How successful were Nazis at influencing young people and keeping their support?

As the Nazis wanted to control each aspect of a child's life they realised that education played a very important role. They altered textbooks to include Nazi history and also Nazi views of History. Students were taught about the injustice of German government and how the Jews were slowly taking over. The National Socialist party also managed to glorify the military in each school subject. They also made sure that the students had to study race and ideology every day.

As the Nazis needed to control each aspect of a child's life to have full hold on the child they realised that it was a necessity to control a child's home or family life, in many cases this meant isolating a child from his/her family. It became increasingly common in Germany for the children of the household to be much more pro-Nazi than their parents. This is because the children grew up being controlled by Nazi forces and therefore found such things as routine household checks normal, whereas older family members found it an invasion of privacy. This often resulted in family disputes and caused unsettledness. This was also caused by the fact that the Nazi party always expected to be put before everything, even before your family.

During the late 1930's the number of members in the Hitler Youth group drastically increased however as the war progressed the number of enrolments dropped as the group became more war centred rather than leisure activities. In fact anti-Hitler Youth groups were set up. One of these was called the "swing" movement. This was a group of teenagers who rebelled against the Nazi regime by listening to banned music from the US and England and also dressing in a more western fashion. Perhaps one of the policies that infuriated the Nazis the most was the fact that the "swing" movement members allowed Jews in their clubs.

Another group which the Nazis greatly feared was the Edelweiss Pirates. This group of Youths carried out some very similar activities to the Hitler youth group such as singing however the Edelweiss Pirates' songs were criticising the Nazi regime and mocked their ideas of the German superpower. They also often attacked Hitler Youth group members and indulged in activities that the Nazis looked down upon such as the act of sex and making the group include both male and female members.

It is difficult to say exactly how successful the Nazi policies were with the youths of Germany however we do have evidence to show both the positive and the negative results of these policies.