The Enemy of our Enemy
A View of the Edelweiss Piraten from the British and American Archives
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10073270 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Perry Biddiscombe (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1995 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 37-63 |
| Publication date | 1995-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Contemporary History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-0094 • E-ISSN: 1461-7250 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/002200949503000102 |
| OpenAlex | W2057733447 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
Although it is a story little known outside Germany, the seemingly monolithic Hitler Jugend (HJ) was challenged at the very height of the Third Reich by a number of oppositional youth gangs. Most of these were set up by working-class teenagers and were particularly clustered in the great cities and industrial conurbations of western Germany, where many such groups called themselves 'Edelweiss Piraten'. Even a conservative estimate suggests that 5 per cent of the adolescent population may have been involved in these bands, at least peripherally. Edelweiss Piraten and similar groupings were purely local clubs, which organized camping trips and sing-along gatherings, specifically outside the stifling field of control imposed by the Hitler Jugend. After 1939, when membership in the HJ became mandatory, opposition could no longer be expressed by mere absence from the movement and it thus developed through the establishment of 'cliques' within the HJ itself. In certain areas, a kind of miniature civil war broke out within the nazi youth movement, with Edelweiss elements launching physical attacks upon HJ leaders and the infamous HJ-Streifendienst, or 'patrol service', which was a rallying point for hardboiled nazis and served as a recruitment channel for the SS
Adversary · Computer security · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Computer Science · European history and politics · German History and Society · History
| Citations per year | 0.17 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2008 - 2020 (13) |
| Highly cited | No |