One of the aims of the Youth organisations was to introduce military aspects to the youth especially boys who would later be fighting for the Reich. These military activities included long military drills, which memoir evidence describe as boring. There is evidence in a SOPRADE report of 1935 that youthful group leaders who wanted to drill already exhausted groups even harder would receive a beating from his charges. It can be seen in memoirs that the military activities over time became unpopular with the boys.
Some members of the youth population conformed to the Youth organisations ideals for career reasons. They believed that jobs would come due to the persecution of Jews and Marxists and other races that didn’t fit in with the Nazis ideal of the Volksgemeinshaft. They were further motivated by seeing ‘comrades’ filling well-paying posts in public administration and the Party apparatus. This can be argued as a success for the Nazis’ because the youth were adhering to the ideals of the Hitler youth movement. However, it could be argued that they were doing so only for future personal gain which goes against the Nazis’ idea of the community coming first.
The Nazis had also controlled and influenced young people through changes in the school system and the curriculum, with changes to subjects and resources, for example Mein Kampf became a history text book. There is evidence of failure as in childhood reflections a man remembers only taking quotes from Mein Kampf and never reading it. There is also evidence that young people did not really understand Nazi ideology. However they confirmed through apathy and natural obedience because they had been politically programmed in school and youth organisations; they obeyed orders, stood to attention and stopped thinking when ‘Fatherland’ was mentioned and Germany’s honour and greatness. This can be argued a success because although they didn’t understand ideology they still conformed because they had been successfully controlled and influenced to do so.
It can be argued further that children who conformed through fear; children who answered questions falsely because they were too scared to tell the truth, also show Nazi success because they knew what the correct answer was and said it because they had been controlled and influenced successfully.
However there is evidence to say that the Nazi reshaping of education varied greatly from school to school and depending a great deal on individual teachers and principals, (G. Mosse), this suggest that the Nazis were not totally successful in indoctrinating children through the changes in school because some schools did not change as much as others.
Over time the members of the Hitler youth organisations became disillusioned and there was some nonconformity. The biggest opposition came from the working class youths who had different political alignment. For all youth National Socialism had lost some of it’s appeal because it was no longer rebellious, evidence of this disillusioned could be seen in the fall in membership and fees were unpaid especially in rural areas. Nonconformity was shown when members of youth groups would beat their leaders if they tried to drill them to much. Youth became irritated by the lack of freedom and mindless drilling customary to National Socialist movement. This is all evidence of failure to control and influence.
There were also young people who although there was the constant threat of discovery and punishment formed opposition groups to the Nazi ones. There were groups of Edelweiss Pirates who wore the Edelweiss Flower as a pin on their collar. Some of these groups formed links with the KPD and began attacking Hitler Youth patrols with the slogan ‘Eternal War on Hitler Youth’. Another opposition group was Swing Kids who were generally anti politics and listened to the American Black and Jewish jazz and swing. Some youths had hostile attitudes and chose to graffiti walls with slogans such as ‘Down with Hitler’. These slogans were cleaned off but often returned within a few days. This is evidence that the Nazis failed to influence and control all the Nazi youth population.
As there is evidence of failure and success, the Nazis were not completely triumphant in their aim to control and influence young people, but neither were they completely unsuccessful. They had indoctrinated a large proportion of children who were mesmerised by the criticism of the treaty of Versailles and who were mesmerised by the national socialist movement. They enjoyed the message that they were the new creators of a new strong Germany.
