Did the Nazis succeed in winning the hearts and minds of young people?

1
Did the Nazis succeed in winning the hearts and
minds of young people?
2
Hitler Youth

• Purpose to educate young people physically,
  intellectually, and morally in the spirit of
  National Socialism to serve the nation and the
  community Hitler
• Membership (compulsory in 1939) stood at 8
  million
• Parents could be fined or imprisoned if their
  children did not attend. In some instances
  children could be taken away from parents.

3

• There is some evidence the HJ was in crisis in
  the late 1930s
• There was a shortage of leaders.
• Teachers and parents were concerned about the
  effects of the HJ on motivation, homework and
  discipline.
• They were also afraid of children reporting them
  to the Gestapo.
• There was increasing emphasis on military
  training.

4
Rebellious Teenagers

• Some young people defied the Nazis by listening
  to banned American Jazz.
• They smoked, danced, mixed with Jews.
• In some cases gangs fought with the HJ.
• They were known as Jazzers, Swing youth Raving
  Dudes, Navajos.
• The Nazis referred to them as Edelweiss Pirates
  12 of whom were hanged in Cologne during the war.

5
Historians views

• 95 of German youth backed the Nazis Wilt .
• However not all historians agree, Peukert claims
  that The second half of the 1930s reveals a
  growing crisis in the Hitler Youth

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Education

• difficult to say just how successful the Nazi
  reshaping of education. It must have varied from
  school to school Mosse.
• Nazi indoctrination was able to miseducate and
  misuse a whole generation of young people
  Fischer.

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Schools

• Teachers had to belong to the Nazi Teachers
  League or were sacked.
• By 1937 97 of teachers had joined.
• They had to attend inservice courses on Nazi
  ideology.
• Textbooks were rewritten to promote Nazi ideals.
• Mein Kampf became required reading

8

• Nazi themes were presented through every subject.
• German, PE, History and Biology were given
  special emphasis.
• There was organised sport every afternoon from 2
  6 pm.

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Training Future Nazis

• Napolas The National Political Educational
  institutes .
• Run by the SS
• For students aged 10-18
• Purpose to train leaders for the military and
  administration
• Significantly Nazi leaders did not send their own
  children there.

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Special leadership schools

• Adolf Hitler Schools
• To train party leaders of the future
• Order Castles for the best students
• Purpose political indoctrination and physical
  training to produce the elite leaders of the
  future Nazi State.

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Universities

• Numbers of students at university fell.
• 1,200 lecturers were dismissed for racial or
  political reasons.
• Lecturers had to join the Nazi association and
  attend a six week training camp.
• Students has to join the German students League
  and attend twice weekly sessions on ideological
  training
• By the 1940s the Nazis realised the adverse
  effect this had and argued that they needed more
  scientists to compete with other countries in
  research

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Conclusions

• What National socialist training produced however
  were duller, stupider, though healthier
  individuals. Incapable of providing political
  leadership or contributing the intellectual and
  technical skills necessary for running a modern
  industrial society Sax and Kuntz.