The Ideology of the Hitler Youth in the Kampfzelt

The early history of the National-Socialist youth movement was characterized by its fragmentation and ineffectiveness, and it was not until Adolf Hitler took the initiative in establishing the Hitler-Jugend (HJ) as the official youth organization of his party (NSDAP)2 that there was any semblance of cohesion in this sphere of the party's activity. The overriding purpose of the HJ was to attract the political support of young Germans for National-Socialism. To understand the development of the HJ during the tempestuous years of struggle before the National-Socialist Machtergreifung in I933, we must ask what were the ideas and ideals which motivated it. In the few post-war studies made of the HJ, this aspect of its growth has been either neglected or dealt with in a summary fashion only.3 The general tendency has been to dismiss the HJ as a mere 'party association', or a 'fighting and propaganda troop',4 with the clear implication that it had no ideological ethos in any way peculiar to itself. In other words, the impression conveyed is that the NSDAP, and indeed the SA, more or less decreed what the HJ should think. This fails to take account of at least two important points: first, before 1933, the HJ was not as closely bound organizationally to either the NSDAP or the SA as has been generally supposed. Precise directives were, of

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