, therefore appearing to bring good to Germany as a whole.

However there was still some opposition towards the Nazis even though it was made extremely difficult. Many opposed the Nazi regime, but found it exceedingly tricky to openly express there views and only a very small minority did. People such as some women believed the Nazis were unpleasant as the many policies introduced towards them took away their livelihood and even some children did not support the Nazis as the took away their childhood. Although these two groups of people believed in this way they did not act up on it because of the horror they faced towards the Gestapo and SS. The only group that openly opposed the Nazis was the minority belonging to the churches; however nothing could be done to stop them as Hitler was in no way willing to risk loosing millions of religious people’s support. The underground opposition of the Nazis was widely spread as people undoubtedly preferred to oppose the Nazi regime secretively rather that having a risk of getting killed. People even organised an operation to send leaflets through letters boxes to addresses chosen at random from directories. They did this ‘passive resistance’ at night in order to greatly reduce there chances of getting caught. There was also an open opposition coming from the Jews and gypsies after Hitler’s opinion of them was made clear, but these groups were dealt with by genocide actions.

To conclude I believe the most important reason why there was little opposition in Nazi Germany, was due to both propaganda and fear. Propaganda successfully worked as it operated on such a large scale. Ruling every part of human livelihood such as the media made it exceptionally difficult to disregard anything that was being said and forming your own opinion was not easy. The chance of getting killed or having to live through ongoing suffering in a concentration camp was something that people obviously tried to avoid. So, there was a lot of opposition of the Nazi regime but all on an underground, secretive level. There was no organised antagonism due to the trepidation of the Gestapo and SS and thus a very small known minority openly opposed the Nazi regime.

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