The hero of the film
Hitler Youth Quex, watched over by his girlfriend, lies on his bed following a
street brawl with communists. The film was very popular in Germany and aided
Hitler Youth recruitment.
The means of promoting the National Socialist message was
through the many youth organizations that the Nazis created to ensure that the
process of indoctrination continued during children's leisure time. Most famous
of these bodies was the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth or HJ). Almost immediately
after seizing power, the Nazis created an institutional structure capable of
encompassing all German children and adolescents. Headed by the "eternal
juvenile" Baldur von Schirach, who was appointed Youth Leader of the
German Reich on 17 June 1933, the system comprised four main elements. Two
associations were established for girls: the Jungmädelbund (League of Young
Girls), which covered ages 10 to 14; and the Bund Deutscher Mädel
(League of German Girls), incorporating girls from 14 to 18. There were two
organizations for boys: the Deutsches Jungfolk (German Young People), for ages
10 to 14; and the Hitler Youth itself, for boys aged 14to18.
Initially, recruitment to these groups was on a voluntary
basis, with Schirach proclaiming that "no boy is to be forced into the
Hitler Youth". However, great efforts were made to persuade children to
join of their own volition. To this end, rival youth organizations were
progressively eliminated. The left-wing labour youth movement was made the
subject of an outright ban, while other associations were forced to merge with
the Hitler Youth as part of the process of Gleichschaltung. Only the Catholic
youth leagues, which were protected by an agreement between Hitler and the
Vatican, were able to evade this process. Even then considerable pressure was
placed upon those children who joined Catholic youth clubs to enroll in the
Hitler Youth instead. It was not unknown for teachers to set extra homework for
those pupils who stayed out of the Hitler Youth. If that failed to persuade
them, they might be threatened with beatings as well. By such means, the Nazis
effectively created a monopoly for themselves in respect of German youth
associations. Those children who wanted to take part in such activities had to
come to them.
A more positive form of inducement existed in the form of a
concerted propaganda campaign designed to emphasize the "new
comradeship" provided for the young by the Nazi youth organizations. A
prominent example of this phenomenon was the 1933 blockbuster movie Hitler
Youth Quex. The film was a loose dramatization of the life of 15-year-old
Hitler Youth member Herbert Norkus, who had been killed by a gang of communist
assailants while distributing Nazi election literature in Berlin during January
1932. The film follows the fortunes of fictional character Heini Völker.
The story, which contains cliché after cliché, is nevertheless very powerful.
Heini, the film's hero, comes from a working-class district of Berlin. His
father, a life-long communist, is depicted as an alcoholic, a brute and a
loafer, who makes the lives of Heini and his mother a misery. She commits
suicide in despair, but Heini finds solace as well as comradeship and purpose
through joining the Hitler Youth. Such is his commitment to his "new
family" that, in protecting his fellow recruits from a communist plot, he
dies a martyr's death, proclaiming as he passes away that "the flag means
more than death". For the many thousands who saw the film, the message
that the Hitler Youth provided comradeship, purpose and a cause worth dying for
would have been both apparent and appealing.
The effect of these measures was to make the Nazi youth
organizations highly attractive to German children. The historian Stephen
Roberts, who visited Nazi Germany in the mid-1930s and observed the system in
operation, noted that "children wanted to join the H). To be outside
Hitler's organization was the worst form of punishment." As a result,
membership grew at an exponential rate. Whereas there had been a mere 108,000
in the Nazi youth movement in December 1932, this had reached 2.2 million by
the end of 1933, climbed to 3.6 million by the close of 1934, was just under 4
million in 1935, and hit 5.4 million in 1936. At this point, with rival
organizations effectively eliminated and the majority of German youths already
integrated within it, a law was passed making participation to all intents and
purposes compulsory. This brought the total membership to just over seven
million. The incorporation of seven million German young people into one
institutional structure gave the Nazis enormous scope to reinforce the
programme of indoctrination and regimentation that took place inside Germany's
schools. This was a task that the National Socialist youth movements took up
with relish.
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