Hitler Youth
eBook - PDF

Hitler Youth

  1. 366 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Hitler Youth

About this book

In modern times, the recruitment of children into a political organization and ideology reached its boldest embodiment in the Hitler Youth, founded in 1933 soon after the Nazi Party assumed power in Germany. Determining that by age ten children's minds could be turned from play to politics, the regime inducted nearly all German juveniles between the ages of ten and eighteen into its state-run organization. The result was a potent tool for bending young minds and hearts to the will of Adolf Hitler.

Baldur von Schirach headed a strict chain of command whose goal was to shift the adolescents' sense of obedience from home and school to the racially defined Volk and the Third Reich. Luring boys and girls into Hitler Youth ranks by offering them status, uniforms, and weekend hikes, the Nazis turned campgrounds into premilitary training sites, air guns into machine guns, sing-alongs into marching drills, instruction into indoctrination, and children into Nazis. A few resisted for personal or political reasons, but the overwhelming majority enlisted.

Drawing on original reports, letters, diaries, and memoirs, Kater traces the history of the Hitler Youth, examining the means, degree, and impact of conversion, and the subsequent fate of young recruits. Millions of Hitler Youth joined the armed forces; thousands gleefully participated in the subjugation of foreign peoples and the obliteration of "racial aliens." Although young, they committed crimes against humanity for which they cannot escape judgment. Their story stands as a harsh reminder of the moral bankruptcy of regimes that make children complicit in crimes of the state.

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Information

Publisher
Harvard University Press
Year
2009
Print ISBN
9780674019911
9780674014961
eBook ISBN
9780674039353
Topic
History
Subtopic
20th Century History
Index
History
and 
saw 
Riefenstahl’s 
lm 
repeatedly 
at 
the 
theater. 
“He 
was 
illumi-
nated 
and 
revered: 
the 
Fßhrer, 
my
Führer.”
292
All 
of 
this 
demagoguery 
was 
well 
engineered, 
and 
for 
a 
higher 
pur-
pose. 
The 
Third 
Reich 
needed 
its 
young 
generation 
to 
continue 
what 
it
now 
was 
molding 
as 
tradition, 
to 
ensure 
a 
fresh 
reservoir 
of 
leaders 
for
the 
most 
ambitious—and 
of 
obedient 
followers 
for 
the 
more 
compla-
cent. 
Above 
all, 
it 
needed 
young 
Germans 
to 
ght, 
sooner 
rather 
than
later, 
against 
foes 
who 
had 
long 
been 
excoriated 
by 
propaganda. 
Con-
tinued 
allegiance 
to 
Hitler, 
of 
the 
kind 
Schirach 
had 
shown 
since 
1925,
was 
key 
in 
this 
effort. 
The 
Reich 
Youth 
Leader 
expressed 
it 
succinctly
when 
he 
said, 
in 
1939: 
“We 
are 
marching 
to 
the 
Führer—and 
if 
he
wants 
us 
to, 
we 
shall 
also 
march 
for 
him!”
293
Serving 
in 
the 
Hitler
Youth
69

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. 1 “Make Way, You Old Ones!”
  3. 2 Serving in the Hitler Youth
  4. 3 German Girls for Matrimony and Motherhood
  5. 4 Dissidents and Rebels
  6. 5 Hitler’s Youth at War
  7. 6 The Responsibility of Youth
  8. Abbreviations
  9. Notes
  10. Acknowledgments
  11. Index

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Yes, you can access Hitler Youth by Michael H. Kater,Michael H. KATER in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & 20th Century History. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.