Towards the youth

• Hitler's speech about the youth on the 6th September 1933 key parts:

  • Your child belongs to us already, what are you?
  • They will no nothing else but this new community

  Shows that Hitler wanted to indoctrinate the children more than the parents as the views of children can easily be changed and adapted. This is further shown when A Nationalist Socialist Teacher's League official writes in 1937:

  • shaped according to the principles which are recognised as correct and which have shown themselves to be correct
• Education (1):

  • 1934 =>> control was taken from the regional states and centralised under the Reich Ministry of Education, Culture and Science ==> led by Reich Minister Bernhard Rust
  • Those who were Jewish, politically unreliable and women were forced out of the teaching profession
  • Special training courses were arranged so that teachers who were unconvinced could be conditioned into believing the Nazi Regime -> by 1937, 97% of teachers had been on a 1-month course on Nazi ideology and to understand changes in the curriculum
• Education (2):

  • 15% of the timetable was spent on physical education
  • Religious studies was dropped as German literature, History and Biology became the main focus
  • German Literature => nationalistic spirit, The Battle of Tannenberg was suggested for 14 year olds in which a Russian soldier tries to infiltrate and then he is killed
  • History => German nationalism was emphasised
  • Biology => ethnic classification, population policy, racial genetics were introduced into the syllabus
• Elite Nazi Schools:

  • NAPOLA => 10-18 ~~ this was a boarding school, and 21 were created, emphasise on physical education and politics, and in 1936 they were taken over by the SS
  • Adolf Hitler Schools => 12-18
  • Ordensburgen (Castles of Order) => 25-39
• Universities:

  • number attending decreased
  • 1200 university staff dismissed due to the Law for the Re-Establishment of a Professional Civil Service
  • November 1933 => forced to sign the Declaration in support of Hitler and the Socialist State
  • students had to join the German Students League
  • the Nazis faced very little opposition when bringing the universities under control as many were anti-democratic anyway
• Baldur Von Schirach:

  • joined the NSDAP when he was 18 years old
  • Youth Leader of the German Reich form 1933-1939
  • Gauleiter in Vienna 1940-1945
  • Loyal to Hitler
• Hitler Youth Group:

  Under 10 - Pimpfen => Little Fellows for boys

  10-14 - German Young People (boys) = Young Girls League

  14-18 - Hitler Youth (boys) = League of German Maidens
• Hitler Youth:

  • 1933 => 1% of children
  • 1936 => 60%
  • 1939 (compulsory) => 77.2%
  • Girls and Boys were split and taught roles that fit with their roles, but both were forced to do physical education
• Success?

  32% of teachers joined the party
• Failure?

  Many students felt isolated and many began to resist the education and youth groups forced upon them