> >... [Benny 16's] "shit-eating grin" > >while goose-stepping could be the enthusiasm of youth (in an > >organization not so different from the Boy Scouts). ... > > [Not so different?] > > Hitler Youth > > He alone, who owns the youth, gains the Future! > -- Adolph Hitler, speech at the Reichsparteitag, 1935 > > The Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth), the NAZI party's youth movement, > indoctrinated German youth to perpetuate the "1,000 year Reich." The Hitler > Youth movement emphasized activism, physical training, NAZI ideology, > especially nationalism and racial concepts, and absolute obedience to Hitler > and the NAZI Party. Indoctrinating children in National Socialist ideology > was a key goal of the NAZI Party. Once Hitler assumed control over the > German state, he used the Government to make the Hitler Youth the country's > all encompassing youth movement. Hitler and other NAZIs leaders saw the > indoctrination of young Germans as of critical importance. In the same year > that they took power, the NAZIs organized German youth organizations into > two branches of the Hitler Youth (Hitler Jugen), one branch for boys and one > for girls. Membership was eventually made compulsory and all boys had to > report to a neighborhood office to have his racial background checked and be > registered for membership. There was then a typically elaborate introduction > ceremony on the F�hrer's birthday. > > The Hitler Youth was not just a German version of the Boy Scouts. ....
When I was in the BS, they told us that one of the first things that Hitler did was to abolish the Boy Scouts. I remember reading later that what actually happened was that the BS was merged into the Hitler Youth, with little or no transition problem. Though my source could have been wrong, it's quite likely that the German BS was more authoritarian than the the US version (which was quite top-down, in my experience, with all sorts of silly patriotism and marching). This was also back in the 1930s, when authoritarianism was more popular. And remember that Baden-Powell created the BS as an excuse to travel the world to spy for the British Empire (and of course that the BS was quite rah-rah for that Empire). I wouldn't be surprised at all if the 1930s German BS were quite like the Hitler Youth (before membership became mandatory). JD (1st class, ret.)
