Tony would appear to have deserted us for some reason so rather than leaving this sub-forum as it is I thought it would be a good place to put translations from autobiographies/period books. Those of you who may not be able to read German might, I hope, find them useful.
So, to start us off here is an interesting section from Hartmann Lauterbacher's autobiography 'Erlebt und mitgestaltet'. Here he is describing how the Adolf Hitler March came into being.
The reason I translated this particular section first was because of yet another flowery, intentionally vague item description on a well-known US dealer's site designed to make an item appear more interesting, older and rare than it actually is.....
Anyway, onto the march:
The athletic but also artistic schlesian Gebietsführer Werner Altendorf had marched his Bann flags to Breslau in 1934 and 1935. This idea fascinated me so much that I invented the 'Adolf Hitler March'.
In accordance with a finely-tuned plan the Bann (and later Jungbann) flags from every Gebiet converged on Nuremberg. Computers would be used today but back then the organisation and mathematics were planned and calculated by people. The distances, the rest stations, feeding points, accommodation and rest days all had to be calculated to ensure that the formations arrived, often in foul weather, at the huge assembly area in Fürth within a window of a few hours. It resembled an olympic torch procession but there the torch was passed from runner to runner. The Adolf Hitler March was much more difficult. Depending on the size of the Gebiet and how many flags were to be carried the groups consisted of between 30 and 80 participants, flag bearers, organisers, baggage trucks, logistic personnel - all of whom had to set off and arrive as a tight formation. It was a great feat of organisation and logistics.
For the most part we were the guests of small and medium-sized villages. Taking in a Hitler youth was considered an honour by the farmers, guest-house owners and all levels of society. Guarded sports halls were provided for the flags and there was much competion between the mayor, local party officials, local HJ leaders, the Frauenschaft and BDM to make the boys stay a pleasant one. Medics and doctors were of course always present to monitor the boys' health.
Everywhere our marchers went there were great celebrations. The Adolf Hitler March captivated the whole nation which is something other agencies were not always able to achieve. Rail travel enabled one to travel the length and breadth of the country in comfort but only the Adolf Hitler marchers really got to know Germany and its history, its peoples' monuments and the birth of a nation from the Ordensburgen in the east to the palaces and cathedrals in central, western and south-western Germany so intensively. The march was a great learning experience and it gave the boys the chance to learn history in the locations where those past events actually took place.
All in all the marches were a concentration of ideology and politics, of history, current events and physical training. The joggers of today used to be called simply distance runners or forest runners but the march of 32,000km with flags flying only took place a few times. The marches were an illustration of our discipline. It was a special task and a way to learn about community and was thus a kind of weekly meeting (Heimabend) but spread over 10, 20 or 30 days.
With great discipline and precision the columns arrived at the huge campsite in Fürth where all participants (between 8,000 and 12,000) received new clothing. Eight days of medical and physical checks then followed. After a few days of relative quiet the rehearsals for the parade and march-past began.
And then the day arrived. It could also have been described as the 'reward for our fear'. The HJ leader Eberhard Grüttner from Berlin, a tough character with extraordinary leadership qualities, took on the organisation of the flag parade. Schirach had persuaded Hitler to review the parade from the balcony of his Nuremberg headquarters at the Deutscher Hof. From 1936 onwards the Adolf Hitler March marked the official opening of the Reichsparteitag and this remained so until the outbreak of war.
I stood next to Adolf Hitler and Schirach on the balcony and I have to admit that my heart was pounding at the thought of this further test but the march-past went extremely well. As far away as the Plärrer (large open area bordered to the north by the town wall in Nuremberg-Gostenhof), around 500m away, we could see the columns approaching and could hear our bands. At the first Reichsparteitag to include the Hitlerjugend I had had my musicians and trumpeters from Cologne with me but now there were more than 400 musicians! There was not a cloud in the sky. It was perfect 'Führer' weather and the gloomy predictions and my own worries proved to be absolutely unjustified. In neat rows of 12 and with the same precision shown at the monument in Berlin the boys from all parts of the Reich marched past. It was a demonstration of a Greater Germany - particularly so later when the Germans from Austria and the Sudetenland took part. The march routes were lined with tens of thousands of spectators whose cheers could quite possibly have brought down the walls of Jericho.
Looking back I see the Adolf Hitler March as the climax of my work with the Hitlerjugend. Order, discipline, ideology and beauty were united as one.
Hitler had displayed all signs of being in agreement but his initial reaction was to wait and see how things developed. In the end though he was wildly enthusiastic. Unfortunately only very few ever knew him that way. The boys carried out their instructions to the letter and were a tight formation, a single unit, a block even. Today one might say 'drill'. Dear God, that you might have to listen to that!
The Adolf Hitler March had been extended to include Landsberg in 1938. In the beginning there was little support for the idea but I was able to win over the Führer. Once the final trumpet blast of the Party Congress had sounded the thousands marched to Hitler's prison cell in Landsberg. Local HJ and party offices gave the press the impression that this final part of the march was their idea but Schirach made it clear in the Gockel Hotel, the final refuge of the families of those sentenced to death after 1945, that this was not the case.
In Hitler's cell all participants received a copy of 'Mein Kampf' with a special dedication. Schirach closed the march and the party congress on the town square in Landsberg. As he had done many times before he gave a rousing speech and reinforced his position as an idol of the HJ. What happened to him and all of us many years later is recorded elsewhere.
The boys travelled in special trains back to the home country between Etsch and Belt, Maas and Memel telling all of the great event. Noone would have allowed their memories of country, people and history to be taken away from them. How many later died in battle? The participants in the world's largest flag parade were certainly among them. Some of those who were there and are still alive today speak of the march as being the high-point of their youth.
Just as the Adolf Hitler March was much more than just a simple march to Nuremberg and Landsberg we envisaged the same for the planned 'Deutschland March'. This was to be a march to Germany's borders. We also envisaged a march extending beyond the border; the 'Europe March' out to the german populations and friends of Germany in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Greece, Finland and Scandinavia but the war put paid to those plans.
So, to start us off here is an interesting section from Hartmann Lauterbacher's autobiography 'Erlebt und mitgestaltet'. Here he is describing how the Adolf Hitler March came into being.
The reason I translated this particular section first was because of yet another flowery, intentionally vague item description on a well-known US dealer's site designed to make an item appear more interesting, older and rare than it actually is.....
Anyway, onto the march:
The Adolf-Hitler March
The athletic but also artistic schlesian Gebietsführer Werner Altendorf had marched his Bann flags to Breslau in 1934 and 1935. This idea fascinated me so much that I invented the 'Adolf Hitler March'.
In accordance with a finely-tuned plan the Bann (and later Jungbann) flags from every Gebiet converged on Nuremberg. Computers would be used today but back then the organisation and mathematics were planned and calculated by people. The distances, the rest stations, feeding points, accommodation and rest days all had to be calculated to ensure that the formations arrived, often in foul weather, at the huge assembly area in Fürth within a window of a few hours. It resembled an olympic torch procession but there the torch was passed from runner to runner. The Adolf Hitler March was much more difficult. Depending on the size of the Gebiet and how many flags were to be carried the groups consisted of between 30 and 80 participants, flag bearers, organisers, baggage trucks, logistic personnel - all of whom had to set off and arrive as a tight formation. It was a great feat of organisation and logistics.
For the most part we were the guests of small and medium-sized villages. Taking in a Hitler youth was considered an honour by the farmers, guest-house owners and all levels of society. Guarded sports halls were provided for the flags and there was much competion between the mayor, local party officials, local HJ leaders, the Frauenschaft and BDM to make the boys stay a pleasant one. Medics and doctors were of course always present to monitor the boys' health.
Everywhere our marchers went there were great celebrations. The Adolf Hitler March captivated the whole nation which is something other agencies were not always able to achieve. Rail travel enabled one to travel the length and breadth of the country in comfort but only the Adolf Hitler marchers really got to know Germany and its history, its peoples' monuments and the birth of a nation from the Ordensburgen in the east to the palaces and cathedrals in central, western and south-western Germany so intensively. The march was a great learning experience and it gave the boys the chance to learn history in the locations where those past events actually took place.
All in all the marches were a concentration of ideology and politics, of history, current events and physical training. The joggers of today used to be called simply distance runners or forest runners but the march of 32,000km with flags flying only took place a few times. The marches were an illustration of our discipline. It was a special task and a way to learn about community and was thus a kind of weekly meeting (Heimabend) but spread over 10, 20 or 30 days.
With great discipline and precision the columns arrived at the huge campsite in Fürth where all participants (between 8,000 and 12,000) received new clothing. Eight days of medical and physical checks then followed. After a few days of relative quiet the rehearsals for the parade and march-past began.
And then the day arrived. It could also have been described as the 'reward for our fear'. The HJ leader Eberhard Grüttner from Berlin, a tough character with extraordinary leadership qualities, took on the organisation of the flag parade. Schirach had persuaded Hitler to review the parade from the balcony of his Nuremberg headquarters at the Deutscher Hof. From 1936 onwards the Adolf Hitler March marked the official opening of the Reichsparteitag and this remained so until the outbreak of war.
I stood next to Adolf Hitler and Schirach on the balcony and I have to admit that my heart was pounding at the thought of this further test but the march-past went extremely well. As far away as the Plärrer (large open area bordered to the north by the town wall in Nuremberg-Gostenhof), around 500m away, we could see the columns approaching and could hear our bands. At the first Reichsparteitag to include the Hitlerjugend I had had my musicians and trumpeters from Cologne with me but now there were more than 400 musicians! There was not a cloud in the sky. It was perfect 'Führer' weather and the gloomy predictions and my own worries proved to be absolutely unjustified. In neat rows of 12 and with the same precision shown at the monument in Berlin the boys from all parts of the Reich marched past. It was a demonstration of a Greater Germany - particularly so later when the Germans from Austria and the Sudetenland took part. The march routes were lined with tens of thousands of spectators whose cheers could quite possibly have brought down the walls of Jericho.
Looking back I see the Adolf Hitler March as the climax of my work with the Hitlerjugend. Order, discipline, ideology and beauty were united as one.
Hitler had displayed all signs of being in agreement but his initial reaction was to wait and see how things developed. In the end though he was wildly enthusiastic. Unfortunately only very few ever knew him that way. The boys carried out their instructions to the letter and were a tight formation, a single unit, a block even. Today one might say 'drill'. Dear God, that you might have to listen to that!
The Adolf Hitler March had been extended to include Landsberg in 1938. In the beginning there was little support for the idea but I was able to win over the Führer. Once the final trumpet blast of the Party Congress had sounded the thousands marched to Hitler's prison cell in Landsberg. Local HJ and party offices gave the press the impression that this final part of the march was their idea but Schirach made it clear in the Gockel Hotel, the final refuge of the families of those sentenced to death after 1945, that this was not the case.
In Hitler's cell all participants received a copy of 'Mein Kampf' with a special dedication. Schirach closed the march and the party congress on the town square in Landsberg. As he had done many times before he gave a rousing speech and reinforced his position as an idol of the HJ. What happened to him and all of us many years later is recorded elsewhere.
The boys travelled in special trains back to the home country between Etsch and Belt, Maas and Memel telling all of the great event. Noone would have allowed their memories of country, people and history to be taken away from them. How many later died in battle? The participants in the world's largest flag parade were certainly among them. Some of those who were there and are still alive today speak of the march as being the high-point of their youth.
Just as the Adolf Hitler March was much more than just a simple march to Nuremberg and Landsberg we envisaged the same for the planned 'Deutschland March'. This was to be a march to Germany's borders. We also envisaged a march extending beyond the border; the 'Europe March' out to the german populations and friends of Germany in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Greece, Finland and Scandinavia but the war put paid to those plans.
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) like to say when the weather is quite good and sunny: Kaiserwetter - Kaiser's weather, explaining me that this sentence is been used for a really long time. But I had no idea the "back then" they used to say too "Fuehrerwetter".