So, here now is an attempt at a
brief (sorry!) account of the change at the top of the RJF. It would be easier to do this on ten pages than on one, and is further complicated by the fact that everyone involved tells a different version that makes them look good. One can see the usual kind of intrigue for the Nazi state.
Schirach had mistaken the increasing war din in the summer of 1939 for propaganda (although he personally should have known better by August). In September, the situation nevertheless seemed to offer him a tremendous opportunity: the concentration of all power over the youth in his hands - against his old enemy, the Minister of Education. But nothing came of it; on the contrary, the Wehrmacht and the SS reached out for the special formations of the HJ.
In addition, the RJF suddenly found itself without personnel: at the beginning of 1939, there were a total of 19,765 paid members of the HJ leadership corps, the basis was formed by the 745,819 voluntary members of the HJ leadership. Between September 1939 and the spring of 1940, the HJ lost about 95 percent of its full-time leaders through volunteer registrations to the front. By the beginning of October, 273 and by the end of November 1939, 378 of 424 full-time members of the RJF were already in the Wehrmacht, which was 64.4 and 89.2 percent of the male HJ leaders of the HJ headquarters who were fit for service. In the same period 467 out of 1,100 Bann and Jungbann leaders (42.5 per cent) volunteered for the Wehrmacht or were drafted. or were drafted. By May 1940, eleven out of 14 Amtschefs/heads of office, half of all Abteilungsleiter/heads of department of the RJF and 28 out of 36 HJ
Gebietsführer had been drafted; all HJ-Richter/judges were also on wartime duty, and the 800 most important leaders of the HJ-Streifendienst were in Waffen-SS units. As early as January 1940, the HJ had to replace 25,000 leaders from the Bann leaderships, about 40 to 70 leaders per Bann.
Under these conditions, there was practically no leadership left, and criticism of the remaining RJF for the "indiscipline of the youth" was growing stronger from everywhere, especially as it seemed that the remaining leaders were avoiding enlistment. Hitler had initially decided that Schirach and Lauterbacher should remain in office. Lauterbacher had already enlisted in the Luftwaffe in October 1939 and had also been accepted, but Schirach had refused him.According to the SS report, Schirach blamed a laryngeal condition, but then in December he also came for basic training (to Döberitz near Berlin, with his own room and personal instructor!). In the meantime, Lauterbacher became the "bevollmächtigter Vertreter/authorised representative of the Reichsjugendführer". In April 1940 the basic training was finished, Schirach was promoted to private (normally the training lasted only 6 weeks!) and transferred to the infantry regiment "Großdeutschland". He now had no intention of taking up the post of youth leader again because of the state of the HJ and his new experiences. However, he did not want Lauterbacher in this post either, and so he proposed Artur Axmann on probation (for 3 months) without consulting Lauterbacher. Hitler immediately agreed, as he appreciated Axmann's work in the Reichsberufkampf (probably the main reason for the proposal). Axmann, who was in France as a sergeant, first had to be sought out and learned of his unexpected promotion there (3 May 1940). At the end of June/beginning of July 1940, Hitler informed Schirach that he was to become Gauleiter in Vienna, whereupon the latter finally proposed Axmann as his successor. This is what happened. (Sources: Buddrus, chapters 1.1, 1.2; v. Lang, Hitler-Junge)
Thank you for fighting your way through this long text!
The photo of soldier Schirach can then be found in the Photos section.
Gefreiter von Schirach
