The German Youth Party: The Hitler Youth Movement

From the 1920s onwards, the Nazi Party targeted German youth as the sole audience for its propaganda messages. Millions of Germany’s young were won over by Nazism in the classroom and through the use of extra-curricular activities such as the Hitler youth movement. When it originally began in 1922, the Hitler Youth movement was Munich-based only and its purpose served to prepare men that were too young to join the Nazi party itself. Throughout the 1920’s the Hitler youth was branded as street brawlers and vandals. It was only when the Nazi party started to struggle to achieve electoral success that the youth movement began to develop into a much more serious force. In 1923, the organization reached just over one thousand members. In 1925, the membership grew to over

5,000. Five years later, national Hitler Youth membership rapidly spiralled to 25,000. At the end of 1928, A meeting was called for the entire of Hitler Youth leadership to re-structure the organisation. As a resulted, the addition of a new section for boys aged 10 to 14, later known as the Jungvolk. A separate branch was set up for young women of the same age, later called League of German Girls, or BDM.

By the end of 1932, several weeks before the Nazi’s seized power, the number of children involved in Hitler youth was at 107,956. But by the end of 1933, the Hitler Youth had just above 2,300,000 members. This later led to the increased to more than 2 million. The Nazis took advantage of the natural enthusiasm of young people, their craving for action and desire for peer approval, ultimately hoping that each young person would come to regard his or her Hitler Youth or BDM section as a home away from home. Any children that were not enrolled into the Hitler youth or BMD could not participate in any sporting activity. With this, in1936 membership for the Hitler Youth increased to 5.4 million before it became mandatory for membership in 1939. The German authorities then prohibited or dissolved competing youth organisations and upon reaching the age of eighteen, boys were required to enlist immediately in the armed forces or into the Reich Labor Service, for which their activities in the Hitler Youth had well prepared them. Propaganda materials called for ever more extreme dedication to Nazi

ideology. On December 1st, 1936, a law was enacted which made it mandatory for all German youths to be educated according to the philosophies of Nationalist Socialism from the age of 10 and older. This was called the ‘Reichsjugenddienstpflicht’, mandatory youth service.
By the end of 1939 the Hitler Youth became the largest youth organisation in the world with over 7.3 million strong within its ranks. A new law was issued on March 25, 1939, enrolling any remaining adolescents into the organisation. The Nazis gave warnings to parents stating that unless their children were enrolled they would be forcibly taken and placed in the custody of state run orphanages; unfortunately for many families and adolescents, loyalty to fuhrer far outweighed the loyalty to family