THE HITLER JUGEND The Hitler Youth Organisation The Original SHAEF Study

FROM THE FOREWORD
A thirteen year old boy manned a machine gun against advancing Allied tanks on the Reineland frontier, while his mates passed the ammunition.
An execution squad composed of 14-16 year olds shot Polish civilian hostages.
A monument was erected to a boy still living, commemorating the fact that he denounced his father “loyally to the Fuhrer”: the father was executed for treason.
Herbert Norkus, the Hitler’s Youth Martyr is the Horst Wessel of most of Germany’s young today.
Eleven years of Nazi indoctrination, at the most susceptible age, in the Hitler’s Youth has done its work.

The Hitler’s Youth is NOT the Boy Scout or a Girl Guide organisation. It is no respect comparable to any organisation for young people known to the Western World.
It is a compulsory Nazi Formation, which has consciously sought to breed hate, treachery and cruelty into the mind and soul of every German child. It is in the true sense of the word “education for death.”
Under no circumstances should the HItler Youth be taken lightly or to be considered negligible factor from an operational or occupation point of view.

Some 12 to 14 million youth are organised into four branches of the Hitler’s Youth:
The Hitler Youth proper (boys from 14-18)
The German Young Folk ( boys 10-14)
The League of German Girls (girls from 14 to 18)
The Young Girls (girls from 10-14)

A rough estimate on the basis of over-all figures available would place between 3 000 000 and 3 500 000 into each branch. Of this number, 30 000 serve as fully paid, full time leaders.
Approximately 1 000 male and 1 000 female Banne (Regiment averaging 6 000 members each) carried on administration and training.
In addition, in 1943 The Hitler Youth maintained between 7 000 and 8 000 camps and other establishments. 1 000 000 boys (most of them over 14) attended special Youth training courses there in one year.
514 000 of 17 year old received Hitler’s Youth training in Pre- Military Training Camps, of which some 300 are at present in operation throughout the Reich.

The emphasis of the following Basic Handbook and appended Order of Battle tables is on the 14-18 year old male group, The Hitler Youth Proper, the primary potential source of disaffection and the primary source of replacements for the Wehrmacht.

The Above figures do not only indicate the vast scope of the Hitler Youth in German life today, but demonstrate the role which it plays in Germany’s actual and potential military strength.
Both the SS and the Wehrmacht have long since appreciated this. From mere liaison with the Hitler’s youth, their relationship with the HJ has passed through the stage of supervision and has finally resulted in complete domination.
The Hitler Youth has become a Wehrmacht replacement pool, a manpower reservoir for auxiliary war services, and a means of strengthening the increasingly pernicious hold on the German people of the most ruthless of all Nazi organisation, the SS.
A few courageous young Germans, risking their lives in order to salvage their minds, spirits and perhaps their country, have sought to escape from the tentacles, of the Hitler’s Youth, and some underground cells composed of such young people are known to exist.

But it must not be forgotten that every young German has been schooled by Nazi teachers, and that this “Junior Army” is ready to take the field either individually, in small groups, on a larger scale, or as saboteurs., informers, and even franctireurs in defence of Nazism, its fanatical creed.