Hitler's Children: The Hitler Youth and the SS

By Gerhard Rempel

Eighty-two percent of German boys and girls between the ages of ten and eighteen belonged to Hitlerjugend -- Hitler Youth -- or one of its affiliates by the time membership became fully compulsory in 1939. These adolescents were recognized by the SS, an exclusive cadre of Nazi zealots, as a source of future recruits to its own elite ranks, which were made up largely of men under the age of thirty. In this book, Gerhard Rempel examines the special relationship that developed between these two most youthful and dynamic branches of the National Socialist movement and concludes that the coalition gave nazism much of its passionate energy and contributed greatly to its initial political and military success.

Rempel center his analysis of the HJ-SS relationship on two branches of the Hitler Youth. The first of these, the Patrol Service, was established as a juvenile police force to pursue ideological and social deviants, political opponents, and non-conformists within the HJ and among German youth at large. Under SS influence, however, membership in the organization became a preliminary apprenticeship for boys who would go on to be agents and soldiers in such SS-controlled units as the Gestapo and Death's Head Formations. The second, the Land Service, was created by HJ to encourage a return to farm living. But this battle to reverse "the flight from the land" took on military significance as the SS sought to use the Land Service to create "defense-peasants" who would provide a reliable food supply while defending the Fatherland.

The transformation of the Patrol and Land services, like that of the HJ generally, served SS ends at the same time that it secured for the Nazi regime the practical and ideological support of Germany's youth. By fostering in the Hitler Youth as "national community" of the young, the SS believed it could convert the popular movement of nazism into a protomilitary program to produce ideologically pure and committed soldiers and leaders who would keep the movement young and vital.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807842990
• ISBN13: 9780807842997
• Release Date: October 1990
• Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Drawn out,. boring but highly informative

This book primarily discusses the systematic take-over of the Hitler Youth by the SS through insertion of its people into positions of power within and its dayly exploitation. From SS officers molesting young Hitler Youths while making Molestation charges against rival youth group leaders to drafts of the young into SS ranks to be hurled into fanatical death charges, this parastic relationship is described in long boring detail. It also discusses the BDM's missionary programs in the conquered east, primarily Poland, to bring ethnic germans into the Reich's volk's community. It also discusses the HJ problem with Juvenile delinquency. Ironicly the German problem of the Hitler years was many times lower than the one now going on in the more 'enlightened' present. The author presents the statistics quite solidly. Though the author denounces them the Germans made the correct actions against criminals, harsh punishment and strong police measures, they had the good sence to execute juvenile criminals. (Results speak for themselves). The HJ also created an additonal solution that is unique in the form of a Juvenile Police force of Hitler Youths to enforce law and order upon delinquents few of whom were politically motivated but just plain bad. Well worth the effort to read for anyone interested in the period of nazi germany or for that matter in Sociology.

Bund Deutsche Madel

There have been a wide range of materials written on the nazi youth movement, but the vast majority tend to focus almost exclusively on the male Hilter Jugend. However, "Hitler's Children" has a fairly reasonable discussion of the Bund Deutsche Madel for girls as well. Among other things, it focusses on the girls' involvement in farming to help with the war effort.Another main subject is the involvement of the SS with the Hitler youth for indoctrination and recruiting purposes, as well as espionage. There is some discussion of the leaders of the Hitler youth, although it does not really get extensively biographical. There is also a fair amount of coverage of the involvement of the Hitler youth in military activities (air raid fire brigades and digging anti-tank trenches towards the end). This book also has the only detailed discussion I have seen of the conflicts between the Hitler youth and the broad spectrum of other youth groups (communist, religious, middle class, etc.).