How many joined hitler youth

Hitler Youth took part in typical scouting type activities like camping trips, singing, crafts and hiking. They went to summer camps, wore uniforms, recited pledges and told stories over campfires. But over time, the activities changed. They imposed military-like order on members and trained young men in everything from weapons to survival. It took him years to step away from that indoctrination after the end of World War II.

Adolf Hitler with Nazi party Hitler Youth at a gathering. Some boys refused to join the Hitler Youth and took their youth groups underground. One such group, the Edelweiss Pirates, even attacked Hitler Youth members and worked to sabotage their activities. About 5, Edelweiss Pirates are thought to have defied the Nazis, scribbled anti-war graffiti on walls, and participated in various types of violent and nonviolent resistance. In , six were hanged in Cologne without a trial due to their suspected involvement in the black market.

Scouts in occupied countries resisted, too: In France, for example, Boy Scouts rescued 40 Jewish children from deportation, and in Auschwitz , a group of Polish boy scouts resisted and even escaped the Nazis. Children who had been saturated in Nazi ideology for years made obedient, fanatical soldiers. Eventually, those soldiers became younger and younger. Starting in , all boys 17 and older were forced to serve in the military.

In , the desperate Nazi leadership began pulling younger boys out of school and sending them to the front. These inexperienced children were essentially conscripted for suicide missions—and if they balked, they were executed. The Auschwitz guard Irma Grese, who was notorious for setting a pack of attack dogs on her inmates, began that work as a teenage member of a youth organization.

A British Army court sentenced her to death by hanging in the fall of In , Baldur von Schirach, the first leader of the Hitler Youth, was convicted of war crimes in , and sentenced to 20 years in prison. At the same time, despite the mandatory nature of participation, the history of Nazi youth organizations does contain examples of resistance. The most famous resisters were Hans and Sophie Scholl, a brother and sister who were executed by guillotine on Feb. Girl students and men students, the nation looks to us.

It expects from us in the breaking of the National Socialist terror. And today, especially amid trends such as the rising presence of white supremacist messages on college campuses , the vulnerability of young people to propaganda is no longer just a matter of historical interest.

Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia. By Olivia B. Eleven-year-old boys in the Hitler Youth organization learning how to fire a rifle. A photo of Hitler Youth members looking on as Jewish people were forced to scrub the streets in Vienna, Austria. Gender division was paramount to Nazi strategy. Boys were considered future soldiers for the Nazi cause, and as such every activity from local to national level was designed around physical strength and experience of military drills and weaponry.

Girls, meanwhile, were part of a different organisation, branded the League of German Girls. Although physical fitness was valued, sports tended to be more focused on unity and working together, such as synchronised gymnastics. The League was primarily concerned with teaching girls aged 10 to 18 domestic skills such as cooking, sewing and first aid; essentially the normative gender roles that ensured good matrimony and motherhood. In the recently-released film Jojo Rabbit , directed by Taika Waititi, the plot focuses on a young boy named Jojo living in Nazi Germany towards the end of war.

His imaginary friend is a childish yet supportive version of Hitler, who encourages him to be the Nazi he dreams of being. The militant talk that implored young subjects to devote themselves to the strength and defence of the fatherland was binding. These young recruits became the final frontline for Germany and were brandished at the forefront of its propaganda machine.

It was war.