Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: The new Nazi Youth League attracted

very few members at first.

They competed against numerous other well-established youth

groups.

In May 1922, the Nazis held a meeting at the Bürgerbraukeller,

a large beer hall in Munich.

At this meeting, the foundation of the Nazi Youth League

was proclaimed.

However, that meeting attracted only 17 youths.

Membership into the Jugendbund was only

for qualified Aryan German youths who were

between 14 and 18 years of age.

All foreigners, adherents of the Jewish faith,

and other racially inferior people

were automatically excluded from joining.

Every approved Jugendbund member had

to swear his personal allegiance first to Adolf Hitler,

second to the 11 covenants of the Jugendbund,

and finally to the political program of the NSDAP,

or Nazi Party.

Weekly meetings were held, which featured

lectures and discussions.

Every second Sunday was spent in mandatory hiking trips

across the countryside.

The League also established its own libraries for members that

excluded trashy literature.

The first uniforms were copied from the brown-shirted SA.

This caused resentment among the younger SA members,

who sometimes were confused with Youth League members.

The Jugendbund's earliest public appearance

occurred on 2 September 1922 at the Sedan

Remembrance Day in Nuremberg.

It is estimated that about 900 Jugendbund

members attended this event.

At this rally, Jungsturm Adolf Hitler

marched past Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking Nazi Party

leaders.

During the course of the day, Adolf Hitler

presented his Jugendbund with its first flag.

The Nazis were based in Munich, in the German state of Bavaria.

Munich was a hotbed of political groups violently opposed

to the German democratic government,

known as the Weimar Republic, which was based in Berlin.

By November 1923, the Nazis, with 55,000 followers,

were the biggest and best organized political party.

Nazi members demanded revolutionary action.

The result was Hitler's Beer Hall

Putsch, in which he attempted to seize power in Bavaria.

On November 9, the column of 3,000 Nazis, led by Hitler,

marched toward the center of Munich but soon

encountered a police blockade.

Shots rang out.

16 Nazis and three police were killed.

Hitler fled the scene, then hid out

in the attic of a friend's home, until he

was arrested two days later.

Other Nazi leaders were arrested or fled the country

to avoid prosecution.

Hitler went to prison.

The German democratic government officially

disbanded the Nazi Party and its Youth League.

Most observers thought they had seen the last of Hitler.

Following the failed Beer Hall Putsch and Hitler's arrest,

the Nazi Party and the Youth League of the Nazi Party

were outlawed.

After his release from prison, Hitler

announced he would reform the Nazi Party

and invited all German nationalists

to join the revitalized party with him

as its undisputed leader.

In 1924, Kurt Gruber, a 21-year-old law student

who had joined the Nazi Party in 1923,

became leader of the youth.

Gruber introduced the first Hitler Youth style uniforms.

These uniforms featured a brown shirt, black shorts,

and a unique armband with a Nazi swastika, minus

the white circular background.

The armband also had a white horizontal stripe

attached to it.

This was so the youth members were

easier to distinguish from brown-shirted stormtroopers

or SA.

The SA resented being confused with the youths.

For Hitler, 1925 was a year spent successfully rebuilding

the Nazi Party and consolidating his position

as its absolute leader.

Amid the success, Hitler called for his first mass rally

since his release from prison.

He chose the city of Weimar, located in the German state

of Thuringia, which was one of the few states where he

could legally speak in public.

On 3 July 1926, a two-day Nazi rally began and was attended

by youth group members.

On Sunday, 4 July, at the suggestion of Julius Streicher,

Gruber's Greater German Youth Movement was

renamed as the Hitler-Jugend.

Thus, the Hitler Youth was born.

Kurt Gruber was officially proclaimed as its first leader.

All other independent National Socialist youth associations,

including groups in Austria, were now

absorbed into the Hitler Youth organization.

New guidelines stipulated that all Hitler Youth members

over age 18 had to be Nazi Party members, that appointments

to high-ranking positions required party approval,

that Hitler youths must obey all commands issued

by any Nazi Party leader, that they would pay a membership

fee of four pfennigs per month, and that they would wear

standardized uniforms designed to avoid confusion

with stormtrooper uniforms.

To raise money, the Hitler Youth went on long marches,

where they asked for contributions

from the local citizens.

These marches always included the attention-getting, rousing

singing of Hitler Youth boys.

[NON-ENGLISH SINGING]

NARRATOR: Their songs, borrowed mainly from the prewar German

Youth Movement, were based on old ballads and

traditional German folklore.

They also borrowed tunes from other nationalist groups

and other political organizations,

even the communists, and simply changed the lyrics.

At the Nuremberg party rally in 1927,

about 300 Hitler Youth members marched alongside 30,000

brown-shirted stormtroopers.

This was the first appearance of the Hitler Youth

at the annual Nuremberg rallies.

Adolf Hitler took notice of his young followers

and paid special tribute to them.

Due to a lack of money, many of the boys

had walked all the way to Nuremberg.

At the end of 1928, a separate branch was established

in the Hitler Youth for girls.

This was later called the Bund Deutscher

Madel, which translated as the League of German Girls, or BDM.

Although Gruber was enjoying much success,

competition for his position soon

arose from an ambitious young upstart.

Baldur von Schirach had joined the Nazi Party at age 18,

after hearing Hitler speak for the first time.

Schirach was the son of a wealthy Prussian army captain

and an American mother, whose ancestors

included two signers of the Declaration of Independence.

He was educated at the best German schools

and quickly came to the attention of Hitler

after joining the party.

The ambitious young Schirach soon

set his sights on gaining control of the Hitler

Youth organization.

The Hitler Youth organization had grown from 80 branches with

700 members in 1926 to about 450 branches

with 13,000 members in 1929.

But it was still a tiny organization, considering

that throughout Germany, there were

a total of 4.3 million young people involved in

a wide variety of youth groups.

But the Hitler Youth movement, like the Nazi Party itself,

would soon experience enormous growth

as a result of the economic catastrophe brought

on by the Great Depression.

The severe economic hardships of the Great Depression

destabilized the democratic government in Germany,

spurring antidemocratic groups into action,

including the Nazis and communists.

On March 20, 1930, Hitler Youth gathered in Berlin for

their first solo mass rally.

It had the theme "From Resistance to Attack"

and featured inflammatory speeches

by Berlin Gauleiter Joseph Goebbels

and Hitler Youth leader Gruber.

JOSEPH GOEBBELS: [SPEAKING GERMAN]

NARRATOR: The radical tone of the speeches

attracted the attention of local police and public authorities

and resulted in a crackdown on the Hitler Youth.

Propaganda marches were banned, and German schoolboys

were prohibited from joining.

Penalties included possible expulsion from school and fines.

The official crackdown had little overall effect

and actually made this forbidden organization more

appealing to adventurous teens.

Parents tried in vain to discourage their children from

associating with Hitler youths.

The Roman Catholic church, which had its own extensive youth

organization, restricted young parish members from joining.

To keep boys from defecting, Catholic youth groups

copied some of the practices of the Hitler Youth,

such as target shooting with small caliber rifles.

Hitler Youth marches, rallies, and meetings continued

despite the opposition.

Political activities of the boys included

disrupting the first showing of the antiwar film

All Quiet on the Western Front.

In the movie, a schoolboy enthusiastically

joins the German army in World War I,

only to discover the murderous realities of modern warfare.

In several German cities and in Vienna, disruptive Hitler youths

inside theaters caused film showings to be canceled.

The film was then taken out of general circulation in Germany.

1930s was a landmark year in the rise of Hitler, and Hitler

Youth played an important role.

Throughout Germany, along with Nazi stormtroopers,

they tirelessly campaigned to get Nazis

elected to the Reichstag in the now faltering

democratic government.

In the election held on 14 September 1930,

Nazis received 18% of the vote and won

107 seats in the Reichstag.

They instantly became the second largest

political party in Germany.

In October 1931, Nazi Party headquarters in Munich abruptly

announced Gruber was gone, replaced

by the 24-year-old Schirach.

As one of the earliest members of the Nazi Party,

Schirach was among Hitler's inner circle

and was personally well regarded by Hitler.

Schirach was a romantic and a self-styled poet

who had worshipful admiration for Hitler.

He expressed blind devotion in sentimental writings.

He described Hitler as "this genius grazing the stars"

and stated that "loyalty is everything, and everything

is the love of Adolf Hitler."

Schirach's flattery was also an effective means of furthering

his own advancement.

Hitler had a notable weakness for flattery, which was well

known to members of his inner circle that included

Goering, Goebbels, and Himmler.

They constantly try to outdo each other in lavishing

praise upon him, but none was better skilled at it

than Schirach.

In 1932, Hitler Youth, along with the SA,

took part in four separate election campaigns--

two Reichstag elections and two presidential elections.

Hitler's goal was to achieve power democratically

and then eliminate democracy.

To the average German, their elected democratic leaders

seemed unable to cope with the enormous daily sufferings

brought on by the Great Depression.

Throughout Germany, thousands of businesses and banks had failed.

People lost their life savings.

Millions were now unemployed, struggling

just to put food on the table to feed their children.

As the democratic government in Berlin

slowly unraveled under this pressure, the Nazis

and other rival political groups,

especially the communists, positioned

themselves to seize power.

The communists were the Nazi's main rivals

and had their own stormtrooper organization, the Red Front.

Members of the Red Front were always willing to fight

Nazis in the streets.

Violent street incidents also erupted between Hitler

youths and young communists.

Uniformed Hitler youth, like the brown-shirted SA,

were a visible force in the streets, campaigning for Hitler

and conducting frequent propaganda marches.

Street battles between communist youths and Hitler youths

occurred regularly.

They battled with fists and sticks but increasingly resorted

to the use of firearms.

Between 1931 and 1933, 23 Hitler youths

were killed in the streets.

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

[NON-ENGLISH SINGING]

NARRATOR: Hitler and the Nazis were

now close to achieving power.

In the parliamentary elections held on July 31, 1932,

the Nazis became the largest political party in Germany.

They received 13.7 million votes, which granted them

230 seats in the Reichstag.

The tireless propaganda activities of the Hitler Youth

had helped enormously to achieve this.

All over Germany, they had handed out millions of pamphlets

and special editions of Nazi newspapers

and conducted countless propaganda marches.

In October, to celebrate Hitler's success

and the growing strength of the Hitler Youth movement,

Schirach asked the entire membership to gather for a Reich

Youth Day rally at Potsdam.

Although there were initial concerns over the number that

would actually show up, over 80,000 members traveled on foot,

by bus, and rail.

They converged on Potsdam and overwhelmed the city.

On 2 October, they staged a parade beginning at 11:00 AM,

lasting until 6:00 PM.

A teary-eyed Hitler stood on the reviewing stand, saluting them.

He was deeply impressed by their resolve

and their overwhelming turnout.

The organization now had about 107,000 members.

It would soon number in the millions.

Youth organizations have been a part of most cultures

for generations.

Seldom have they been organized for total war.

[CHEERS, APPLAUSE]

[NON-ENGLISH SINGING]

NARRATOR: On the night of January 30, 1933,

Nazis in Berlin celebrated the appointment of Adolf Hitler

as chancellor of Germany by conducting

massive torchlight parades.

Hitler Youth units were among those in the columns passing

under the watchful gaze of Hitler

and Paul von Hindenburg, the elderly president of Germany.

[NON-ENGLISH SINGING]

NARRATOR: Within two months, Hitler

acquired dictatorial powers resulting

from the Enabling Act passed by the Nazi-controlled Reichstag.

Hitler's acquisition of power meant

the Hitler Youth and all other Nazi organizations

now had the official power of the state on their side.

The period of Nazi Gleichschaltung,

or forced coordination, immediately began.

All German institutions and organizations were

either Nazified or disbanded.

ADOLF HITLER: [SPEAKING GERMAN]

NARRATOR: Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach now

sought to eliminate all 400 of the other competing youth

organizations, large and small, throughout Germany.

Schirach soon introduced a new structure to the Hitler Youth

based on age.

Little boys, aged 6 to 10, were allowed

to hang around the older boys and participate informally.

Boys 10 to 14 belonged to the Jungvolk, and then from 14 to 18

were in the actual HJ, the commonly used abbreviation for

Hitler-Jugend or Hitler Youth.

Each boy was given a performance booklet, recording his progress

in athletics and Nazi indoctrination

throughout all of his years in the HJ.

Girls 10 to 14 joined the Jungmadel, and from 14 to 18

belonged to the BDM, the commonly used

abbreviation for Bund Deutscher Madel,

or League of German Girls.

The girls wore a schoolgirl style

uniform with skirts and blouses, along with army

style hiking boots.

A few of these girls, once they were older,

became female SS guards in Nazi concentration camps.

Having been taught anti-Semitism from their time in the BDM,

women such as Irma Grese, a former fanatical member

of the BDM, entered the SS female helpers training camp.

She watched and learned how to practice cruelty on inmates

and engaged in promiscuous sex with male SS guards.

Such discipline was designed to rob the girls of any vestiges

of conventional morality.

Grese shortly thereafter became the Beautiful Beast of Auschwitz

and was later hanged by the British

for crimes against humanity.

The BDM, like its male counterpart,

was extremely effective in educating girls

for life in Hitler's Germany.

However, the Hitler Youth organization

was primarily male oriented and would

remain so throughout the duration of the Third Reich.

The HJ and BDM did share common traits that included a very

heavy emphasis on competition.

Just about every task, no matter how big or small,

was turned into an individual, team, or unit competition.

This included boys' and girls' sports,

the quality of singing during propaganda marches,

and winter aid collections.

Boys and girls were kept constantly busy.

The Nazis capitalized on the natural enthusiasm

of young people, their craving for action,

and desire for peer approval.

They hoped that ultimately, each young person

would come to regard his or her HJ or BDM unit as a home

away from home or perhaps as their real home.

Activities for boys included games

of hide-and-seek called "Trapper and Indian" and war games.

In the war games, the boys formed

platoons, put on red or blue armbands,

then were supposed to hunt down the enemy

and rip off the other color armbands.

This often resulted in fistfights and outright brawls

between platoons.

Younger, weaker boys got pummeled,

while platoon leaders stood by or even encouraged the fighting.

Ripped shirts, along with scrapes and bruises,

were common during these field exercises, which were

intended to toughen them up.

By the end of 1933, the Hitler Youth organization had absorbed

20 German youth leagues and totaled over 3.5 million

members, an enormous increase from a year earlier,

before Hitler's acquisition of power, when it

had numbered just over 100,000.

But this rapid increase also brought big problems, namely,

the lack of trained, politically reliable local youth leaders.

To resolve this problem, reichsführer,

or leadership schools, were established throughout Germany.

They offered three-week cram courses

on Nazi racial principles and German history,

along with practical leadership training, rigorous physical

activity, and rifle shooting.

By August 1934, Schirach reported that over 12,000 Hitler

Youth leaders and 24,000 Jungvolk leaders

had completed these courses.

Schirach labeled 1934 as the year of training

and proclaimed during a speech, "Whoever marches in the Hitler

Youth is not a number among millions

but the soldier of an idea.

The individual member's value to the whole

is determined by the degree to which

he is permeated by the idea.

The best Hitler youth, irrespective of rank and office,

is he who completely surrenders himself to the national

socialist worldview."

Vocational training was also emphasized,

as Schirach and Nazi labor leader Robert Ley

initiated the annual National Vocational

Competition for Hitler Youth.

In this competition, teens learned various trades

and were judged and rewarded.

As a prize, the winners in each category got to meet Hitler.

In September, Hitler Youth made a notable appearance

at the annual Nuremberg rally, an event well documented

in the propaganda film Triumph of the Will by Leni Riefenstahl.

A 10-minute sequence shows Hitler's emotional appearance

before the enthralled assembly inside the sports stadium,

amid frequent shouts of heil.

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

NARRATOR: In his speech, he told them,

"Regardless of whatever we create and do,

we shall pass away.

But in you, Germany will live on.

And I know it cannot be otherwise,

because you are flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood,

and your young minds are filled with the same

will that dominates us.

And when the great columns of our movement marched

victoriously through Germany today,

I know that you will join these columns,

and we know that Germany is before us,

within us, and behind us."

In October, amid the slogan "Blood and Soil,"

the Reich's land service was introduced,

offering young city dwellers the opportunity to experience

life on German farms.

All HJ and BDM members were expected to participate,

helping to bring in the harvest while learning

the value of hard work and the simple life.

An ominous new development within the HJ

was the appearance of Streifendienst or patrol force

units, which functioned as internal political police,

maintained order at meetings, ferreted out disloyal members,

and denounced anyone who criticized Hitler or Nazism.

In a few cases, this included their own parents.

[SPEAKING GERMAN]

NARRATOR: One case involved a teenaged HJ member named Walter

Hess, who turned in his father for calling

Hitler a crazed Nazi maniac.

His father was then hauled off to Dachau

under schutzhaft or protective custody.

For setting such an example, Hess was promoted

to a higher rank within the HJ

The close working relationship between the HJ Streifendienst

and the Gestapo aroused the attention of SS

Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler.

Members of the Streifendienst were

targeted for recruitment into the SS

and proved to be very valuable recruits.

Many entered directly into SS officer training schools.

Others join the SS Totenkopfverbande, the Death's

Head brigades that operate at Dachau and other concentration

camps and later operated the extermination

centers in occupied Poland.

By 1935, about 60% of Germany's young people

belonged to the Hitler Youth.

Schirach declared it the year of physical training

and introduced the second major annual HJ

event, the sports competition.

Medals were awarded to youths who

performed rigorous athletic drills

and met strict physical fitness standards.

Every summer, a day was set aside as the day of the state

youth for these events.

"Physical fitness," according to Hitler,

"was much more important for his young people than memorizing

dead facts in the classroom."

In his book Mein Kampf, he stated that "a less well

educated but physically healthy individual with a sound,

firm character, full of determination and willpower is

more valuable to the Volkisch community

than an intellectual weakling."

School schedules were adjusted to allow for at least

one hour of physical training in the morning and one hour

each evening.

Prior to this, only two hours per week had been set aside.

Hitler also encouraged young boys

to take up boxing to heighten their aggressiveness.

Hitler believed tough physical training would instill

confidence, and that this self-confidence

must be instilled from childhood into every German.

His entire education and training

must be designed to convince him of his absolute superiority

over others.

He viewed education as a means of raising

nationalist enthusiasm in German boys

while teaching them to be ready to sacrifice

themselves for the fatherland.

Special assemblies were often held in school halls,

featuring themes of heroism and readiness to die for the cause.

A portrait of Hitler hung in every classroom.

Particular emphasis was paid to the subject of history, which

was rewritten to emphasize Nazi themes of racial struggle

and German pride.

"It is the task of the racial state," Hitler declared,

to ensure that at long last, world history will be written,

and that within its context, the racial question will be elevated

to the dominant position so that a generation will emerge

capable of facing the final and decisive

decisions on this globe."

Racial indoctrination in the classroom

included teaching young children how to spot a Jew by describing

the physical traits, which Nazis believed

were associated with inferior peoples.

In some classrooms, where Jews were still present,

a Jewish child would be brought to the front

of the class as an example.

The teacher would then use a pointer, highlighting

certain facial characteristics.

Hitler Youth songs also contained anti-Semitic lyrics,

including one song that said, "Yes,

when the Jewish blood splashes from the knives,

things will go twice as well."

Over the years, the Hitler Youth organization

would gradually supplant the traditional elementary and

secondary school system and become the main force

educating German youth.

And the quality of that education would get worse.

Students emerging from the elite Adolf Hitler schools

were in superb physical condition

and thoroughly drilled in Nazi ideology

but lacked basic skills in math and science.

Biology, for example, had been completely corrupted to advance

Nazi racial doctrine.

Under Hitler, a school system that had once been considered

among the finest in the world became

substandard almost overnight.

Nazi scientists educated before Hitler would later complain they

were partially hindered in developing new super weapons

by the recruitment of young graduates

from the elite Nazi schools.

Schirach's goal in 1936 was to enroll the entire population

of 10-year-olds throughout Germany

into the Hitler Youth as a present for Hitler

on his 47th birthday.

After first joining the organization,

the boys spent a few months on probation while undergoing

training by older HJ members.

A test was then given in which they had to recite all

the verses of the "Horst Wessel Song"

and answer basic questions concerning Nazi ideology

and the history of the party.

They also had to prove physical fitness by running

60 meters in 12 seconds and take part in a cross-country hike

lasting a day and a half.

A courage test was then given, such as jumping

from a first or second-story ledge

into a large canvas held by older HJ.

After passing all of the tests, each boy was entitled to wear

the brown shirt bearing the Jungvolk insignia,

with a leather shoulder strap and the coveted Hitler Youth

dagger bearing the inscription "Blut und Ehre,"

"Blood and Honor."

On December 1, 1936, Hitler decreed the law concerning

the Hitler Youth, which mandated that all young Germans,

excluding Jews, would be educated physically,

intellectually, and morally in the spirit of national socialism

through the Hitler Youth from the age of 10 onward.

Parents who prevented their children

from joining the Hitler Youth were subject to heavy prison

sentences.

Because of this, membership grew to nearly 6 million.

To add more excitement, a new phase

began for the Hitler Youth, with increased emphasis

on paramilitary training in direct association

with the Wehrmacht or Army, the Luftwaffe or Air Force

and the Navy or Kriegsmarine.

In 1937, a Hitler Youth rifle school was also established.

About 1.5 million boys were trained in rifle shooting

and military field exercises over the next few years,

with over 50,000 boys earning a marksmanship

medal that required near-perfect shooting

at a distance of 164 feet.

Special Hitler Youth paramilitary formations for boys

eventually included the Flieger-HJ in which aviation

enthusiasts built gliders, participated in annual glider

flying competitions, visited Luftwaffe facilities,

and went for rides in fighters and bombers.

Also included was the Motor-HJ for boys 16 and older, in which

they acquired their driver's license

and learned to ride motorcycles, and the Marine-HJ, in which they

obtained sailing certificates, learned river navigation,

and participated in naval exercises

aboard German training ships.

In 1938, Hitler expanded Germany's borders

by absorbing neighboring Austria and the Sudetenland,

or western portion of Czechoslovakia,

with their large populations of ethnic Germans.

As a result, Hitler Youth membership

swelled to 8.7 million.

In November, Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass,

occurred in which Nazi stormtroopers,

the SS, and Hitler youths attacked

Jews throughout the Reich.

Police stood by and crowds watched as Jews were beaten,

while their shops and synagogues had their windows

smashed and contents wrecked.

Special pleasure was taken in the desecration

of sacred religious scrolls.

Over 25,000 Jewish men between the ages

of 18 and 65 were hauled off to concentration camps.

Local Hitler youths participated in the violence

voluntarily but had not been officially instructed to do so.

Schirach, on hearing of the extent of their participation,

called a meeting of all high-level group leaders

and expressly forbade further participation

in such criminal actions.

But the violence was just beginning.

Germany was on the path toward achieving Hitler's two

main goals, which he had stated years earlier in Mein Kampf--

the forced acquisition of living space to the east of Germany

and destruction of international Jewry.

By 1939, about 82% of eligible youths within the Reich

belonged to the Hitler Youth, making it the largest youth

organization in the world.

A new law was issued on March 25, 1939,

conscripting any remaining holdouts into the organization,

amid warnings to parents that their children would

be taken from them and placed in orphanages unless they enrolled.

These young Germans could be manipulated and put

into service for the good of the Third Reich

and would also go on to become the future warriors that would

carry out the total war policies of Hitler

and his loyal henchmen.

In time, many of these youthful Germans

would become fanatically devoted to the Nazi cause themselves.

The Nazis molded the Hitler Youth into an effective

organization for total war through its racist and martial

education of young Germans, the pressing of Hitler Youth members

into an impressive labor force, and the creation of the 12th SS

Panzer Division, or Hitler-Jugend,

which was famed for its ferocity on the battlefield.

[MUSIC PLAYING]