With so many members in the fold, the Hitler Youth's purpose was to indoctrinate boys into the Nazi worldview, prepare them for combat, and thoroughly transform them into effective cogs in the Nazi machine. By 1939, "official" became "mandatory," increasing the group's ranks to some 8 million and leaving just a tiny fraction of eligible members who managed not to join despite immense social and legal pressure. That story begins more than 20 years earlier with the formation of the Hitler Youth.īirthed in its first incarnation in 1922 and officially christened the Hitlerjugend ("Hitler Youth") in 1926, this was the only official youth group of the Nazi Party. While most modern historians contend that the Hitler Youth group was largely ineffectual and valuable mostly as a propaganda tool, the small force may (though reports are thin and varied) have succeeded in carrying out a handful of bombings and assassinations of Allied personnel in Germany in the months and even years immediately following the war.īut why, of all people, would children have the zeal to forge ahead to the bitter end for such a violent cause even after defeat? So-named for a German novel of the same name, Werwolf - or “war wolf” - was comprised of some members of the Nazi SS, as well as some volunteers, but also a significant number of the Nazis’ youngest fighters sourced from the Hitler Youth. From the rise of the Third Reich and into the post-war era, the Hitler Youth were molded to be faithful devotees of the Nazi regime - and to turn on even their own parents if they spoke ill of Hitler.ĭespite the Nazis’ surrender in May 1945, a small but violent faction of the Hitler Youth known as the Werwolf fought on against the Allied powers.
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