I am a new member and very aware that YOU know far more about the minutia of the HJ than I do, and I may have nothing to contribute to your forum whatsoever. Moderator Gary has suggested I post this thread to start a discussion: I have scores of books on the HJ and understand the concept of a disciplined youth movement in a Totalitarian State.
I had the good fortune to meet three ex-HJ members (2 HJ 1 BDM) when I was in Germany beginning a 5-year stint in the British Army and already I was steeped in some of the now-discredited titilation they instilled in an English fourteen year old schoolboy. When I consider how much HJ uniform and insignia I could have aquired in Germany 1951 I could weep for my own folly!!!! But I was then more fascinated by the whole concept of the HJ as the most remarkable youth movement ever devised in a Totalitarian State, and that fascination has increased over the years the more I study "Germany 1933-45". I was a boy in the city of Hull during the war, my house was twice hit by German bombs and I saw things I do not want to remember (but do!). I am no Nazi sympathiser and I shudder with horror with what 'they' did - no ifs or buts.
However I have spent much time in Germany and I am in love with the people, the country, and the culture (Beethoven is MY god!!!!)
Get on with it, I hear you say..... Can I begin with an opening thought?
What do you, in this forum, imagine was the scale of the ruthless all-pervading indoctrination of boys and girls when they had reached the age of, say, 14-15? The playtime summer camps were being being replaced by a burning subordination to The State, and I speculate on where this might have led if Germany had won the war. I mentioned to Gary an incident in a BBC architectural programme on Third Reich buildings, and one had a graveyard for SS Heroes - apparently older girls and their temporary SS boyfriends would copulate on these graves to stimulate themselves and instill an SS spirit into the child they were conceiving 'for The State'.
If Hitler's Children were doing that in 1943 what depths would the blue-eyed HJ be plumbing in, say 1951, when I would NOT have been in Germany as part of an army of occupation. This is the starting point for my thread which may be totally out of place in this forum - but it makes a change from badges and buttons!!!!! I personally feel the social and political history of the HJ deserves a study everyone else avoids. ROBERTS
I had the good fortune to meet three ex-HJ members (2 HJ 1 BDM) when I was in Germany beginning a 5-year stint in the British Army and already I was steeped in some of the now-discredited titilation they instilled in an English fourteen year old schoolboy. When I consider how much HJ uniform and insignia I could have aquired in Germany 1951 I could weep for my own folly!!!! But I was then more fascinated by the whole concept of the HJ as the most remarkable youth movement ever devised in a Totalitarian State, and that fascination has increased over the years the more I study "Germany 1933-45". I was a boy in the city of Hull during the war, my house was twice hit by German bombs and I saw things I do not want to remember (but do!). I am no Nazi sympathiser and I shudder with horror with what 'they' did - no ifs or buts.
However I have spent much time in Germany and I am in love with the people, the country, and the culture (Beethoven is MY god!!!!)
Get on with it, I hear you say..... Can I begin with an opening thought?
What do you, in this forum, imagine was the scale of the ruthless all-pervading indoctrination of boys and girls when they had reached the age of, say, 14-15? The playtime summer camps were being being replaced by a burning subordination to The State, and I speculate on where this might have led if Germany had won the war. I mentioned to Gary an incident in a BBC architectural programme on Third Reich buildings, and one had a graveyard for SS Heroes - apparently older girls and their temporary SS boyfriends would copulate on these graves to stimulate themselves and instill an SS spirit into the child they were conceiving 'for The State'.
If Hitler's Children were doing that in 1943 what depths would the blue-eyed HJ be plumbing in, say 1951, when I would NOT have been in Germany as part of an army of occupation. This is the starting point for my thread which may be totally out of place in this forum - but it makes a change from badges and buttons!!!!! I personally feel the social and political history of the HJ deserves a study everyone else avoids. ROBERTS