Ideas and attitudes toward children in Nazi Germany came chiefly from Adolf Hitler. Even in his early years as Nazi Party leader, when leading the nation was a distant dream, Hitler placed great emphasis on the importance of children. Unlike other political leaders, Hitler did not disregard young people or underestimate their political value. His vision of an enduring Third Reich was based not just on the loyalty and obedience of adults, but also of their offspring. Hitler wanted the National Socialist movement to appeal to all levels of society, including the young. He also wanted to provide children in Nazi Germany with a sense of purpose, achievement and community, something that was conspicuously absent during his own listless childhood. Finally and perhaps most importantly, Hitler’s youth policies aimed at filling the minds of young Germans with ideas about racial purity, Aryan supremacy, German expansion and future military conquests. In 1933 Hitler wrote of Nazi policy:
“My program for educating youth is hard … weakness must be hammered away. In my castles of the Teutonic Order, a new youth will grow up, before which the world will tremble. I want a brutal, domineering, fearless and cruel youth. Youth must be all that. It must bear pain. There must be nothing weak and gentle about it. The free, splendid beast of prey must once again flash from its eyes…That is how I will eradicate thousands of years of human domestication…That is how I will create the New Order.”
“The social, political and military resiliency of the Third Reich is intrinsically connected to the Hitler Youth. It would become the incubator that maintained the political system by replenishing the ranks of the dominant party and preventing mass opposition. There can be little doubt that the uniformed army of teenagers had something to do with promoting the myth of Hitler’s invincible genius. When the war began, the importance of the Hitler Youth as the cradle of an aggressive army became apparent to military leaders.”
Gerhard Rempel, historian
The Nazis did not rely solely on schools to indoctrinate children with their ideology. Much better known were groups like the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth), a party-run organisation that was to some degree inspired by the British scouting movement. Like many NSDAP departments, the Hitler Youth was not systematically organised but evolved and changed over time. The Nazi movement had contained a handful of youth groups since 1922, organised at local levels by individuals from the Sturmabteilung (SA). There was even a degree of competition between these groups, with each claiming to be the NSDAP’s ‘official’ youth movement. In July 1926 a young party member, Kurt Gruber, established the Hitler Youth and worked to integrate it into the SA. By 1930 the Hitler Youth contained more than 25,000 boys between the ages of 14 and 18. It served as an important feeder group for the SA, while some members of the Hitler Youth occasionally participated in SA-led protests and street violence.
Hitler’s rise to the chancellorship in 1933 prompted a significant spike in Hitler Youth membership. The Nazi leader appointed Baldur von Schirach as Reichsjugendfuhrer (German youth leader) and tasked him with expanding and organising the group on a national level. Under von Schirach’s leadership, the Hitler Youth adopted and embraced the same symbols, culture, psychology and appeals to nationalism that were employed in the SA and Schutzstaffel (SS). As German schools were infiltrated by Nazi propaganda in the mid-1930s, they were also used to promote and expand the Hitler Youth. Many schools became feeder groups for the Hitler Youth, with children pressured into joining. The Nazi government also funnelled children into the Hitler Youth by banning alternative or rival groups, such as the Boy Scouts and various Catholic youth leagues. The membership of these banned groups was often acquired and swallowed up by the Hitler Youth. By the end of 1937 the leadership of the Hitler Jugend claimed it had as many as five million members or 64 percent of all German adolescent boys.
“Adolf Hitler, you are our great Fuhrer.
Thy name makes the enemy tremble.
Thy will alone is law upon the earth.
Let us hear daily thy voice; order us by thy leadership.
For we will obey to the end and even with our lives.
We praise thee! Hail Hitler!”
Fuhrer, my Fuhrer, give me by God.
Protect and preserve my life for long.
You saved Germany in time of need.
I thank you for my daily bread.
Be with me for a long time, do not leave me, Fuhrer.
My Fuhrer, my faith, my light, Hail to my Fuhrer!”
Beneath the Hitler Youth were several organisations for younger boys and girls. Pimpf was the most junior branch, membership being open to boys between the ages of six and ten. Pimpf boys completed community service, physical activities and outdoor skills such as camping. And like their comrades in the Hitler Youth, members of Pimpf were also subjected to lessons about Nazi values and political views. They had to memorise the group’s handbook, Pimpf im Dienst (‘Young Ones in Service’) and pass exams before ‘graduating’. At age ten Pimpf members could join the Jungvolk, the precursor group to the Hitler Youth. There were also separate groups for girls, including the Jungmadelbund (the ‘German Girls’ League’, for girls aged 10-14) and the Bund Deutscher Madel (BDM, or the ‘League of German Maidens’ for girls aged 14-18). While the Hitler Youth prepared boys for military service, the various girls’ groups prepared their members for lives as wives, mothers and homemakers. There was significant emphasis on the importance of German mothers, both as racial progenitors and the nurturers of Aryan children. Girls in the BDM completed activities like sports and callisthenics, intended to enhance fitness, strength and beauty. There were also classes on grooming, hair and make-up, needlework, German traditions – and, of course, Nazi ideology and values.
1. Adolf Hitler placed great value in German children. He viewed them as essential for ensuring loyalty for the NSDAP and securing the future of his imagined Third Reich.
2. After taking power the Nazis began infiltrating schools and education, removing Jews, socialists and others from the teaching profession and revising the curriculum to include Nazi ideology and values.
3. Nazi youth policy also revolved around several party-run youth groups, such as the Hitler Youth for boys aged 14-18. These groups began haphazardly but were eventually organised on a national level by NSDAP leaders.
4. Nazi youth groups combined paramilitary style training and skills with National Socialist teachings and indoctrination, such as worship of Hitler and the significance of racial purity.
5. There were also several NSDAP-run girls’ groups, such as the Bund Deutscher Madel or BDM. These groups also circulated Nazi ideology and reinforced traditional conceptions about the roles of women.
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This page was written by Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey and Steve Thompson. To reference this page, use the following citation:
J. Llewellyn et al, “Children in Nazi Germany”, Alpha History, accessed [today’s date], https://alphahistory.com/nazigermany/children-in-nazi-germany/.