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WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY youth in nazi germany . EXPLAIN
Hitler was fanatically interested in the youth of the country. He felt that a strong Nazi society could be established only by teaching children Nazi ideology. This required a control over the child both inside and outside school. All schools were ‘cleansed’ and ‘purified’. Teachers who were Jews or seen as ‘politically unreliable’ were dismissed. Children were first segregated: Germans and Jews could not sit together or play together. Subsequently, ‘undesirable children’ – Jews, the physically handicapped, Gypsies – were thrown out of schools. And finally in the 1940s, they were taken to the gas chambers.

‘Good German’ children were subjected to a process of Nazi schooling, a prolonged period of ideological training. School textbooks were rewritten. Racial science was introduced to justify Nazi ideas of race. Stereotypes about Jews were popularised even through maths classes. Children were taught to be loyal and submissive, hate Jews, and worship
Hitler. Even the function of sports was to nurture a spirit of violence and aggression among children. Hitler believed that boxing could make children iron hearted, strong and masculine.

Youth organisations were made responsible for educating German youth in the ‘the spirit of National Socialism’. Ten-year-olds had to enter Jungvolk, a Nazi youth groups for children below 14 years of age. At 14, all boys had to join the Nazi youth organisation – Hitler Youth – where they learnt to worship war, glorify aggression and violence, condemn democracy, and hate Jews, communists, Gypsies and all those categorised as ‘undesirable’. After a period of rigorous ideological and physical training they joined the Labour Service, usually at the age of 18. Then they had to serve in the armed forces and enter one of the Nazi organisations. The Youth League of the Nazis was founded in 1922. Four years later it was renamed Hitler Youth. To unify the youth movement under Nazi control, all other youth organisations were systematically dissolved and finally banned.


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