Der Spiegel - Hitler Youth - historical background. “Hitler Youth”: how young soldiers of the Third Reich defeated the Red Army soldiers World War 2 Hitler Youth history
Hitler Youth (German Hitler-Jugend, old spelling Hitlerjugend, abbreviation HJ) is a youthful paramilitary Nazi organization led by the Reich Youth Fuhrer.
The Hitler Youth organization was founded on July 3-4, 1926 in Weimar as a National Socialist youth movement.
Advertising postcard of the Hitler Youth
IN recent years The Weimar Republic's Hitler Youth contributed to the escalation of violence on the streets of German cities. Organized Hitler Youth groups attacked cinemas showing the anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front. Violence against cinema owners and audiences led to the film being withdrawn from distribution in many regions of Germany.
Sometimes officials tried to calm down the raging youth with prohibitive measures. Thus, in January 1930, the city mayor of Hannover and former Minister of War Gustav Noske (Social Democrat) forbade schoolchildren from joining the Hitler Youth. His example was followed in other lands of the country. However, it was impossible to cope with the Hitler Youth with such measures. The Nazis used the reputation of people's fighters persecuted by the authorities to promote propaganda and attract new members to the youth organization. The brown activists who were punished presented themselves as “victims” who suffered for the truth. As soon as the authorities banned any Hitler Youth cell, it was revived under a different name, for example, “Friends of Nature” or “Young People’s Philatelists.” Fantasy knew no bounds. In Kiel, for example, a group of students from butcher shops in their blood-stained aprons when the authorities banned the wearing of the Hitler Youth uniform. “The enemies trembled at the appearance of this group. They knew that everyone had a huge knife under their apron,” recalled one of the eyewitnesses
The Hitler Youth took part in the election campaign everywhere. They distributed leaflets and brochures, pasted up posters and wrote slogans on the walls. Many parents were worried about the health of their children, since their participation in campaign work on the street was unsafe. From 1931 to the end of January 1933, more than 20 members of the Hitler Youth were killed in clashes while performing “official duty in the name of the Fuhrer” (it should be noted here that young men from pro-communist youth associations also died).
Members of the Hitler Youth. 1933
The name of the Hitler Youth from Berlin, who fell at the hands of the “red youth” in the Moabit area, quickly became known - Herbert Norkus. At one time, his widowed father, as a result of the economic crisis, was forced to sell a small grocery store. Soon he joined the NSDAP. On the morning of January 24, 1932, fifteen-year-old Herbert and his comrades were handing out leaflets to passersby. They were attacked by a group of the same teenagers from a communist organization. Members of the Hitler Youth began to run, but the pursuers caught up with Norkus and stabbed him several times. The young man died from loss of blood. The killers fled.
The Nazis turned the funeral ceremony at the Plötzensee cemetery into a propaganda event. Pastor Wenzl, who served at the funeral, said in his farewell speech that “Herbert Norkus is an example for all German youth.” The then Nazi Gauleiter of Berlin, Joseph Goebbels, called on those gathered for vengeance:
“No one will take away from us the hope that the day of revenge will come. And then those who talk about humanity and love for one’s neighbor, but killed our comrade without trial, will know the strength of the new Germany. Then they will beg for mercy. It’s too late. The new Germany demands redemption."
Funeral of a Hitler Youth member
During the NSDAP congresses, Hitler Youth Day was held. During this day, party rallies were held at Frankenstadion, which is located on the territory of the NSDAP congresses.
Ernst Röhm walks around the ranks of Hitler Youth during a parade in Dortmund 07/08/1933
The leadership of the Hitler Youth tried by any means to attract young people. Solemn processions, propaganda marches and parades, war games, sports competitions, hiking trips, youth rallies, and international meetings with members of fascist youth associations in Italy and other countries were organized. Living together made the Hitler Youth very attractive to young people. Regular pilgrimages were held to Braunau am Inn, Hitler's birthplace. Any young man could find something interesting for himself in the activities of the Hitler Youth: art or folk crafts, aircraft modeling, journalism, music, sports, etc.
Members of the Hitler Youth learn to navigate the terrain. 1936
In addition to paramilitary activities, evenings were organized on Sundays, where small groups of the Hitler Youth gathered to work out plans further actions, listen to propaganda radio broadcasts. On the other hand, the young man, who was not a member of the Hitler Youth, seemed to separate himself from his comrades who were.
A poster promoting joining the Hitler Youth (the inscription at the bottom is “All ten-year-olds are in the Hitler Youth”, at the top is “Youth Serve the Fuhrer”)
Participation in the Hitler Youth began at the age of 10. Every year on March 15th, every boy who had reached the age of ten was required to register at the Imperial Youth Headquarters. After carefully studying the information about the child and his family, where special attention was given to his “racial purity,” he was considered “free from shame.” To be accepted, it was necessary to pass the so-called "Boy Test" and a medical examination. This was followed by a solemn ceremony of admission to the younger age group - Jungfolk.
Member of the Hitler Youth. 09.1934
The ceremony was held on the Fuhrer's birthday (April 20), in the presence of high party leadership. The transition to the next age group also took place with solemnity and pomp.
In the Hitler Youth, the most important attention was paid to such topics as racial theory, population policy, German history and political regional studies. In the foreground were the “Mastering Race” and policy towards the Jews, in history - the biography of Hitler, the history of the NSDAP, political regional studies, and the greatest attention was paid to the countries of fascism.
Hitler Youth Member ID
Emblem of the Hitler Youth organization
Flag of the Hitler Youth
But much more important than mental education was physical education. Competitions were the basis of sports development. Since 1935, Reich sports competitions began to be held annually. Competitions were held in athletics, hand-to-hand combat and team sports.
1936 Hitler Youth football team
Since 1937, shooting from firearms was introduced.
Eleven-year-old members of the Hitler Youth practice rifle shooting
Every hour of the Hitler Youth was busy to the limit, and the youth barely had time for their families. Most parents did not object to this routine.
Member of the Hitler Youth with a drum. 1936
A Hitler Youth accordionist performs in front of an audience
Member of the Hitler Youth on probation in the Kriegsmarine
On December 1, 1936, with the adoption of the Hitler Youth Law (Gesetz über die Hitler-Jugend), and then on March 25, 1939, with the adoption of the Youth Service (Jugenddienstpflicht), previously formally voluntary participation in the movement became mandatory. With the assumption of office by the head of the organization, Baldur von Schirach, the Hitler Youth became part of the NSDAP.
Application for joining the Hitler Youth 1938
Robert Ley, Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach and Propaganda Ministry Secretary Karl Hanke inspect a Hitler Youth detachment
Robert Ley, Franz Xavier Schwarz and Baldur von Schirach test the knowledge of student members of the Hitler Youth
After Baldur von Schirach, this post was taken by A. Axman. The organization was dissolved after the defeat of the Third Reich.
Hitler Youth rally 02/13/1939 at the Berlin Sports Palace. From right to left: Leader of the national women's organization Gertrud Scholz-Klink, Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, Rudolf Hess, youth leader and Gauleiter of Vienna Baldur von Schirach, regional leader of the Hitler Youth Arthur Axmann, Colonel Rudolf von Alvensleben, Himmler's adjutant.
Hitler, giving a speech in Reichenberg (a city in the Czech Sudetenland annexed to Germany, now Liberec) at the beginning of 1938, spoke as follows about the fate of German youth:
These young people - they learn nothing else but to think in German, act in German. And when these boys and girls come to our organizations at the age of ten and often only there for the first time receive and feel fresh air, after four years they go from the Jungfolk to the Hitler Youth, where we leave them for another four years, and then we do not give them into the hands of old parents and school teachers, but immediately accept them into the party or the Workers' Front, into the SA or SS, into NSKK, etc. And if they stay there for one and a half or two years and do not become complete National Socialists, then they will be called into “Labor Conscription” and will be polished for six to seven months with the help of some symbol - a German shovel. And what remains in six or seven months of class consciousness or class arrogance will be taken over by the Wehrmacht in the next two years. And when they return in two, or three, or four years, we will immediately take them into the SA, SS, etc., so that they will under no circumstances return to their old ways. And they will never be free again - for the rest of their lives.
Hitler Youth. 1938
Hitler Youth camp in the mountains 08/22/1938.
Miscellaneous
The organization was dissolved after the defeat of the Third Reich.
The Hitler Youth is a youth organization under the NSDAP, which was officially formed in 1926. The organization was headed by the Reich Youth Fuhrer, who reported directly to Adolf Hitler. Initially it was voluntary, but after the Nazis came to power it became mandatory for all male teenagers. The Hitler Youth had branches not only throughout Germany and in the countries conquered by the Germans, but also in the Axis powers - in Italy and Japan. During the Second World War, especially at its final stage, the Hitler regime decided to use the organization for military purposes. Initially, the younger Hitler Youth worked in the rear, and their older comrades were called up to the front. But on final stage wars began to put everyone, without exception, under arms. The organization ceased to exist immediately after the defeat of Germany, along with the dissolution of the Nazi Party.
Currently one of the most poorly studied and little-known pages World War concerns the role of children and adolescents participating in hostilities. One often hears that Soviet power and Stalin exterminated their own people, and Hitler and the Germans destroyed other peoples, but then it was Hitler’s regime that threw children and teenagers into the millstones of war. In the Red Army, the conscription age began at 18 years. Even in the most difficult times Soviet Union During the war, there was no reduction in the conscription age. Only the last conscription in 1944 began at the age of 17, but teenagers called up at this age mostly did not take part in battles, being used only in the rear in numerous auxiliary detachments and units.
Even during the most difficult months of the Great Patriotic War for the USSR Patriotic War, when German troops stood at the gates of Moscow and on the Volga, the conscription age in the Red Army was not lowered. And a completely different situation was observed in Germany. And although the conscription age for the Wehrmacht was not officially lowered below 18 years, it was the German combat units that took part in the hostilities that consisted of 16-17-year-old teenagers, and at the very end of the war even 12-year-old children could be found on the fronts.
At the same time, it is much easier for adults to bring children to a state of mindless submission and force them to fight fearlessly. Children are good fighters because they are young and eager to prove themselves. They believe that what is happening is some kind of game, which is why they are often so fearless. All this was fully characteristic of students of the Hitler Youth and those who, at the end of World War II, found themselves in Volkssturm units or Werwolf units (German militia for waging partisan warfare). As a result, even experienced Soviet front-line soldiers were often surprised by the fearlessness and belligerence demonstrated by German youth. Often these teenage soldiers threw themselves under tanks.
They could burn with fanatical persistence soviet tanks and Allied tanks, shot and shot down planes as part of anti-aircraft crews, shot unarmed captured soldiers, and some especially fanatical ones continued fighting and after May 9, 1945, shooting front-line soldiers from ambushes. Children and teenagers were often more violent than adults. Today this is still confirmed, but in Africa, where various paramilitary forces fight huge amount children, sometimes as young as 8 years old, who feel no pity for their enemies.
At the same time, little has been preserved of documentary evidence of war crimes that would have been committed by minor soldiers of the Wehrmacht and SS troops from among the pupils of the Hitler Youth during the Second World War. There are two explanations for this - the juvenile criminals themselves did not want to remember and brag about their “exploits” during the war. In addition, there was an unspoken taboo on the dissemination of such information in the USSR, and children and adolescents themselves were recognized as victims of the Hitler regime.
There was really little evidence of crime. So, for example, one of them refers to the memoirs of Lieutenant Colonel of the Allied forces Robert Daniel and concerns the liberation concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. It is perhaps the only documentary evidence of crimes committed by minor Nazis. According to the officer's recollections, he heard the sounds of shots and approached the fence of the concentration camp. There were four young SS men or even Hitler Youth students standing there, they all looked very young. They all shot at living people and corpses, while carefully aiming at the crotches of men and women, trying to cause them maximum pain. Robert Daniel shot three of them, and the fourth managed to escape. What happened to that “fourth”, how his fate turned out, and what kind of life he lived, now hardly anyone will know. But the fate of some members of the Hitler Youth is known to historians quite well.
To the pope and to the communists
For example, the previous Pope Benedict XVI in the world was called Joseph Alois Ratzinger. In 1941, at the age of 14, he joined the Hitler Youth, and later served in air and anti-tank defense units and in the infantry. A few days before Germany announced its surrender, he deserted and spent some time after the end of the war in an American prisoner of war camp. After his release from the camp, Joseph Ratzinger radically changed his life by entering a theological seminary and was ordained in 1951. In 1977 he became a cardinal and then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In 2005, after the death of John Paul II, he became the new pope.
Konstantin Aleksandrovich Zalessky, an employee of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies and a military historian, notes that the fate of Joseph Ratzinger is not only unique, but also to some extent typical for German teenagers during the war. German children who were intoxicated by Nazi propaganda in the Hitler Youth and, participating in armed resistance to the Allied forces on the Eastern and Western Fronts, became, in fact, victims of that war. Having already matured, many of them were able to reconsider their views regarding “Great Germany”.
Pope Benedict XVI
The fate of another famous German teenager, Alfred Cech, who was born in 1933, is also indicative. He was a member of the Jungvolk organization (a division of the Hitler Youth for teenagers under the age of 14). On April 20, 1945, this German boy was awarded the Iron Cross by Hitler himself, he received an award for saving the wounded German soldiers from under fire Soviet army. After the award, he was immediately sent to accelerated courses in handling, and later to the front, where he spent last weeks war. After not fighting for even a month, he was wounded and ended up in a prisoner of war camp, where he spent 2 years.
After returning home, he discovered that he would no longer live in Germany. His hometown of Goldenau was transferred to Poland. Having matured, the former member of the Hitler Youth, who received an award from Hitler, joined the Communist Party (who would have believed this even in 1945!). True, he did this in order to get the opportunity to emigrate to West Germany, where he worked the rest of his life as a construction worker. He had 10 children and more than 20 grandchildren.
Alfred Cech - the youngest holder of the Iron Cross 2nd class
German teenagers go to war
The defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad was one of the reasons for the involvement of members of the youth organization Hitler Youth in armed resistance to the advancing units of the Red Army and its allies - the USA and Great Britain. Already in January 1943, the service of German youth of pre-conscription age was established. Most often, we were talking about high school students who were recruited to serve in anti-aircraft artillery units by entire units of the Hitler Youth under the command of their “Jugendfuhrers”. Such teenagers were considered to be performing “youth service” and not real soldiers, although they actually served in the Wehrmacht. They also allowed adult anti-aircraft gunners to be sent to the front.
Apparently, these were the “cheapest” soldiers in Hitler’s army. Before they reached the age of 16, they received only 50 pfennigs for each day of service, and after reaching the age of 16 - 20 marks per month. In the final months of World War II, even girls began to be recruited to serve in air defense units. German teenagers were also recruited to serve in the Air Force, where in 1944 there were already 92 thousand young men who were sent here from the Hitler Youth; teenagers were also used in the navy.
From the end of 1944, Adolf Hitler authorized total mobilization in Germany. According to the personal order of the Fuhrer dated October 18, 1944, the entire male population aged 16 to 60 years who is not in military service is subject to mobilization. By May 1945, Germany managed to form approximately 700 Volkssturm battalions, which operated on the front line against Soviet troops. On the Eastern Front, some of these units provided fierce resistance to the advancing units of the Red Army. Volkssturm fighters distinguished themselves in the battles for the Prussian village of Neuendorf in November 1944. Their resistance was no less fierce in Bresslau, which they defended together with Wehrmacht units from January to May 1945; the city’s garrison capitulated only on May 6, 1945.
Since 1944, 16-year-old German boys have been sent to the slaughterhouse for the sake of their Fuhrer. But this threshold did not last long, and soon the Hitler Youth sent 12-15-year-old German children into battle. At the final stage of the war in Germany, they began to organize Werolf detachments, which were supposed to carry out sabotage in the rear of the Allied troops and conduct guerrilla warfare. Even after Germany surrendered and the war was over, some "werewolves", among whom were many children aged 14 years and above, continued to carry out their combat missions, since they did not receive an order to cancel them. At the same time, the fight against individual “werewolves” in East Germany and a number of other countries Eastern Europe continued almost until the early 1950s. Even while suffering a final defeat in the war, the Nazi regime carried away tens of thousands of children and adolescents into oblivion.
12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend"
One of the divisions German army, which was formed entirely from students of the Hitler Youth, became the 12th SS Panzer Division of the same name. On February 10, 1943, a decree was issued according to which the formation of the SS Hitler Youth division began; it was to consist of conscripts born in 1926 (age -17 years, previously only conscripts over the age of 23 were recruited into the SS troops). SS Oberführer Fritz Witt from the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler division was appointed commander of the new unit. Before September 1, 1943, more than 16 thousand members of the Hitler Youth were drafted into the new unit, all of them underwent special six-month training. In addition, more than a thousand SS veterans and experienced officers from Wehrmacht units were transferred to the new division. The total strength of the newly created unit exceeded 20 thousand people with 150 tanks.
With the start of Operation Overlord, this division found itself at the epicenter of the fighting in Normandy. The Hitlerjugend division, together with the 21st Panzer Division, turned out to be the German tank units closest to the Allied landing site. In the very first days of the battle in Normandy, the 12th SS Panzer Division was able to prove itself very brightly, inflicting significant losses on the Allied troops in manpower and equipment. In addition to its military successes, the division earned a bad reputation as ruthless fanatics not only among the enemy, but also among German troops. In the June battles in Normandy, both sides rarely took prisoners, military historians say.
Formation of the division's tankers during an inspection by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundsted, France, January 1944.
Indeed, the Canadians and the British behaved far differently than Captain Miller from the film Saving Private Ryan, who simply released a prisoner who had nowhere to go. The British and Canadian military sometimes killed German prisoners - especially in tank regiments that did not have sufficient infantry to escort prisoners to the rear. But there were more such cases on the conscience of the German troops. Already in the first days of the fighting in Normandy, the Germans executed at least 187 Canadian soldiers, most of these victims were accounted for by the SS Hitler Youth division. A French woman from Cannes, visiting her elderly aunt in Autie, discovered about 30 Canadian soldiers who had been shot and hacked to pieces by the Germans.
On June 14, 1944, the commander of the Hitler Youth division died, and was replaced by Kurt Meyer, who became the youngest division commander in World War II (33 years old). He would later be accused of committing numerous war crimes; among other things, he demanded that his units not take enemy soldiers prisoner. The Royal Winnipeg Fusiliers later discovered that the SS had shot 18 of their captured comrades who were being interrogated at Meyer's command post in Arden Abbey. At the same time, one captive, Major Hodge, had his head cut off.
A captured panzergrenadier of the division, taken prisoner by a Canadian reconnaissance company during the Battle of Caen. August 9, 1944
Ideologically, the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend" was one of the most fanatical units in the SS troops. Its soldiers perceived the killing of prisoners as retaliation for the bombing of German cities. The fanatical unit fought well, but by July 1944 it suffered significant losses. Over the course of a month of fighting, the division lost up to 60% of its original strength in killed, wounded and missing. Later, she ended up in the Falaise pocket, where she lost almost all of her equipment and heavy weapons, was subsequently withdrawn for reorganization and continued fighting until the end of the war. She took part in the offensive in the Ardennes, as well as in the battles near Lake Balaton.
Sources of information:
http://tvzvezda.ru/news/forces/content/201502220847-kobc.htm
http://spiegel.org.ua/text/articles/hellsinginfo02.htm
http://maxpark.com/community/14/content/3121771
Beevor E. Landing in Normandy. M: KoLibri, 2014.
1. Beginning.
Founded in 1926 as the youth division of the SA (storm troopers), the organization was first called the NSDAP Youth League (Jugendbund,NSDAP). Name "Hitler Youth" (Hitler-jugend) she received it a little later, at the party congress. In 1940, it consisted of eight million young Nazis*.
2. Their books.
Covers of children's books from the series "Military education of German youth". A very unique understanding of patriotism.
3. "Only for Aryans"
Created on a military model, the organization covered German youth aged 10 to 18 years and was divided into clear age categories. Junior group: boys from 10 to 14 years old - "German Youth" (Deutsches Jungvolk -DJ), 14 to 18 years old - Hitler Youth itself (Hitler-jugend -HJ). Women's organization within the Hitler Youth: girls aged 10 to 14 years - "Girls' Union" ( JungmädelbundJ.M.)
; from 14 to 18 years old - "Union of German Girls" ( Bund DeutscherMädel - BdM).
You can join the Hitler Youth from the age of ten, and from April 1939 such membership became mandatory, naturally, only for those of equal racial standing. Every year, on March 15, those who have reached the age of ten years register at the Imperial Youth Headquarters. After checking for “racial purity”, we receive a piece of paper - “free from shame” (!), then - “tests for boys” and a medical examination. And finally - the solemn admission procedure junior group- "Jungfolk", April 20, the Fuhrer's birthday. You are a pimpf (Pimpf).
4. Covers of "D" magazineerPimpf".
Funny pictures for "Jungfolk".
“Test of boys”: run 60 meters in 12 seconds, long jump 2.75 m, throw a ball at a distance of at least 25 m, be able to fold a hiking backpack, take part in an overnight camping trip. And sing "Horst Wessel's song".
5. Their posters.
How psychologically precisely the trap is built! You will be taught to shoot, drive a car, you will pass the standards for a sports badge - you will receive a driver's license. What boy doesn’t dream of a knife! And they will give you not just a knife - a bayonet-knife! Its handle is a copy of an army bayonet. Here it is! And what is the inscription on the blade - “Blood and Honor”. The SS gave the Hitler Youth one of its two Zig runes - symbols of future victory. Then the jokes will end. Blood and honor are the price you have to pay for the tchotchkes that unkind men in brown and black uniforms have hung on you.
6. Knife.
7. What were they taught?
At the age of 15 - joining the Hitler Youth and preparing for future military service. Since 1937 - shooting with firearms, driving a car, piloting a glider, even controlling a small ship or airplane and combat tactics in small units. From the age of 19 - compulsory 6-month labor service in labor camps, where they learned a profession and were taught iron discipline. This was followed by 2-3 years of service in the Wehrmacht. With the beginning of the war, air defense measures and firefighting began. By the end of September 1939, more than a million members of the Hitler Youth were employed in auxiliary positions in the Wehrmacht system.
All young people were under vigilant Nazi control from the ages of 10 to 21, practically separated from their families.
8. Their shape. Isn’t this what they want to introduce in our schools?
“These young people - they will not learn anything other than to think in German, act in German. And when these boys and girls come to our organizations at the age of ten - only there they receive and feel fresh air for the first time, after four years they get from the Jungvolk to the Hitler Youth, we [...] accept them into the party or the Labor Front, the SA or the SS. And if they [...] do not become complete National Socialists, then they will be drafted into the Labor. conscription" and they will polish their skills for six to seven months with the help of another symbol - the German shovel. And what remains after six or seven months of their class consciousness or class arrogance will be taken over by the Wehrmacht in the next two years. And when they. will return [...] we will take them to the SA, SS, so that they will under no circumstances return to their old ways.
And they will never be free again - for the rest of their lives!"
From A. Hitler's speech in Reichenberg, 1938
9. Hitler Youth badges.
Very high quality execution - "bundmetal", hot enamel. You immediately understand why they called their Reich a thousand years old.
10. In battle.
Since 1943, the conscription of 17-year-olds into the Wehrmacht and their direct participation in battles began. However, the most radical and dramatic episode is the decision of 17 and 18-year-old boys to serve in the 12th SS Division "Hitler Youth". The young fanatics fought more fiercely than the veterans, and in less than a month the division lost 60% of its personnel, having fought its way out of the Falaise pocket.
12
SS-
Panzer-
Division"
Hitlerjugend"
(12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend").
Formed from youth conscription volunteers in 1943. The first battles took place in the area of Caen and Falaise, France. After reorganization - participation in the Ardennes operation. In January 1945, she was redeployed to Hungary and retreated to Austria. Of the original strength of 21 thousand 300 people, 455 surrendered to the Americans on May 8. With the only surviving tank.
"UnusualAino active, powerful, cruel youth - this is what I will leave behind. In our knightly castles we will growm youth, before whom the world will tremble [...] Youth should be indifferent to pain. There should be no weakness or tenderness in her. I want to see in her gaze the sparkle of a predatory beast [...]"
Adolf Hitler.
11. Captivity.
12. From history - Children's Crusade.
In 1212, at the height of the Crusades, the French shepherd Stephen from Cloix had a vision - Jesus himself appeared to him and ordered him to stand at the head of a new Crusade, in which only children would take part, so that without weapons, with the name of God on their lips, he would conquer , which does not work for adults. Little children will come to the Holy Land, the pagans, seeing them, will be ashamed and immediately give it to the Christians - an absolutely brilliant plan. Thirty thousand children from all over France gathered in Vendôme to go to Palestine. Pope Innocent III was delighted: “The children are watching while we sleep!” he exclaimed. Children from Germany had it the worst of all; there were about twenty-five thousand of them - most of them died while crossing the snow-covered Alps. Good merchants, having learned about the children, provided their ships free of charge to deliver them to Jerusalem. True, the ships sailed to the shores of Algeria, where the children were sold into slavery...
Original
*Data from the website:
After the publication of a selection of posters dedicated to, I wanted to delve into the youth topic and look at what the process of implementing the organizational unity of young citizens was like under Nazi Germany. |
They fought for Hitler: the bloody “exploits” of the Hitler Youth
Little documentary evidence of crimes committed by juvenile Wehrmacht soldiers from the Hitler Youth (Hitler's children - a Nazi youth organization) during the Great Patriotic War has been preserved. There are two explanations for this - the juvenile delinquents themselves never boasted in their memoirs about the “exploits” they accomplished in the service of Hitler. And besides this, there probably was and is an unspoken taboo on information about how 10-15-year-old Hitler Youth burned our soldiers alive in tanks, shot down our planes, shot unarmed prisoners, and, finally, after May 9, 1945, aimed at sniper scopes on the front-line soldiers celebrating the Victory.
The recollection of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Daniel of the Allied forces about the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is almost the only documentary evidence of the crimes of the Nazi minors: “I heard the pop of shots and went to the fence. There were four people standing there, young SS men, maybe even Hitler Youth; they looked very young. They shot at corpses and living people, carefully aiming at the crotches of men and women in order to inflict maximum pain. I shot three of them, and the fourth ran away.” What happened to that “fourth” is now unlikely to ever be established. How this man’s fate turned out, who he became and how he lived his life is unknown. IN modern history there are only a few reliably known biographies former members Hitler Youth.
Benedict XVI Pope
The real name of Pope Benedict XVI is Joseph Alois Ratzinger. In 1941, Joseph Ratzinger Jr., at the age of 14, joined the Hitler Youth, and later served in air defense, anti-tank defense, and infantry units. A few days before the surrender of Germany, he deserted and spent some time after the war in an American prisoner of war camp. After his release, Joseph Ratzinger entered the theological seminary; ordained in 1951. In 1977 he becomes a cardinal, then the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and in 2005, after the death of John Paul II, he becomes Pope.
IN exclusive interview Konstantin Aleksandrovich Zalessky, a military historian and employee of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, took on the Zvezda TV channel to comment on the history of the Hitler Youth: “Of course, the fate of Joseph Ratzinger is unique, but it is also typical in some ways! German children, intoxicated by Nazi propaganda in the Hitler Youth, participating in armed resistance, in fact, themselves became victims of that war. Having matured, many of them revised their views on “Greater Germany”.
Albert Cech, a German, born in 1933, is a member of the Jungvolk (a division of the Hitler Youth, which includes teenagers under 14 years old), on April 20, 1945, at the age of 12, he was awarded the Iron Cross by Hitler himself for saving wounded German soldiers from under the fire of the Soviet army. After the award, he was immediately sent to accelerated courses in weapons handling, and later to the front. After not fighting for even a month, he was wounded and ended up in a prisoner of war camp, where he spent two years. Upon returning home, he discovered that he would no longer live in Germany - Goldenau, his hometown, had passed to Poland. As he grew older, he joined the Polish Communist Party in order to obtain permission to emigrate to West Germany, where he lives to this day.
“Temper like steel!”
A little-known fact is that Adolf Hitler never managed to learn to ride a bicycle in his entire life. At the same time, the leader of the Third Reich made special demands on the physical health of members of the Hitler Youth. “The students of this organization had to prove their courage. For example, those who could not swim were forced to jump into the water from a three-meter springboard. They were pulled to the ground only after the unfortunate jumpers managed to dive under the water a couple of times and float to the surface again,” says historian Zalessky.
A former student of Adolf Hitler's school in the city of Sonthofen, Hardy Krueger, describes an even more risky test: “One winter, my platoon made two large holes in the thick ice of a frozen lake. The distance between the ice holes is almost 10 meters. The task is to jump into the ice hole and swim under the ice to another hole.” All these tests corresponded to the attitude towards the younger generation in Nazi Germany. Hitler formulated the task for the parents of “real Aryans” back in 1933: “Your child already belongs to us today. And you? You haven’t made up your mind yet, but your offspring are already in the new camp.”
1943 Hitler Youth takes up arms
Losing Battle of Stalingrad became one of the reasons for the involvement of Hitler Youth members in the armed resistance of the advancing troops of the Red Army and its allies - Great Britain and the USA.
“In January 1943, a service for pre-conscription-age youth was established. As a rule, these were high school students who were recruited to serve in anti-aircraft artillery units by entire units of the Hitler Youth, under the command of their “Jugendfuhrers.” They were considered to be performing “youth service” rather than soldiers, but actually served in the Wehrmacht; making it possible to send adult anti-aircraft gunners to the front. These were, apparently, the “cheapest” soldiers of Hitler’s army - before reaching the age of 16 they were paid 50 pfennigs per day of service: and after this age - 20 marks per month. At the final stage of the war, even girls began to be recruited to serve in air defense units. Teenagers were also recruited to serve in the air force (in 1944, 92 thousand young men sent here from the Hitler Youth served here), and teenagers were also recruited into the navy,” says military historian Zalessky.
Even experienced Russian front-line soldiers were surprised by the belligerence of German youth. “They fearlessly threw themselves under the tanks. It was indescribable. They really were children,” says Great Patriotic War veteran Alexander Semenovich Martyshko. “I was 17 years old at the time, but among us there were fifteen-year-olds and even younger ones. Without looking back they walked towards death. And on many streets they managed to repel Russian attacks. After the battle, children in their Hitler Youth uniform remained lying on the pavement,” Gerd Hefner, one of the members of this Nazi organization, later recalled.
Hans-Dietrich Nikolaisen remembers how he, too, was sent into battle: “We were armed with French rifles of incredible length. The cartridges had to be stuffed into coat pockets. We didn't have bandoliers. Each one had a grenade launcher. The charges were stuffed into his pants pockets. We put hand grenades in our belts. In this form we went to the positions.” But the Hitler Youth, despite all this, was eager to fight, and “Hitler’s children” fought, judging by the memoirs of veterans, with desperate cruelty. Former Red Army soldier Vasily Manturov experienced the danger posed by them during the battle at the Anhalt station in Berlin: “One of them fired from a Faustpatron and wounded me. It was little boy in the form of the Hitler Youth."
12th SS Panzer Division - "Hitler Youth"
The idea of creating a Waffen SS division from members of the Hitler Youth appeared in early 1943. Himmler, the head of the SS, was delighted with it; the Fuhrer was in full agreement with him, and on February 10, 1943, an official decree was issued on the creation of the 12th SS Panzer Division - Hitler Youth. “In the summer of 1943, more than 10 thousand people had already gathered in training camps specially created for this purpose to undergo training and get into the division. The guys recruited there were mainly those born in 1926,” says military historian Konstantin Zalessky.
On June 6, 1943, the joint Anglo-American Operation Overlord began. In the very first days, the 12th SS Panzer Division - the Hitler Youth - showed itself very clearly, inflicting great damage on the Allies with minimal damage to itself and earning a reputation as ruthless fanatics not only among opponents, but also among German troops. “Cruelty reigned on both sides, and both of them rarely took prisoners,” says the military historian. During 1 month of service, the division lost 60% of its people killed, wounded and missing. Immediately after this, the unit was thrown into the Falaise region, where the Hitler Youth again held back the Allied forces for a whole month, allowing German troops to escape the encirclement. Losses amounted to 80%.
“After this, the division was quickly replenished - with those who came to hand - pilots, sailors, wounded discharged from hospitals - and junior Hitler Youth members, who were immediately thrown into battle: in the Battle of the Bulge, in an unsuccessful attempt to recapture Bucharest...”, says historian Zalessky. Some members of the Hitler Youth were accused of war crimes, but these were children - so no one made any special effort to bring them to justice.
Photo “for memory”
Well-preserved photographic documents show those same Hitler Youth fighters, not just tankers. Here is an English soldier guarding two so-called “tank destroyers”. He is armed with a STEN Mk.III submachine gun, and on his shoulder is a German StG 44 assault rifle “confiscated” from teenagers. Bicycles with pairs of “Panzerfaust” cartridges attached to them are visible in the foreground and to the right. Similar bicycle tank destroyer units were widely used in the last months of the war in Germany.
These photographs show young SS men, tank crews of the 12th Hitler Youth Division. The pictures were taken in the vicinity of the French village of Rho. There is no fear, much less remorse, in their poses or in their eyes.