Children's propaganda in Nazi Germany
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
(NSDAP) directed
propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
at children in
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
between the 1920s and 1945 to influence the values and beliefs of the future generation of German citizens according to their political agenda and
ideology An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied pri ...
. The Nazi Party targeted children with mandatory youth organizations, school courses on racial purity, and
anti-Semitic Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...
children’s books. The Nazi Party's propaganda took advantage of children's ignorance about the Jewish community. Although the Jewish population in Germany was the largest in central Europe, it was still a relatively small fraction of the overall population, with only 525,000 members (0.75% of the total German population).


Youth organizations

Starting in the 1920s, the Nazi Party "targeted German youth as a special audience for its propaganda messages". They encouraged the formation of Nazi youth groups for children who were "dynamic, resilient, forward-looking, and hopeful." As the Nazi Party grew, the number of children they targeted increased. By 1936, "membership in Nazi youth groups became mandatory for all boys and girls between the ages of 10-17." The
Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. ...
organization was founded in 1926 to train young boys for membership in the
Sturmabteilung The (; SA; literally "Storm Detachment") was the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi ral ...
(SA; literally Storm Detachment), the Party's main paramilitary organization at the time. In 1933, leaders of the Hitler Youth decided to integrate boys into the Nazi national community and prepare them for service as soldiers in the
Schutzstaffel The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe d ...
(SS, also stylized as ). Membership of the Hitler Youth skyrocketed from 50,000 in January 1933 to more than 2 million by the end of the year. Before membership became mandatory in 1939, the group had surpassed 5.4 million members, with over 700,000 German youths holding leadership positions. Once membership in the Hitler Youth organization had become mandatory, "German authorities ... prohibited or dissolved competing youth organizations". The Nazi Party used the Hitler Youth and the
League of German Girls The League of German Girls or the Band of German Maidens (german: Bund Deutscher Mädel, abbreviated as BDM) was the girls' wing of the Nazi Party youth movement, the Hitler Youth. It was the only legal female youth organization in Nazi Germany. ...
as the primary tools to shape the minds of the German youth and create the illusion of a mass community that reached "across class and religious divisions that characterized Germany before 1933". File:Bundesarchiv Bild 133-081, Hitlerjugend, Ehrenwache für Gefallene.jpg, Young members of the
Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. ...
as honour guards for the '' Blutzeuge'', Nazis "martyrs" who had been murdered by opponents in the political violence in Germany during the Weimar Republic and after the seizure of control in January 1933.
Photo: ''Bundesarchiv'' File:Bundesarchiv Bild 133-065, Hitlerjugend, Altmetallsammlung.jpg, Jungvolk boys 1933 collecting metal for the German armament industry.
Photo: ''Bundesarchiv'' File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-J15063, Familie mit 12 Kindern.jpg, 13.8.1943, The political Nazi leader Reichel (from Erdmannsdorf in Saxony) with his wife and twelve children all dressed in Nazi Party or military uniforms. The mother is decorated with the
Cross of Honor of the German Mother The Cross of Honour of the German Mother (), referred to colloquially as the ''Mutterehrenkreuz'' (Mother's Cross of Honour) or simply ''Mutterkreuz'' (Mother's Cross), was a state decoration conferred by the government of the German ReichStatuto ...
.Five sons are with the German Wehrmacht; the sixth is with the Reich Labor Service. The smaller children are all members of Nazi youth organizations. The youngest girls have symbols on their dresses; a sign for members in 's for children aged between 6 and 10.
Photo: ''
Bundesarchiv , type = Archive , seal = , seal_size = , seal_caption = , seal_alt = , logo = Bundesarchiv-Logo.svg , logo_size = , logo_caption = , lo ...
'' (German Federal Archives)


Participation in World War II

When boys reached age 18, they were required to enlist in the armed forces or into the
Reich Labour Service The Reich Labour Service (''Reichsarbeitsdienst''; RAD) was a major organisation established in Nazi Germany as an agency to help mitigate the effects of unemployment on the German economy, militarise the workforce and indoctrinate it with Naz ...
and "were put through three weeks of rigorous training. The need for discipline and unquestioning obedience was drilled into the boys." Girls, on the other hand, were sent to Poland to help German farmers cultivate the land that had been seized from the Poles during the course of World War II. They were required to work long hours helping inexperienced farmers work the fields, and they were also forced to act as nursemaids for the sick. In addition to this work, they had the responsibility of overseeing that the "Nazi rules and doctrine were not violated". From 1943 to 1944, as Allied forces crossed the borders into Germany, the demands on the Hitler Youth intensified. German youths aged 16 were enlisted for active duty. Often these new soldiers fought in units alongside seniors who were over the age of sixty in the national militia (
Volkssturm The (; "people's storm") was a levée en masse national militia established by Nazi Germany during the last months of World War II. It was not set up by the German Army, the ground component of the combined German ''Wehrmacht'' armed forces, ...
, literally People's Storm). As the war continued to turn in the Allied force's favor, the Nazi Party became desperate and began training boys as young as ten to handle and operate military-grade weaponry (machine guns, hand grenades, bazookas, etc.). Hitler Youth tank divisions were formed to fight in the
Battle of the Bulge The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive (military), offensive military campaign, campaign on the Western Front (World War II), Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted fr ...
; the number of casualties rose steeply as "barely trained fifteen-year-olds ereled by sixteen-year-olds".


Propaganda through schools

Soon after the
Enabling Act of 1933 The Enabling Act (German: ') of 1933, officially titled ' (), was a law that gave the German Cabinet – most importantly, the Chancellor – the powers to make and enforce laws without the involvement of the Reichstag or Weimar Presi ...
had been passed, Jewish teachers and professors were dismissed from German schools and universities. By April 1933, there were no Jewish teachers remaining in schools attended by '
Aryan Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ' ...
' students, a racial term used by the Nazis to describe the Germanic peoples. In the educational system, Jewish children regularly experienced ridicule, from both their peers and teachers. For example, Jewish children would be sent to the back of the classroom to reiterate to the non-Jewish German children the notion that they were inferior to them. Additionally, "teachers would begin to pick out Jewish students in classrooms to use as examples during biology lessons about racial impurity. Jewish children would be told to stand at the front of the class, whilst teachers pointed to their eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and hair, comparing these to characteristics on Nazi propaganda sheets". Eventually, the Jewish children were completely segregated from the non-Jewish German children in schools. During the period of segregation, Jewish teachers were allowed to set up separate schools for Jewish students. This came, however, with its own set of issues for Jewish children, who were frequently beaten up and attacked by members of the Hitler Youth who "would wait outside at the end of the school day and set about beating Jewish boys as they left school". In 1938, Jewish children were banned from receiving education completely and were removed from schools prior to being sent to concentration camps. From this point onward, schools heavily used propaganda to indoctrinate children into Nazi ideology.Wiener Holocaust Library 2016: ''A is for Adolf: Teaching German Children Nazi Values'' (online exhibition)
/ref> Textbooks and posters were used to teach German youth "the importance of racial consciousness". Students' school work was often provided in an ideological context. The following math problem is an example: "The Jews are aliens in Germany. In 1933, there were 66,000,000 people living in Germany. Of this total, 499,862 were Jewish. What is the percentage of aliens in Germany?" Textbook passages like this consistently reiterated the message of the racial inferiority of Jews, as well as the superiority of the German peoples they called the
Aryan race The Aryan race is an obsolete historical race concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people of Proto-Indo-European heritage as a racial grouping. The terminology derives from the historical usage of Aryan, used by modern I ...
. With the dismissal of Jewish educators, the
National Socialist Teachers League The National Socialist Teachers League (German: , NSLB), was established on 21 April 1929. Its original name was the Organization of National Socialist Educators. Its founder and first leader was former schoolteacher Hans Schemm, the Gauleiter ...
required that only teachers who could prove they were "Aryan" were teaching the German youth. Every educator "was required to submit an ancestry table in triplicate with official documented proof" of their lineage. In addition, the league monitored courses for compliance with the Nazi Party's values. All educational courses had to reflect the aims of Hitler; of the required courses, they believed the most important was to teach German children racial theory and, by extension, the Jewish problem. By 1936, 97% of German educators belonged to the National Socialist Teachers League. Children's books were created throughout the Nazi's reign to incite hatred for Jews at a young age. These books contained demeaning illustrations of Jewish people; in these books, Jewish people were depicted as "usually stocky ... the posture is crooked or bent; the feet are flat; the hair is dark; there is a lot of coarse body hair. The face usually has dark and bulging eyes, a crooked or bent nose, hanging eyelids, a hanging underlip, and a heavy beard." Furthermore, books such as Trau Keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid und keinem Jud aufi seinem Eid (in English, Trust No Fox on his Green Meadow and No Jew on his Oath), written by
Elvira Bauer Elvira is a female given name. First recorded in medieval Spain, it is likely of Germanic (Gothic) origin. Elvira may refer to: People Nobility * Elvira Menéndez (died 921), daughter of Hermenegildo Gutiérrez and wife of Ordoño II of Leó ...
, aimed to reiterate to German children that the war "was being fought to save the Aryan world from the Jewish alien invaders within the midst". These books were distributed in schools with the sole purpose of teaching children Nazi ideologies. Additionally, after-school activities and weekend trips were regularly sponsored by the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls. These activities often acted as recruitment meetings for the participating school children. The Hitler Youth combined sports and physical outdoor activities with Nazi ideologies. Likewise, the League of German Girls emphasized collective athletics such as
rhythmic gymnastics Rhythmic gymnastics is a sport in which gymnasts perform on a floor with an apparatus: hoop, ball, clubs, ribbon. The sport combines elements of gymnastics, dance and calisthenics; gymnasts must be strong, flexible, agile, dexterous and coord ...
, which "German health authorities deemed less strenuous to the female body and better geared to preparing them for motherhood". This was also used for public display. Authorities wanted these sports and activities to encourage "young men and women to abandon their individuality in favor of the goals of the Aryan collective". File:2014-06 BLM Braunschweig WMDE (97).jpg, "Storm troopers" of the
Sturmabteilung The (; SA; literally "Storm Detachment") was the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi ral ...
(SA, "brownshirts") and ''Pimpfe'' ("lads") of the Jungvolk as
tin soldier Tin soldiers are miniature figures of toy soldiers that are very popular in the world of collecting. They can be bought finished or in a raw state to be hand-painted. They are generally made of pewter, tin, lead, other metals or plastic. Of ...
s. File:Guck emol! (3877793193).jpg, Reader for school children: Little Paul says "Heil Hitler" to a passing SA man. File:Sturmpioniere Reichsspiel für Kinder aus NS-Zeit.jpg, ''Sturmpioniere'', a Nazi period war board game for children


Effect of the propaganda on children

Hitler's ideologies were taught to the entire population of German children. These children were instructed in Nazi ideology from a very young age, and through this and mandatory membership in the youth organizations, children were taught to hate Jews. The youth of Nazi Germany came of age in the 1920s, 1930s, and early 1940s listening to racist and anti-Semitic lectures, reciting Nazi-inspired slogans, reading propaganda publications, and attending national youth rallies. The affected children were instructed to report any activities or conversations that could be considered treacherous. Children reported the activity of neighbors, teachers, religious leaders, and even their own family. Through these means, the youth of Germany were taught to respect, follow, and embrace the ideologies of the Nazi Party and those espoused by Hitler. The effect of propaganda on children would last for years after World War II ended. In the last days of the war in Berlin the Hitler Youth members of
Werwolf ''Werwolf'' (, German for "werewolf") was a Nazi plan which began development in 1944, to create a resistance force which would operate behind enemy lines as the Allies advanced through Germany, in parallel with the ''Wehrmacht'' fighting in ...
could be heard singing "Heute gehoert uns Deutschland und morgen die ganze Welt" (Today Germany belongs to us, and tomorrow the whole world). Even after the unconditional surrender of the German forces, many German youths continued to fight on behalf of the Nazi Party in Werwolf. The young members of Werwolf strongly believed that they were fighting for a just cause, and they felt disillusioned after the end of the war. In the ensuing years, Allied occupation authorities required German youths to undergo
denazification Denazification (german: link=yes, Entnazifizierung) was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War. It was carried out by remov ...
programs that were designed to counter the adverse effects of the Nazi propaganda. File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-12405, Bad Harzburg, Jubelnde NSDAP-Anhänger.jpg, A man with a toddler on his arm in 1931, both in uniforms of the
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
.
Photo: ''Bundesarchiv'' File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-C17887, Berlin, Joseph Goebbels mit Kindern bei Weihnachtsfeier.jpg, Propaganda Minister
Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...
with children celebrating Christmas 1937.
Photo: ''Bundesarchiv''


References

;Sources *Welsh, David. "The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda". *"Jewish Population of Europe in 1933: Population Data by Country". www.ushmm.org. Retrieved 2018-03-26. *"Nazi Education - History Learning Site". History Learning Site. Retrieved 2017-04-28. {{Nazi propaganda Nazi propaganda Childhood in Germany History of childhood