Hitler Youth / Michael H. Kater.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kater, Michael H., 1937-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

National socialism and youth.

Germany--History--1933-1945.

Germany.

Hitler-Jugend.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (355 pages)

Edition:

Annotated

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The recruitment of children into a political organization and ideology reached its boldest embodiment in the Hitler Youth, founded in 1933. Michael Kater traces the history of Hitler Youth, examining the means, degree, and impact of conversation, and the subsequent fate of young recruits. In modern times, the recruitment of children into a political organization and ideology reached its boldest embodiment in the Hitler Youth, founded in 1933 soon after the Nazi Party assumed power in Germany. Determining that by age ten children's minds could be turned from play to politics, the regime inducted nearly all German juveniles between the ages of ten and eighteen into its state-run organization. The result was a potent tool for bending young minds and hearts to the will of Adolf Hitler. Baldur von Schirach headed a strict chain of command whose goal was to shift the adolescents' sense of obedience from home and school to the racially defined Volk and the Third Reich. Luring boys and girls into Hitler Youth ranks by offering them status, uniforms, and weekend hikes, the Nazis turned campgrounds into premilitary training sites, air guns into machine guns, sing-alongs into marching drills, instruction into indoctrination, and children into Nazis. A few resisted for personal or political reasons, but the overwhelming majority enlisted. Drawing on original reports, letters, diaries, and memoirs, Kater traces the history of the Hitler Youth, examining the means, degree, and impact of conversion, and the subsequent fate of young recruits. Millions of Hitler Youth joined the armed forces; thousands gleefully participated in the subjugation of foreign peoples and the obliteration of "racial aliens." Although young, they committed crimes against humanity for which they cannot escape judgment. Their story stands as a harsh reminder of the moral bankruptcy of regimes that make children complicit in crimes of the state.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

1 “Make Way, You Old Ones!”

2 Serving in the Hitler Youth

Introduction

In Search of Monopoly and Uniformity

Authoritarianism, Militarism, Imperialism

Problems of Training, Discipline, and Leadership

3 German Girls for Matrimony and Motherhood

The Bund Deutscher Mädel in Peacetime

The Challenges of World War II

Eugenics and Race

4 Dissidents and Rebels

The Varieties of Dissidence

The Empire Strikes Back

5 Hitler’s Youth at War

Elation and Disenchantment

Detours, Duplications, and Alternatives

The Final Victory

Hitler’s Young Women Deceived

6 The Responsibility of Youth

Abbreviations

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Originally published: 2004.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [271]-345) and index.

ISBN:

9780674039353

0674039351

OCLC:

923110446

Publisher Number:

9780674019911