EN:Hitler Youth (HJ), 1926-1945
From Historisches Lexikon Bayerns
Programmatic term for the entire NS youth organisation with its subdivisions, consisting of Jungvolk (JV) (German Youngsters in the Hitler Youth), Hitlerjugend (HJ) (Hitler Youth), Jungmädelbund (JM) (Young Girls' League), Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM) (League of German Girls), and various special units (e.g. Motor-HJ (Motor Hitler Youth), Marine-HJ (Navy Hitler Youth), Flieger-HJ (Flyer Hitler Youth). In 1938, the BDM organisation introduced a publication called “Glaube und Schönheit” (Faith and Beauty) for women aged 17 to 21. From 1933, the entire HJ was developed into a de facto totalitarian state youth organisation but was only sanctioned as such de iure in 1936. Membership was compulsory from 1939 on. The principle of "youth is led by youth" could largely be realized and contributed to the organisation's appeal. However, achieving the desired total integration of German youth proved impossible. Provincial and Catholic regions in Bavaria posed a particular challenge. Under the Control Council Act of 10 October 1945, the Hitler Youth (HJ) was dissolved along with the NSDAP and its other subdivisions.
Organisation
The first Reichsführer (Reich leader) of the Hitler Youth was Kurt Gruber (1904–1943), who led the organisation from Plauen (seat of the HJ Reichsleitung, relocated to Munich in 1931). In 1931, he was replaced by Adrian Theodor von Renteln (1897–1946), the former leader of the NS-Schülerbund (NS Schoolchildren's League). Baldur von Schirach (1907–1974), previously the leader of the NS-Studentenbund (NS Students’ Union), was appointed Reich Youth Leader of the NSDAP on 30 October 1931 and Reich Youth Leader of the German Reich on 17 June 1933. He was succeeded in 1940 by Artur Axmann (1913–1996). The head of the entire Hitler Youth was the Reichsjugendführung (Reich Youth Leadership) based in Berlin. This body included the Bund Deutscher Mädel or BDM (League of German Girls) Reich Officer responsible for "girls' work" (1934–1937: Trude Bürkner [1902–1989], 1937–1945: Jutta Rüdiger [1910–2001]), who was subordinate to the Reich Youth Leader.
The Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth, HJ) consisted of several subdivisions: the Jungvolk (German Youngsters in the Hitler Youth, JV, ages 10–14, founded in 1931), the Hitler Youth itself (HJ, ages 14–18, founded on 4 July 1926, and subordinate to the Sturmabteilung [SA] until 1932), the Jungmädel (Young Girls' League, JM, ages 10–14), and the Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls, BDM, ages 14–18, founded in 1930). Additionally, there were various special units such as Motor-HJ (Motor Hitler Youth ), Marine-HJ (Navy Hitler Youth), and Flieger-HJ (Flyer Hitler Youth). In 1938, the BDM organisation introduced a publication called “Glaube und Schönheit” (Faith and Beauty) for women aged 17 to 21.
Territorially, the Hitler Youth was divided into “Gebiete” (areas), and the BDM into “Obergaue” (upper districts), with the number steadily increasing (1934: 22; 1936/7: 25; 1939: 36; and 1941-1945: 42). The regional structure aligned with the district organisation of the NSDAP. For instance, Bavaria was divided into the HJ areas of Franconia, which was further split into Main Franconia and Franconia from 1941, Bavarian Ostmark, renamed Bayreuth in 1942, Swabia, Hochland, and Saarpfalz, renamed Westmark in 1939. These were hierarchically divided into “Banne” (bands or units), “Stämme” (tribes), “Gefolgschaften” (troops), “Scharen” (squads), and “Kameradschaften”(comradeships), while the BDM was similarly subdivided into “Obergau” (upper district), “Untergau” (lower district), “Mädelring” (girl's circle), “Mädelgruppe” (girl's group), “Mädelschar” (girl's squad), and “Mädelschaft” (girl's fellowship). Due to his extensive roles, Emil Klein (1905-2010, including head of the HJ Hochland region from 1935-1939 and head of staff in the Bavarian State Ministry for Education and Culture from 1939) was considered the "highest Bavarian Hitler Youth leader" (Buddrus). He organised the only Jewish pogrom in Munich initiated by the Hitler Youth in November 1938, as well as the Hochland camps (large tent camps held in the Bavarian Oberland starting in 1934). Important staging grounds for the Hitler Youth in Bavaria other than Munich as the “Capital of the Movement,” were Nuremberg as the “City of the Reich Party Rallies,” Landsberg as the “City of Youth,” and Bamberg as the “City of the BDM” were also.
Tasks and methods
In contrast to the youth associations of the Weimar Republic, the Hitler Youth had to fulfil both social and state tasks. It was meant to shape the youth according to Nazi ideology while simultaneously serving as an “essential means of securing power” (Klönne). Although this represented a break from the independent self-image of the German youth movement before 1933, the Hitler Youth claimed to continue its legacy. There had hardly been any cooperation between the Hitler Youth and other youth organisations before 1933, as the Hitler Youth was not represented in the Reich Committee of German Youth Associations. In establishing and expanding its monopoly on youth work, the Hitler Youth deliberately retained the German youth movements traditions (e.g., the principle of self-management) and personnel structure (former “Bund” leaders were only removed in 1936) in order to obscure the central control and organisation of the Hitler Youth service. The aim was to impart political and ideological content, with the Hitler Youth focusing on pre-military training, while the BDM concentrated not only on physical activities but also on domestic preparation for their future role as mothers. To this end, the youth—alongside the regular Hitler Youth service—were involved in an extensive action programme (including the organisation of trips and camps, as well as the staging of competitions and cultural events), which was specifically tailored to their interests and needs. Hitler Youth education thus tended to establish itself as a new and, for young people, attractive counterforce to the traditional norms of educational authorities (school, family, and church), with the goal of ultimately eliminating them.
The beginnings of the Hitler Youth until 1933
The forerunner of the Hitler Youth is considered to be the “Jugendbund der NSDAP” (Youth League of the NSDAP) founded in Munich in 1922 and banned just one year later. It was led by Gustav Adolf Lenk (1903-1987) and had 200-300 members across Bavaria. The official founding of the Hitler Youth took place on 4 July 1926, at the second NSDAP party congress in Weimar. The Greater German Youth Movement was recognised as the only party youth organisation and, at the suggestion of Julius Streicher (1885-1946), was renamed the “Hitlerjugend, Bund Deutscher Arbeiterjugend” (Hitler Youth, League of German Workers' Youth). From 1926, girls were included in the so-called "sisterhoods" of the Hitler Youth and transferred to the BDM in 1930. In Bavaria, the first Hitler Youth groups were established in Franconia starting in 1926. Thanks to numerous new foundations (e.g., in Munich in November 1927), the Hitler Youth was present in all major Bavarian cities by the end of 1928, as well as with girl groups by 1930. In addition to organisational and structural shortcomings (e.g., lack of qualified leaders, dire financial situation), the development of the Hitler Youth in its early days was hindered by the rigid restrictions imposed by the Bavarian authorities (particularly regarding the organisation of school-age children). During the "Kampfzeit,” (fighting time) the Hitler Youth did not engage in actual youth work but supported the political agitation of the party in the "function of a youth division of the SA" (Klönne). Following the SA ban in 1932, its activities, which could only be continued illegally or through front organisations, came to an almost complete halt.
Despite intensive recruitment campaigns, the Hitler Youth in Bavaria was only able to gradually increase its membership numbers (around 70,000 in total by the end of 1932, with just under 2,000 Hitler Youth members in Bavaria). Among the issues were the traditional and mostly Catholic population structure, as well as the dominance of the modern Catholic youth movement (e.g., Quickborn, Deutsche Jugendkraft). Until 1933 then, the Hitler Youth remained insignificant compared to the Bund organisations and the Catholic youth associations that had already been established in Bavaria.
The Hitler Youth as state youth (1933-1939)
When the National Socialists came to power, the Hitler Youth sought to instantiate its claim to monopoly in the area of youth work. By mid-1933, all other youth organisations, except Catholic associations (which were not definitively banned until 1938), were either dissolved or integrated into the Hitler Youth. By 1939 the scope of the Hitler Youth’s activities was also expanded to encompass nearly all aspects of life. Its ambition to position itself as the dominant educational authority culminated in the Law on the Hitler Youth of 1 December 1936. According to this law, the Hitler Youth was solely responsible for the entire “physical, mental, and moral” education of young people outside the school and parental home, further exacerbating the tense relationship with these institutions.
After 1933, all these measures led to rapid growth in Hitler Youth membership, which remained technically voluntary until 1939 but became mandatory for access to many areas of public life, such as university admission, apprenticeships, and training. Its membership figures rose from around 100,000 to around 3.5 million, to 5.4 million in 1934/5, 5.8 million in 1936, and by the end of 1937 and 1938 even to 7 million. In Bavaria, too, the Hitler Youth grew from around 500,000 in 1934/5 to around 626,000 in 1936 and to almost 1 million members by the end of 1937. In comparison to the high level of organisation in the Franconian Protestant and urban areas of Bavaria (e.g. Nuremberg: about 70-80% of Hitler Youth members in 1936), it was able to recruit far fewer members in rural areas, smaller towns, and certain types of schools (e.g. only 44% of pupils in Bavarian elementary and commercial schools were Hitler Youth members in 1936). In the rural Catholic provinces, the Hitler Youth was often opposed by the “anti-modern traditionalism” (Klönne) of the population, whose rejection was directed at the organisation of girls in the BDM, among other things. This attitude was further reinforced by the anti-church agitation of the Hitler Youth, which in some areas even led to violent conflicts with Catholic youth. It was not until the second implementing ordinance of the Hitler Youth law, the so-called Youth Service Ordinance of March 3, 1939, that Hitler Youth service became mandatory for all boys and girls between the ages of ten and eighteen. As it was now on an equal footing with military service and labour service, refusals could be punished. After the introduction of compulsory membership, nearly all young people became members of the Hitler Youth, which Nazi propaganda presented as a 100% success. The law marked the culmination of the totalitarian development of the Hitler Youth, which had already begun in 1933.
The Hitler Youth during the war (1939-1945)
During the war years, the Hitler Youth was also mobilised. Its tasks included social and agricultural relief services, collecting raw materials, air raid protection, and the “Kinderlandverschickung” (Children's evacuation programme ). It was directly involved in the war as anti-aircraft helpers, in the elite unit “12th SS Panzer Division Hitler Youth,” and in the “Volkssturm” (German national militia). As late as 1943, around 96,000 Bavarian Hitler Youth members were not integrated into any of these schemes. With the transition of the Hitler Youth into a military-like compulsory organisation, its functional weaknesses became more pronounced, and it lost further appeal. At the same time, starting in 1939 and especially in the final phase of the war, the tendency among Bavarian youth to distance themselves from the Hitler Youth and their potential for resistance to state-imposed work and educational norms grew. In rural areas of Bavaria, this even led to a complete breakdown of Hitler Youth education in some places. Alongside other non-conformist forms of expression (e.g. the “White Rose”), youth cliques, with boundaries that often blurred into asocial behaviour and criminality, emerged as an urban counter-movement to the Hitler Youth, , in Bavaria, too (including in Munich, Nuremberg, Würzburg, Augsburg, and Landshut), , The “Blasen” (bubbles), which were particularly active in Munich and recruited from the working class, were especially significant. The Hitler Youth patrol service (introduced in 1934) was also deployed to combat this youth clique culture and the associated rise in juvenile delinquency. Another means of repression was the tightened juvenile penal code introduced in 1940, with sanctions ranging from detention to the death penalty. Until 1945, the numerically small groups outside the Hitler Youth remained a persistent problem, as they further endangered the already weakened Hitler Youth organisation, which had been devastated by the war.
References
- Hans-Christian Brandenburg, Die Geschichte der HJ. Wege und Irrwege einer Generation, Köln 1968.
- Michael Buddrus, Totale Erziehung für den totalen Krieg. Hitlerjugend und nationalsozialistische Jugendpolitik (Texte und Materialien zur Zeitgeschichte), Band 13/1 u. 13/2, München 2003.
- Michael H. Kater, Hitlerjugend, Darmstadt 2005.
- Martin Klaus, Mädchen im Dritten Reich. Der Bund Deutscher Mädel, Köln 1989.
- Arno Klönne, Jugend im Dritten Reich. Die Hitlerjugend und ihre Gegner. Dokumente und Analysen, Düsseldorf 1982.
- Arno Klönne, Jugendprotest und Jugendopposition. Von der HJ-Erziehung zum Cliquenwesen der Kriegszeit, in: Martin Broszat/Elke Fröhlich/Anton Grossmann (Hg.), Bayern in der NS-Zeit. 4. Band: Herrschaft und Gesellschaft im Konflikt (Teil C), München 1981, 527-620.
- Mathias Rösch, Die Münchner NSDAP 1925-1933. Eine Untersuchung zur inneren Struktur der NSDAP in der Weimarer Republik (Studien zur Zeitgeschichte 63), München 2002.
- Mathias Rösch, "...außerdem werden Mädchen wie Hänsel und Gretel vorgeführt". Nationalsozialistische Jugendorganisationen in München vor 1933, in: Harald Parigger/Bernhard Schoßig/Evamaria Brockhoff (Hg.), "Schön ist die Jugendzeit...?". Das Leben junger Leute in Bayern 1899-2001 (Veröffentlichungen zur Bayerischen Geschichte und Kultur 27), Augsburg 1994, 51-54.
- Christoph Schubert-Weller, Hitlerjugend. Vom "Jungsturm Adolf Hitler" zur Staatsjugend des Dritten Reiches, München/Weinheim 1993.
- Peter D. Stachura, Nazi Youth in the Weimar Republic (Studies in Comparative Politics 5), Santa Barbara 1975.
- Thomas Wagner, Hochlandlager 1934 Aidling/Riegsee. Erstes Großzeltlager der Hitlerjugend im bayerischen Oberland. Dokumentation, Sankt Ottilien 2005.
- Thomas Wagner, "Zum Sterben für Deutschland geboren". Die Hitlerjugend in Südbayern und ihre Hochlandlager, München 2013.
Sources
- Generaldirektion der Staatlichen Archive Bayerns (Hg.), Widerstand und Verfolgung in Bayern 1933-1945. Hilfsmittel. 1.-7. Band, München 1975- 1977.
- Gisela Miller-Kipp (Hg.), "Auch Du gehörst dem Führer". Die Geschichte des Bundes Deutscher Mädel (BDM) in Quellen und Dokumenten (Materialien zur Historischen Jugendforschung), München/Weinheim 2. Auflage 2002.
Further Research
- Keyword search in the online catalogue of the Bibliotheksverbund Bayern (Library Network Bavaria)
- Keyword search in bavarikon
External Links
Related Articles
Hitler-Jugend, Jungvolk (JV), Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM), Jungmädelbund (JM)
Cite
Tessa Sauerwein, Hitler Youth (HJ), 1926-1945, published 09 October 2006, English translation published 27 February 2025; in: Historisches Lexikon Bayerns, URL: <https://www.historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de/Lexikon/EN:Hitler_Youth_(HJ),_1926-1945> (17.03.2025)