Oh don't worry the Nazis are not going to get anywhere remotely close to lasting 1000 Years like a certain Austrian predicted, but they certainly are not falling anytime soon (much to the dismay of most except the Nazis themselves of course)
Oh of course, the fact that the Hitler Youth is compulsory for every single child in Germany (well Aryan and Aryanized children) means the problem will really just be even worse then one could imagine, it will be almost impossible to get rid of that pro-Nazi feeling within the Reich when it does eventually fall.
As for what they have done with the Hitler Youth post-war, you are about to find out!
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PART 24
"It's A World of Laughter Mein Führer!"
"The future of a pure and efficient society rests entirely upon the success of the generation that follows the one already existing, it is the job of the Hitler Youth to prepare this next generation of boys and girls to carry on the tasks set forth to them by their forefathers; we build discipline, order and direction. We build the future"
- Reichsjugendführer Artur Axmann on the mission of the Hitler Youth; circa 1959
PART 24
"It's A World of Laughter Mein Führer!"
"The future of a pure and efficient society rests entirely upon the success of the generation that follows the one already existing, it is the job of the Hitler Youth to prepare this next generation of boys and girls to carry on the tasks set forth to them by their forefathers; we build discipline, order and direction. We build the future"
- Reichsjugendführer Artur Axmann on the mission of the Hitler Youth; circa 1959
("Excerpt from essay by Professor Katz Schmidt on the Hitler Youth and NSDAP Party Sub-Organizations; published 2013)
Youth political organizations were not an entirely new concept, predating the interwar rise of totalitarianism by several decades. These organizations existed in many countries across the globe as an outlet for children and adolescents to express their own feelings about political issues, essentially serving as a voice for those who otherwise wouldn't have any voice in politics. However, the hearts and minds of the young have always been something readily exploited by those malicious enough to do so. And nowhere was this more evident than in the various youth organizations of fascist and other totalitarian political parties, the most infamous of these being the Nazi Party's Hitler Youth (German: Hitlerjugend). The story of the Hitler Youth is a fascinating one to say the least; and that is why I have written this essay in order to delve into the topic of the Hitler Youth - specifically it's history between its formation and the year 1960 - and particular the impact it had on German culture as a whole.
Figure 1: Reichsjugendführer Artur Axmann, de facto head of the Hitler Youth from 1940 to his dismissal in 1981 as a result of the Hitler Youth Sex Abuse Scandal; picture circa 1959
What eventually would become the Hitler Youth can trace it's origins back to 1922, when the then Munich based National Socialist German Worker's Party formed the first of the Hitler Youth's many predecessors, the "Jugendbund der NSDAP", several proto-Youth organizations were formed and disbanded under several different names over the years; before the Hitler Youth itself eventually emerged as the sole youth organization of the NSDAP in 1926. Whatever name it operated under however, the aim of the organization itself was always the same, that aim of course being to instill a specific set of values and characteristics that were seen by government officials as best fit to help develop German Youth into firstly being loyal stalwarts of the Party and National Socialist ideology (mainly via means of political indoctrination); and secondly into developing them into faithful, determined and courageous soldiers ready to fight and lay their life on the line for "Volk und Reich". As a result of this specific and outlined doctrine, the Youth's adult leadership and government officials in Berlin placed a much stronger and pronounced emphasis on physical and military training (of which included weapons and basic military tactics training, as well as many activities which were directly appropriated from the banned Boy Scout movement) for the Youth's members to partake in for training efforts rather then having them conduct simple academic study; as the ultimate goal of training the next generation of "Aryan Supermen" and loyal Party stalwarts meant that any focus on actual academic study was seen as useless at best and unneeded at worst (at least in the eyes of party leadership). Through limited academic study would end up still being conducted in by the Youth's membership in order to give members at least the basic minimum skills needed to participate in much of modern society.
Membership into the Hitler Youth was initially a voluntary choice for a long period after the the Nazis rose to power in Germany, with most members often joining because of persuasion from their parents or teachers, or out of a desire to be like and fit in with all of the other kids, membership would however eventually be declared to be mandatory requirement for all "Aryan" youth with the passing of the "Gesetz über die Hitlerjugend law" by the Reichstag in December 1936, and as these new requirements made it a compulsory to maintain membership and serve in the Hitler Youth until one's eighteenth birthday; it was ultimately ensured that the group's total membership (which numbered nearly eight million by the start of the Second World War in 1939; and twelve million by the end of the war in 1946) would stay at a consistent and high number of Germany's youth for ultimately the group's entire history.
Figure 2: Two examples of early Cold War era Hitler Youth propaganda posters, showcasing the stereotypical "perfect Aryan" boy and girl in all their glory
While the Hitler Youth's beginnings and initial intentions were what one could consider "humble" by Nazi standards (through certainly not by usual Western standards), the outbreak of Second World War ultimately changed the direction of the organization forever, seeing a need for extra manpower to assist on the home front, the organizations de facto leader, Reichsjugendführer Artur Axmann, chose to reform the Hitler Youth from the simple youth organization that it had been conceived as to what essentially was an auxiliary force of youth manpower that could perform specific sorts of war and civilian duties on the homefront (such as serving among Anti-Aircraft defense crews and assisting in recovery efforts in cities bombed by British and later American planes; among the many wartime activities conducted by Hitler Youth members); this change in course also lead to the groups membership being established as a sort of extra source of combat-ready and armed manpower that could be called up at a moment's notice in case the Reich ever found itself in a precarious situation where it would require such a thing. While the Reich ultimately did not ever have the need to call the Hitler Youth members to arms during the war due to the stunning successes of the German armed forces in the war, the Youth's wartime duties would ultimately end up permanently transforming it in the long run from the simple youth wing that it had been originally conceived as into a sort of quasi-paramilitary organization by the end of the war in 1946.
When the Reich eventually returned to peacetime, the Hitler Youth's wartime duties would end up being reallocated back to the regular civilian and military authorities, while the organization itself would end up undergoing a restructuring of the command and membership structure of both itself and it's sub-organizations, the German Youth and the League of German Girls (both of which would be ultimately disbanded and their structures and membership subsequently absorbed into the Hitler Youth itself per official Reichstag decree in 1949), redefining and reforming said structure into one that was more defined and modeled after the SS and the Army rather then that of a general youth political wing, while also realigning it's aims towards developing the next generation of "loyal and disciplined" Germans as a whole, regardless of gender; rather then just merely developing the next unit of soldiers as it had essentially been doing before. While some within civilian, party and military structures objected to the new coed structure of the reformed Hitler Youth, Führer Speer defended the move by stating that he believed that "German youth would grow to be more efficient individuals and most importantly more respecting of all their Aryan brethren if the separation between boys and girls ended and both were paired together and taught the same basic values and principles of a good citizen together", ultimately creating what he believed would be a more pure, peaceful, efficient and better co-existing society as a whole in the long term; few would dare to question the move again afterwards.
Figure 3: A Hitler Youth member, aged 12, undergoes basic weapons training with Heer instructors at a camp near Berin; circa 1956
Culturally the existence of the Hitler Youth and it's structure had a very open and very grave impact upon German society as a whole, when taking in the fact that membership was compulsory for all children from the age of 5 and up, it can be seen that the goal of the German government was to ensure the indoctrination of what they considered "Aryan values" into the minds of the Reich's youth from a very early age, theoretically ensuring that alternative and "mongrel" thoughts would fail to develop in these individuals (which of course did not stop many members of the Hitler Youth from rejecting Nazi ideology, or even from some outright defecting to one of the various rebel movements that operated within the territory of the Reich once they reached the age of maturity), whether it was weapons and combat training for the boys, or parenting, gardening and arts classes for the girls, the goal of the Hitler Youth was always to ensure the successful upbringing of the next generation of the "perfect" Aryan men and women, no matter what had to be done to ensure the successful completion of this goal (a cause for much of the widespread physical and mental abuse that was inflicted upon members of the Hitler Youth by their adult leaders), thus it can be said that a great percent of German youth was lost to the abyss of Nazism as a result of this; and even the concept of a proper childhood in and it itself. In a similar vein, the existence of the group and the massive commitment it's members were expected to put into their activities in it was (perhaps unintentionally in the case) beginning to cause damage to the traditional structure of loyalty to one's parents and family, this was due to the emphasis the Youth's leaders put on loyalty to one's race and country, one's unit and one's maid, causing a considerable amount of generational riff between parents (many of whom also still had memories of times before Nazi rule) and children as German society was slowly but ever so surely being reshaped by the new values and beliefs being instilled by the government into the next generation.
Initially unknown to the actual members of the Hitler Youth themselves at the time, they were quickly becoming a very important piece towards solving the Reich's growing "baby problem", and by "baby problem" I am of course referring to the Reich's need at the time for more bodies (and subsequently families) to help assist towards the colonization of the Incorporated Eastern Territories, while efforts towards encouraging increased efforts of procreation in it's adult population had begun to make ground in increasing population growth in the initial years after the war (which in and in itself was a large part of the Reich's subsequent baby boom), there was a prevalent need for more procreation efforts to be undertaken, this is where the members of the Hitler Youth, who were regularly reaching puberty as younger members grew older; ultimately fit in the greater picture. To this end, the government begin publicly and actively encouraging their teenage populace between the ages of 14 and 18 to begin active sexual relations with a partner as early as possible, and particularly begin working to try and have children (and as many children as possible) as soon as possible; with adult leadership being instructed to make time out of the daily schedule for Youth members to have intercourse at regular intervals when possible in between normal training activities and classes (something which as one could imagine could easily be exploited by more nefarious individuals in the Youth's adult leadership for their own particular desires, a fear which would unfortunately come to fruition as certain individuals decided to take advantage of the time to have with the children as they desired, with many actively physically and sexually abusing both male and female members of the Youth during both this free time and at other times as well; activities which would continue on in relative quiet and secret until the breaking of the Hitler Youth Sex Abuse Scandal in the early 1980's). In addition to the above mentioned encouragement of early sexual relations, members of the Hitler Youth were also encouraged to marry as early as possible; a drive which was partly the cause of overall decrease in the average age of marriage within the Reich over the next few decades.
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