Understanding the Brainwashing of the Hitler Youth
- Sam Baker
- Nov 24, 2018
- 4 min read
Before this assignment, I had never been to our History and Holocaust Museum. I'd been in the building before for the Year of Russia, but never to see the exhibit.
The first thing I noticed was that most of the pieces are relatively focused on how certain events affected the US. All prints and artifacts were in English and other countries are seldom referenced. I learned that several people were sent to camps here in Georgia. I had never really considered Georgia when thinking about the Holocaust and was unaware that the state played a role.
One of the banners that caught my attention right away was one titled "Children in the Third Reich". I was interested to see how they explained these groups and whether or not they sugar-coated the concept for American eyes. In case you are unfamiliar with die Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth), it was Hitler's attempt to attract kids and teens to get them involved in his ideals while their minds were still impressionable. This was just one step in his plan to engage the entire Aryan family.
Think of the two groups as Girl and Boy Scouts run by the government. Boys went hiking, boating, and camping. They also participated in sports. Girls were taught stories with hints of socialistic belief that they passed on to other friends. They were also trained in gymnastics and encouraged to promote healthy lifestyles. Parents who did not allow their children to join were legally subjected to intense questioning and home searches.
When scout members turned 18, they were able to fight on behalf of the Nazi cause. Boys engaged in combat while girls provided support to the soldiers with knitted goods and by visiting the hospitals of the wounded. Some girls were even called to the war in desperate times.
Schoolmate and friend of my Oma, Alfons Heck, wrote a book about growing up as a Hitler Youth called A Child of Hitler: Germany in the Days When God Wore a Swastika. He also wrote a few other books and was in documentaries. His writings were often a bit controversial, but nevertheless an interesting and informative read. I personally find it very interesting because it gives me an even better insight into how kids in my Oma's time grew up. The book is from the perspective of someone who lived in my family's little village and that is important to me.
Alfons was a family friend of my family for many years and my Oma was always very proud of him for sharing such a difficult story. They remained in contact for many years until his passing in '05.
When reading what was presented to me in the museum on the Hitler Youth, I was able to conclude that there is quite a disconnect. By that I mean that when most people go to read this banner, they go "oh that's crazy" and move on. I think the severity of the mind control and the impact these groups had on German culture are lost among most.
It is a part of history that we as Americans can have a hard time identifying with because most write it off as something that bad people were a involved in and don't think twice about it. What people don't understand is the level of almost unnoticeable manipulation that was used and how many joined innocently.
It was presented as a government lead scouts program, not a radical racist/antisemitic war-breeding group. It wasn't easy to see exactly what was really going on because these were just kids playing sports and making friends. This is how most people get involved in cults. Think about "Churches" like Scientology or Jehovah's Witnesses. Members of these organizations joined with the purest of intentions and were then manipulated, controlled, and ultimately used by their leaders. The Hitler Youth was no different.
I called my Oma and asked her to refresh my memory on what she told me about the brainwashing during her childhood. She told me that as kids, they were really excited because the school got a makeover. Since money was pouring into the local economy because of the building of the autobahn nearby, infrastructure was on the rise. She remembers her kindergarten class getting new bathrooms with kid-sized toilets, new coat hangers, and every Friday they got hot cocoa. The nuns were replaced with regular teachers because of Hitler's push for separation of church and state. The cross in her classroom was replaced with a framed photo of Hitler.
Even the greetings changed: prior, the appropriate greeting for a teacher was "Grüß Gott" (greetings to God), but now it was "Heil Hitler". Oma said every morning instead of saying their prayers they now had to Heil while facing the photo. While these changes seem like huge red flags to us now, to these kids, they were just slight changes throughout their daily lives. Wittlich even got a town swimming pool and many new homes were being built. She went on to tell me that everyone in school wanted to join the Youth because of the nice high-quality uniforms. She said she and her sisters were jealous of their cousin Melitta, who was old enough to join. They had no idea what they would have gotten themselves into until they were older and learned what happened.
I guess my purpose for this post is to express how important it is that history is explained fully and accurately. Museums such as this one are great tools to provide a surface-level insight into the past, but it is crucial to remember that information in a museum merely summarizes a topic, often without emotion, and does not always showcase the overlooked details of a given thing.
If possible, I would like to speak with someone in charge of this museum and see about providing them with some of my family's first-hand sources. From what I saw, there were not too many authentic things from this time in the museum and hardly any facts from first-hand sources. I would be more than happy to help with the revision of this exhibit and shed more light on such an important part of German history.
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