Was Nazi Youth Policy Successful?

1) Responses to Nazi youth policies:

Enthusiasm: 14.35

The youth were excited about being Nazis because they are easily persuaded to believe that Nazism is a good thing. Some might not even know anything about Nazi ideology, but they are still enthusiastic about being part of a community such as the Nazi community.

Conformity for career reasons: 14.35, 14.37

"Many believe that they will find job opportunities through the persecution of the Jews and Marxist." This shows that the youth wanted jobs, and they supported the Nazis because they saw there would be opportunities. Source 14.37 shows that many youths joined the party because they were promised jobs, but later they saw that these job positions were taken by slightly older Nazis. This may have been one of the few reasons they supported the Nazis, so after this they might reconsider their choice.

Conformity through fear: 14.36, 14.38

The teachers who were trying to force their students into the Hitler Youth program asked them if their parents were supporters of Hitler. They answered yes even if they were opposed because they were afraid of what would happen if they said they didn't support him. Source 14.38 shows that the Nazis were forcing the youths to do drills and other things in they Nazi Youth program. The youth was very scared of them so they conformed through fear.

Conformity through apathy/ natural obedience: 14.34

Even if they didn't believe in or know about Nazi ideology, some youths still conformed. In some places the Nazi ideology wasn't forced upon them, it was only slightly introduced into the curriculum. This meant that the youth didn't know about it enough to know they didn't believe it, and they kind of just went along with it. They were "politically programmed: to obey orders, to cultivate the soldierly 'virtue' of standing to attention and saying 'Yes, sir'..."

Nonconformity/ disillusion: 14.36

This source shows that eventually some of the youths were avoiding the Hitler Youth events because they were tired of the authority. They lost interest in the concept of the Nazi Youth program.

Criticism/ opposition: 14.36, 14.37, 14.39

Source 14/36 shows that although most of the youth were interested and excited about "uniforms and war games" at first, it became old and they wanted to rebel against the extreme amount of authority that they were under. Source 14.39 shows that some youths knew what was going on with the Nazi's brutality.

2) Do the sources suggest that the young people's reactions to the Nazis changed over time?

Yes, at first they were enthusiastic and interested in the Nazi's ideas and the youth program. However, after a while, they became uninterested in the war games and suspicious of the Nazi brutality.

3) Most of these sources come from either the German opposition or the police. How reliable on this topic do you think these two types of sources are?

I think that they both have the chance of being unreliable because they might sway the information in their favor to support their views, or have interpreted something differently that others would have. However, they do have some reliability because they experienced the situation first hand. Source 14.34, a man looking back on his childhood, could be more reliable because at the time he would have been to frightened to share his real views on the Nazi youth program.

4) Write your own judgement on the success of Nazi youth policy. Then compare it with those of the historians quoted in the chapter review. (pages 290-291)

-Nazi youth policy in general was somewhat successful at first, but as time went on it became less successful. The youth became rebellious against and uninterested in the Nazi's ideas in general.

-The success of the the Nazi youth policy varied from school to school and depended on the teachers and their views.