Topic 4: Life for young people in Nazi Germany

• Indecanation

  Seen as key to the Nazis' future control of Germany and young people
• Education and Youth movements

  • Main ways of indoctrination
• Nazi education

  1. Banned and removed Jewish teachers

  2. Textbooks written to promote Nazi ideology

  3. Curriculum altered to reflect Nazi priorities

  4. Increased focus on physical education and eugenics
• Girls' education

  • Taught to be good Aryan wives and mothers
• Jewish children

  • Humiliated at school
  • Banned from education in 1938
• Adolf Hitler Schools


  • Free boarding schools for boys aged 12-18
  • Taught by Nazi commanders
  • Curriculum focused on physical education and ideology
• National Political Institutes (Napolas)


  • Boarding schools for boys aged 11-18
  • Trained to become SS officers
• Hitler Youth (HY)


  • Membership made practically compulsory by 1936
  • Taught loyalty and fitness
  • Took over other youth movements except Catholic groups
  • Boys had to complete physical tests to join
  • Taught military activities like marches, camps, war games, rifle practice
• League of German Girls (BDM)


  • Taught girls how to be good mothers and keep themselves fit for childbirth
• Most young people in Germany did not oppose the Nazis
• The Nazi actions reinforced existing beliefs in young people
• Nazi education harmed students due to absences for HY and BDM activities