Gateway Chronicle 2022

education – showing how significant the
idea of the Volksgemeinschaft was in
society, as it solidified the idea that if you
were deemed acceptable, you would have
a fulfilled future in the Reich but if you were
and community alien, you were ostracised.
Finally, boys who were perceived to have
the potential to become leaders were sent
to Adolf Hitler Schools, which were free
boarding schools on military lines, with
education catered to grooming the boys
into being future SS officers and servants
to the Reich.
Within Nazi Germany, the Minister of
Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, was the
architect of the so-called “Hitler Myth”. This
myth was utilised to present Hitler as a
chameleon character, a hero to Germany
while also being an ordinary man, which in
turn led to many of the youth feeling as
though he was someone they could relate
to, further influencing them into idolising
him and making the relationship between
Fuhrer and Volk more intimate. Goebbels
expertly crafted this image of Hitler in order
to ensure that every area of the population
was targeted by the various facades of
Hitler. The impact of this on the youth of
Germany manifested itself into the
significant turnouts of Hitler Youth who
attended the 1934 Nuremberg rally, with
700,000 supporters of the regime being
present. The omnipresent nature of the
propaganda supporting the “Hitler Myth”
helped to successfully separate the Nazi
wrongdoings from Hitler himself. This was
further exacerbated by the schooling and
education of young people, as history was
tailored to depict Hitler as the saviour of
Germany from the decadence and wrong
doings of the Weimar Republic, meaning
that many children revered Hitler.
However, this is not to say that there
wasn’t opposition to the regime of Nazi
Germany from the youth, there most
certainly was. One major opposition to the
Nazi establishment were the Edelweiss
Pirates, who primarily opposed the way in
which the Hitler Youth had taken over the
lives of young people in Germany. In turn,
the Pirates were as far from the idealised
moulds that were expected from the Hitler
Youth as could be conceivably possible –
they were free to speak their mind
(something that would be frowned upon in
the Hitler Youth) and boys and girls were
allowed to work together (whereas they
were segregated in the youth movements).
Most cities across Germany had a faction
of the Pirates, even if they did not act
under the title. Despite not operating under
the same title, the groups shared a few
select traits, the main being the objection
to the way the Nazis tried to control the
lives of young people in Germany. Another
major group who opposed the Reich were
the swing youth. As a part of Hitler’s attack
on the culture of the Weimar Republic,
broadcasting of jazz was banned by 1935,
as it was seen to reflect the “loose” morals
that the Republic stood for, and in the
following year, records of individual artists
were banned. This censorship of media led
48 | G ateway Chronicle