Wherever we look, we are told that Hitler totally indoctrinated the German youth. But is this true? Or is it only half the story?

1) Was the HJ really succesful?

Most Young Germans that were part of the HJ (Hitler Jugen) before the war certainly loved it: It was all a wonderful game. Indeed the HJ used all the things that could attract young people. There were the drums, military parades, songs, rifles, slogans, uniforms... All this ceremonial gave them the sense that they were important, invincible: a small army. There was also all the sporting and 'scouting' activities: camping, hiking, competing... Many children acceeded for the first time to real leisure activities.

It was also a way of escaping from the parents and school: it was a world of their own, whose leaders were often in conflict whith the traditional authorities, teachers and parents. It was also an organisation that seemed to consider youth as very important: they were given tasks, Hitler always emphasized their importance in the state. Speech after speech he repeated that:

The youth therefore felt that at last they could show who they were and help their country. (See excerpt from "La rose blanche" from Inge Scholl - in French).

But during the war things were not quite as fun: to start with, fun activities became rarer and there were much more hard para-military training; the young leaders were sent to war and replaced; club buildings and sport fields were destroyed by the bombs .... and whith the deaths on the front, the idea of being a small 'army', a small 'soldier' became much less appealing.

In fact the young people were not indoctrinated very deep down: they were fascinated by the ceremonials, enthusiastic about the activities... but they essentialy learnt not to ask questions and to obey without thinking:

The result was that when a youngster started to ask himself questions, he quickly had doubts. Even better, one could get very high in Nazi education whithout agreing whith the ideology and never being detected for it: Ilse Kohen, a young German girl at the time, got to the point where she had been chosen to become a HJ leader, determined never to be one because she did not agree whith the nazi ideology. She had been chosen mainly because she had great skills in manual work....
Nevertheless this does not mean that HJ was unsuccessful: most of youngsters were totally subdued to Hitler, mainly because anyway they did not have the choice. And most of them became soldiers in the German army.

Older members of the Hitler Youth throw mock grenades ("potato mashers") during a sports festival. June 1936.

2) The resistant groups

There were some groups of youth who 'resisted' indoctrination. But this resistance took varied forms and scaled a cultural difference to active political resistance. Lets examine three examples of very different resistant youth groups:

• The 'Swing' movement

This movement sprang amongst the young people of the upper middle class who sought a counter identity. They differed from traditions by the music they listened, Jazz and Swing; the way they danced; the way they dressed; their sexuality. To start whith their music festivals were authorized but the Hitler youth disliked them and banned them. The movement then joined in small, informal groupings.

But this was only a cultural 'resistance': they were not politically against the Nazis but they desliked the strict education that was given in the HJ.

• The 'Edelweiss Pirates'

This was quite a large movement which was spread over germany; The indidual groups aroused spontaneously and differed from each other in their names, uniforms, activities... but all considered themselves part of the same movement. Indeed they joined together for trips during week-ends. These groups all had one common aim: escape from control of the Hitler Youth which they loathed. This is why they spent their week-ends and holidays hiking and camping in order to get more space, far from their parents and the HJ leaders. During the week they grouped to sing, tell stories, chatt... They were very good at rewriting lyrics to use them against the Hitler Youth and the Nazis.

They all loathed the Hitler Youth and the Nazis and none of them wanted to stay passive but they differed in the type of actions they choose. They all bashed the Hitler Youth patrols when they met them but some groups went much further and did real political resistance: They joined resistance groups and handed out allied propaganda leaflets, helped to shelter runaways...

Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christl Probst, during the summer 1942

• The 'White Rose'

This last was a small group of students from the university of Munich. Two of them, Hans and Sophie Scholl, had been voluntarily part of the Hitler Youth and had loved it, even though their father warned them daily that the Nazis were abusing Germany. But little by little they started to have doubts: the leaders of the HJ forbided the foreign songs that Hans liked, Sophie's Jewish friends were of course refused in the HJ... and Hans came back transformed from a party meeting in Nuremberg where he had represented his group: he had been disgusted by the hate filled speeches, the uniformity of ideas that was required...

When they were students Hans and Sophie made new friends: Alexander Schmorell, the son of a great doctor; Christl Probst, a married man with two sons; Willi Graf; and professor Huber, one of the professors of their university. They all shared the same ideas about Nazism and Hitler. The first, Hans had the idea of printing and handing out leaflets: they hoped that it would awaken resistance amongst the population and the students. They managed to give out 6 leaflets and to paint on the walls of the university: 'Down with Hitler'. But Hans, Sophie and Christl were arrested on the 18 of February 1944, they were sentenced to death five days later and the sentence was carried out the same day. Up to the end they displayed an incredible courage, trying to take all the accusation on themselves so as to discharge the others, and never stopping thinking that if they had awoken revolt, then their death were of no importance (read excerpt of "The White Rose" - in French).

Later on Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf and professor Huber were arrested too.

3) Conclusion

These examples show that even though the Hitler Youth leaded masses of young Germans to obey blindly to Hitler, all the youth were not fanatised. Some youngsters resisted, not all as much and in the same ways, but they resisted. And some of them displayed a heorism and lack of selfishness which were quite incredible, going as far as giving their lives for liberty and democracy.