What was Life in the Hitler Youth Actually Like?

[@TodayIFoundOut]

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[@Jeffrey-od9uk]

Garbage

[@ambulocetusnatans]

What is this, the Nazi channel now? WTF, are you out of ideas? Unsubscribed

[@Boycott_Wendys]

Ukraine had lots of these camps

[@LazyIRanch]

My oldest sister dated a man named Hans who was a Hitler youth. His family was so impoverished it was the only way he could help them survive and it's not like he had a choice. For some time, all they had to eat was pumpkin so he hated the smell and sight of them for the rest of his life. He didn't like talking about his experience as a Hitler youth, but my sister told me how he described to her that he and other boys were given pitchforks to fish dead bodies out of a river downstream from a concentration camp to pile them on the bank for mass burial. He still cried and had anxiety attacks all those years later. He couldn't have been older than eight when he was handed that pitchfork. I'm glad he met my sweet sister who he was able to open up to and experience her love and compassion. He was a lovely person and very kind. He's deceased now so he's finally at peace.

[@missbluesea]

What a story! Thank you for sharing this with us. ❤

[@gdok6088]

Sad, sick and disgraceful. Poor Hans having to experience that at 8 years old, even sadder for the dead from the concentration camp fished out of the river for mass burial. Sadder still to think that the German state exterminated 6 million innocent men, women and children alongside all the other atrocities committed by the Third Reich.

[@benclark4823]

Iam pretty sure that what happened in the camps was kept a secret from the public so WHY leave evidence??? 🤨

[@ToucanSonofSam333]

Hilarious you must be older than dirt

[@sergeanttentacles1359]

My great grandfather was in the Hitler Youth as well. He had to pick up the discarded pieces of concentration camp victims who had been frozen solid and then shattered!

[@-TriP-]

My German grandmother was in the BDM (League of German Girls, the female equivalent of the Hitler Youth) from '36-'41 after it was made mandatory for girls her age. She recognized that she was being brainwashed, however she still always spoke very highly of her experience, saying it gave her much-needed structure and discipline during a frightening time in her life when she couldn't rely on her family to take care of her.

[@archgirl7797]

that's very interesting that she enjoyed it. has she held onto any of the (extremely!) negative aspects of the nazi's mindset?

[@-TriP-]

@@archgirl7797 she mostly got away from it, but still held on to a bit of racism and excessive patriotism until her death at age 90. I remember my father and her constantly arguing about it, since he was a big hippie in the '60s and had huge resentment toward that line of thinking. She had an inherent distrust of Turks and Romani and always insisted the Germans were better at everything than anyone else. As she got older we mostly just let it slide, she was still a kind lady at heart.

[@petrairene]

@@archgirl7797 Erm, they deliberately made BDM and Hitlerjugend an enjoyable experience because for the ideology lessons to take hold you had to have a sense of being part of something attractive and worthwhile.

[@albinoviper2876]

i wonder how she'd feel abt ppl throwing around the name Nazi like a beachball at a concert these days!

[@taylorpagotto9588]

same with my grandmother her family was anti-nazi so she just kept her mouth shut and did what she was told, she says she made boots and stuff.

[@jrmckim]

My great uncle was in the Hitler youth as soon as he turned 10. Which is why my great grandparents came to the US in the late 1930s. They knew he was getting brainwashed and wanted to protect him. They had to plan it all without him finding out or risk their own son telling authorities. My great-uncle was very upset about being "stolen" and taken to the usa. They settled in Florida then moved to San Antonio where my grandfather was born. My great-uncle went on to serve in the korean war then Vietnam. In the 80s he started his own drilling company which was bought by gary drilling. Married a wealthy Canadian woman and had 2 sons. He passed away a few years ago.

[@jrmckim]

Btw the Canadian woman he married was born Jewish. She converted to Christianity as a teenager.

[@hizliingilizcevediyaloglar7897]

One of my relatives lived in Germany as a Turk, he married a German woman during Hitler's time and had a child, then this child was expelled from the Hitler youth because he was Half-German who had joined Hitler's youth. Returned to Turkey and died here his name is Johannes Ruppert. Greeting from Turkey

[@14112ido]

@@jrmckim Your great uncle was a very lucky man to be born to such perceptive and caring parents.

[@RReese08]

When I was a kid growing up far from Los Angeles, our family doctor had a beautiful woman working fir him as his nurse-receptionist. She was blonde, blue-eyed and spoke differently from everybody else. So I just had to ask. Her name was Gisele, she came from Germany, and she told me that she belonged to the Hitler Youth when she was growing up. And everybody had to join. She never mentioned the Young Girls or League of German Girls; maybe she was just simplifying things so a young boy growing up in the middle of nowhere could understand what she was saying. Our family doctor was of Russian-Jewish background, and I’ve often wondered if they had any interesting conversations or spoke of her time in Nazi Germany at all. Maybe time had healed any wounds caused by the war by then. I’ll probably never know. Thanks for the video.

[@terrygrossmann6125]

I learned far more about inside Hitlers Germany than I did in history classes. My Grandmother was German. She said she was in constant fear for her family. You always worried that someone, to take the heat off themselves, would tell the Nazis a false story about your family.

[@mr.pickles810]

Ive asked a teacher that. Shes told me they couldnt go into to much details on every conflict otherwise theyd never get to certain conflicts by the end of the year.

[@653j521]

@@mr.pickles810 There's a lot of history.

[@maximilianbourgh8345]

Yeah, you only have to worry if you’re family was Jewish. 😂

[@hiee26]

@@maximilianbourgh8345 sorry babes but more then just the Jewish we’re targeted. The Jehovah, Romanians, people of color, gays/theys, people with health issues, addictions, and then towards the end of the war all it would take was saying the wrong joke in front of someone and you could be sentenced to death for defeatism/defamation, or undermining military forces.

[@systematic101]

@@maximilianbourgh8345 pretty sure you'd also have to worry if someone said your family was against the nazis too

[@icollectstories5702]

In the 1930s, the German-American Bund set up several summer camps for American boys whose parents thought they needed a serious indoctrination to their German heritage, including Nazism. Strangely enough, Grafton, Wisconsin, population 1000, hosted two competing camps, one pro- and one anti-Nazi. Either way, I'd bet they did a lot of outdoor activities! We never discuss how popular Nazism was in the US before 1940 despite being labeled as anti-American by major politicians.

[@alanbrown342]

The Pro-Nazi camp property is now a private park called "River Park (had been "Grafton Dells" when I grew up). (I don't believe current ownership has anything to do the Bund.) Relatives of a neighbor down the street from where I grew up ran the camp. It was very divisive at the time in the German community. I believe when the U.S. started involvement in WWII, the camp was very quickly shut down and the some people involved in the camp imprisoned. During the war, there was a large fox farm in the area whose labor was the non-hardcore German POWs. The remnants still existed when I was a kid in the late 1970's; it had unusually high fences - for the POWs, not the foxes. Security was minimal; I heard the POWs got to have Christmas dinner with locals, many of which who spoke German. The POWs sometimes faced a worse fate when they were returned to Germany at the end of the war - particularly if they ended up in Soviet occupied East Germany.

[@BTScriviner]

There were many fascists in America then, Charles Lindbergh being one of them.

[@trenaceandblackmetal5621]

Many white Americans have German heritage

[@magnificentfailure2390]

My mom worked with a man named Karl Maurer when she was a Sheriff's Deputy in the 1970's. Charlie had been an elite Hitler Youth, before his mom and he escaped from Nazi Germany. Charlie could hit five bullseyes drawing from the hip, and he was always forced to re-qualify using the two-hand stance. He could hit five that way, too.

[@Ultimatenerf320]

I'm just now realizing Simon's different channels aren't because they're different categories or whatever, but based on the level of unhinged Simon is allowed to become on his tangents

[@JamCafe-pn1dl]

Lol 😅

[@pirx9798]

23:10 beautiful 😂

[@lindadeeds5326]

Be careful of brain blaze, or whatever it’s called

[@butterbeanqueen8148]

Yes! I found him via The Casual Criminalist channel. I thought he was a very posh English man. Very proper. Then I found his other channels. 😂😂😂

[@Moes2326]

Lool I’ve only been able to find like 3 of em this one, warographics n another one. Can anybody plz drop some @‘s fa me too look up? Simon is one of the very few honestly real dope KZbinrs out there n im not the biggest fan of a lot of the bs that honestly be on here.

[@Nefville]

My grandfather was a leader in the Hitler youth. He was born in 1926, so was young in that era and from what I can tell he loved it. I still hear stories about it to this day. He fought in the later part of the war in both the army and navy, they just needed help anywhere they could get it, then in 1953 moved to the US and became a troop leader in the Boy Scouts for many years. He's still alive, he's 97 enjoying life out in Palm Springs. You know life is strange, you can't choose when and where you're born and whatever impact that society had on some people, it could not make him any less generous, kind or amazing than he is. I'm extremely lucky to have him in my life.

[@anthonypallante4380]

Your grandfather was a Nazi.

[@stormstaunch6692]

@Nefarion do you know what his stance was/later became/is on all the political and ideological stuff about Nazi Germany?

[@PassionateSpirit88]

Wow very interesting. Definitely want to talk to him or have a question answered!

[@gabbyn978]

My father - born in late 1927 - was in the organisation, too. He told me several times how he was in a group of boys that did some flight training in a small wooden glider pilot - just large enough for a boy to sit in - that was launched with a catapult sling. One time, he was doing some paperwork on a stand nearby, that was in the shape of a box meant to protect the person standing behind it. At the same time, some boys were in the process of tightening the sling in order to launch the glider another time; but one of them lost his grip, and the end of the string snapped back in full force and broke through the protective box, hitting my father at the neck, knocking him unconscious. He still spoke about the flight schooling in glowing terms... My mother on the other hand, avoided membership, as her father had already seen the double face of the party and encouraged her to think more critically.

[@juandotmd6200]

in today's world what u think about his views?, ty

[@gabbyn978]

@@juandotmd6200 he was misguided. All children were. I have no idea if I would have seen through the facade as my mother did, had I been living in that time. Remember that the germans had experienced hardships, three setbacks in a row. First, losing a devastating war and their emperor. Then hyperinflation. And when that was over, just five years later, the Great Depression ruined all their hopes. The economical and psychological damage was profound. Being able to sit in something that would fly even for a short distance was a dream come true. No one of the boys figured that this was a means to recruit pilots for another war, or if they did, they were still in the belief that it was great to serve the Reich.

[@juandotmd6200]

@gabbyn978 u heard any speech or read something that rockwell produced? ty so much really, it provides a good view, im from Argentina.

[@gabbyn978]

@@juandotmd6200 There was no internet in the 1930ies. There was no knowledge about any parties that existed outside of Germany, except for the Italian Fascists. Maybe Rockwell sent letters to the german government, but the german public didn't know anything beyond 'the rest of the world is our enemy, especially the conspirators'. For us, he was non existant, left alone that we would hear of any texts made by him.

[@multipletanksyndrome]

My Grandma was in the Hitler Youth. So was her little brother. He was assigned to defend the town, Braunschweig, at the end of the war. He was in 8th grade.

[@aliciabell6688]

Did he survive?

[@clintfrederici3928]

@@aliciabell6688 Here's a hint, Germany lost the war

[@magnashield8604]

My sister's father-in-law was a Hitler Youth. I asked him, when he was still alive, why he joined the Hitler Youth. He replied, "They had the most money and so they had the most fun. They had really cool gliders and stuff like that."

[@tims4502]

Did you ask him if he regretted being one?

[@magnashield8604]

@@tims4502 To answer your question I will relate another story. He would say during conversations about the war, "You know, Hitler wasn't that bad of a guy. He did a lot for Germany. I don't think he murdered six million Jews, Maybe six hundred thousand, but not six million, that would be too much." I chocked it up to his experience being indoctrinated and his experience before, during and after the war. He served on a German destroyer that was bottled up in port in Greece. When the collapse was imminent they were all told to make their way home as best they could. The ship couldn't leave dock as it would be destroyed immediately. So on the march through Yugoslavia they were picked up by the red army. They were all sent to slave labor camps in Russia. Of the several hundred men he was taken with, only a handful survived to return home. When they were released, they were simply let out of the gates and told, "go home." Many of the survivors died of exposure and starvation trying to make the trip. This is not a judgement call on his or anyone's beliefs or actions, just a little information as to how he viewed the world. He would also get angry when people would talk about starvation in Greece. He would say, "I was there, the shops were full of food." Granted I would say what he saw with his two eyes, being an occupier, in a place where there was money would be vastly different than a poor Greek in the countryside. But this made him suspicious of other reports about atrocities. On one side, the Allies, (USSR) Brutalized him. On the other side the Axis (Germany) seemed to be successful according to his own experience. So no, I don't think he regretted being a Hitler Youth. (I am in NO WAY excusing the Nazis, Germany in WW2 or the evil they perpetrated. I am simply trying to explain the perspective of a man who had been indoctrinated into the cult of personality of Adolf Hitler and how he viewed the world ever after.)

[@zoopdterdoobdter5743]

*"...Invasive, pervasive and persuasive..."* High-five your writer for me for that one! 👍

[@wendybrenner2614]

Simon my admiration and complete backing up all of your channels just went to a new high. Listening to you sent chills up and down my spine. My family was forced to flee to America and some of them actually made it. most other simply put were killed for being born and following a religion different than someone else's, I will support your channel until the day I die thank you for speaking for those who can no longer speak for themselves, With warmest regards, Wendy Cooper Brenner

[@mariekatherine5238]

Lots of us came to the US under these circumstances.

[@scad00dIe]

My grandfather told me a story about how it was when he went to the HJ the one and only time. He was about 9 or 10 years old and all the boys from the the area came together with a few older Nazis as supervisors. They formed 2 teams and started out what seemed like a harmless gigantic game of hide and seek. One team spread out in the intire surrounding area it was mostly grass and forest. In the beginning it was a lot of fun but after the seeking team found part of the hiding team the supervisors screamed "Zertört den Gegner" which means "Destroy the enemy". It started out with wrestling but it soon turned into best friends having fist fights with each other and landing hits in their faces. That is when my grandfather decided to not go there ever again. Since he was from a small Christian village where most of the people didn't like the Nazis that was not a problem.

[@aliciabell6688]

Small Christian villages have always been Germany's saving grace.

[@lazyishardwork]

@@aliciabell6688 🤣🤣 you think there's a difference between differing ideological indoctrination and brainwashing? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@lazyishardwork]

my uncle's dad left Germany out of hatred for the filthy stinking nazis. My uncle was the husband of my mum's sister so I have no German heritage. My uncle's dad hated the nazis, my uncle hated the nazis, and I had an uncle who was a blood relation and he was one of the few kicking nazis in the arse. With the exception of people like Schindler and Rabe, there's nothing good or inspiring about such vile hatred puke's of humans.

[@Emppu_T.]

@@lazyishardwork typical response of kind

[@tyzilla358]

This video is for the people too young to know, and those old enough at this point to be considered ignorant for not knowing......the youth were too young to realize just how scary the circumstances were that they were growing up under. The parents fell into three separate camps. (No pun intended) Some adults agreed and happily went along with Hitler's ideas. Some laughed at Hitler behind his back, and lived in fear of being reported by other citizens. The rest went to concentration camps......the end.

[@azcardguy7825]

My Opa, who is now 92 years old, was in the Nazi youth. It’s important to remember that boys had to participate at a certain age. It wasn’t optional. He only started to discuss his experience in the war over the past few years due to the shame he felt.

[@joebob4579]

My opa was a youth leader apparently

[@dustyloafers7448]

"He who owns the youth controls the future" look around, still true

[@aliciabell6688]

AND who runs Tiktok?

[@kgrfirdjy]

Winnie the Shit

[@PaIaeoCIive1684]

Hence the drag queen story hour, gay pride promotion and BLM indoctrination in western schools presently.

[@arnoio8355]

I feel to see who you might think "own" the youth these days the same way Hitler did the Hitler Youth

[@gabbyn978]

@@rogerpenske2411 And he loves to see everything burn. Especially books.

[@maksphoto78]

I was born in the USSR and went to the summer camps for kids. We were taught some military stuff as well. Mind you, at that age the political stuff goes right over your head and you just enjoy the cool activities and fun.

[@marcel_kleist]

Are you sure about that? Maybe the indoctrination wasn’t as penetrant as in Nazi Germany? I’m German and here we have some families whom kids make the Nazi salute and repeat all the ultra nationalistic stuff their parents tell them. (It’s not a big problem here but it still happens) Maybe it’s just because it’s from their close relatives but political stuff definitely sticks to them. And I assume that the HJ was pretty much a family substitute.

[@michalpavlat3943]

@@marcel_kleist Level of political indoctrination was roughly comparable. Being German perhaps you can ask your fellow contrymen from the former East.. This is valid both for purely youth organizations and technical / sport organizations like GST in GDR (and other DOSAAF clones).

[@mariekatherine5238]

Yes, I know a few people who were in Young Pioneers as children and they had the same experience. They enjoyed it for the fun; the summer camps, games, sport, skills and crafts. The propaganda stuff was just something you expected and mostly tuned out.

[@joebob4579]

The politics probably wasnt as extreme

[@cowboybeboop9420]

People will have a distorted view of things based OUR reality. There is actually a channel called "Lost in Time Vids" which shows footage of people doing everyday things from Denmark, England, Poland, Serbia, Russia etc in the ~1890-1920 period. One thing you see in those videos was that child labor up to the 1930s was very much still a thing. In fact kids sometimes started working as early as 5. In the videos you really see these kids dressed as adults leaving the factories along with the adults. Their faces aged a little bit and them being tough as nails. In those days children would marry as early as 16. So in a way 1910s 16 year olds were more adults and tougher than some adults today. They simply had to grow up fast. In this context sending 16-17 year old kids to the front was not as absurd as it seems to us now.

[@itachi-wg3gu]

I worked with a lady who was a Hitler youth goer. She old and very crabby also talked about how good Germany was before the end. She thought Hitler was a great leader and powerful. New people who didn’t really know her would get in arguments over her past. I thought it was crazy hearing her story’s from when she was younger. Also my wife’s grandma was in France when the Nazi invaded. She would say how evil and sick Hitler was. Kinda cool getting both sides of the way they think.

[@tims4502]

Good to work with a Nazi? F her

[@alexh4436]

So my dad was a member of the HJ from 1939 to 1944 and I have to take issue with the assertion that the Nazis neglected the regular education of their kids. He went to regular school up through the 8th grade and then became an apprentice baker which was how things were done in Germany before and after. He mentioned that the HJ was a lot of fun and that he thought the political stuff was all a bunch of baloney BUT also that late in the war when his unit was asked to volunteer to fight early only he and 7 other boys out of 200 declined. He also mentioned that his unit was part of the fire brigade which I can only assume was a very grim job because his city was routinely bombed because he never ever talked about the details.

[@Mainyehc]

From a pedagogical standpoint, the Nazi regime *did* neglect the regular education of their kids. Even ignoring for a while the horrors of genocide and time wasted into indoctrination, randomly eliminating competent teachers from the workforce is stupid beyond belief and can only result in loss of critical mass and eventual defeat in all fields (not just military, but also economic). That’s why denazification didn’t entail outright getting rid of everyone and anyone associated with the NSDΑP, but only the actual criminals - war criminals and otherwise -, as that would make matters even worse and likely turn post-war Germany if not into an agrarian state as had been proposed by some thinking heads, at least into a backwater of (even more) resentment and a potential hotspot for further violence and misery. It must’ve made Vergangenheitsbewältigung that much more difficult of a process, but it also meant that Germany came into its own again and ceased to be a PITA for everyone around them (especially after reunification and the definitive settlement of the Oder-Neisse Line question). And that’s also why modern-day Russia is about to lose their latest war, as their military doesn’t have enough critical mass (having to kowtow to dictators’ stupid whims does that to you eventually) and their workforce also took a huge hit, with the most qualified people fleeing in droves. Heck, we can also take another German state as a middle-of-the-road case: even the DDR’s leadership (itself not a great example, as it was as much of a dictatorship as the Third Reich before it or as Mother USSR) understood this and tried to prevent Republikflucht by any means necessary… 🤦‍♂️

[@alexh4436]

@@Mainyehc I can only speak to what I know. Half of my family were school children during the pre war and war years and they all received a good education and were productive citizens afterword. Likewise the German workforce after the war did not suffer from uneducated workers. Perhaps the propaganda that was taught did not interfere with subjects that mattered. Anybody who has kids in school today knows that they teach a lot of useless BS. Maybe the Nazis just replaced one pile of BS with their own pile of BS and kids learned to read, write and do math just like they always had.

[@Kirsten_is_cursed10]

Not you defending your Nazi grandpa 😂 How awkward. If his education had been adequate, he would have taught you how to speak about this period on history with a bit more respect.

[@ElicBehexan]

I was giggling at several points in this. When Hitler infiltrated his bunker and killed himself but especially at the end about that 'great humanitarian, Josef Stalin.'

[@nannettefreeman7331]

Simon's deadpan delivery...🤣🤣🤣 LEGEND!

[@reliantncc1864]

Stalin was indeed a great humanitarian, probably no one has killed more communists than Stalin.

[@valerietaylor9615]

Good old Uncle Joe.

[@tricorvus2673]

This s**t started during the American Great Depression and Dustbowl. I hadn’t realized that. The other thing I took away was that the German children seemed to have been in a Damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.

[@petrairene]

Problem was, the boys were encouraged to do a lot of "cool" stuff. Like bushcraft, outdoor strategy games, learning to fly gliders and horse riding. Teaching them skills that were attractive to young boys, but also useful later to turn them into soldiers. And while sitting at an idyllic camp fire they were indoctrinated with the ideology of the superior nordic race. Quite insiduous.

[@vaughanstarr3725]

Yes, imagine being told from birth that your group were the chosen people and all others existed as cattle/slaves before you. That would be pretty messed up.

[@glenngriffon8032]

"I didn't say we weren't _fun,_ but fun or not pirates are still the baddies!"

[@petrairene]

​@@vaughanstarr3725 The bullshit about the racial superiority of whites was very much the standard ideology of all white Europeans everywhere during colonial times. Just that the other European nations never started to apply it to other "white" Europeans, only to non European peoples that looked significantly different. The nazis started to put racial labels and value differences to Europeans, too. They did the same thing everyone else did, but put it one step further. Plus, antisemitism was pretty common everywhere in Europe too. The natives of Congo could tell the Jews that the Belgians did to them pretty much the same as the nazis did to them.

[@maksphoto78]

@@vaughanstarr3725 Jews called, they wanted their "chosen nation" status back.

[@jhdix6731]

Apart from the antisemitic indoctrination that's very much the paramilitary training Baden-Powell proposed in "Scouting for Boys".

[@Natemire]

😂😂😂😂😂😂" Hitler heroically and without any regard for his own safety manage to take out Hitler, infiltrating his very own bunker."

[@valerietaylor9615]

Tee-hee!

[@clovermark39]

23:09

[@shortlivedglory3314]

Schirach's testimony at Nuremberg is heartbreaking.

[@hisdadjames4876]

Who knows how much of it was genuine remorse and how much was skin-saving rhetoric…relying on the ‘Madman Hitler’ defence like so many of his Generals 🤔. That said, Schirach’s words do indeed read very well and I’m glad he escaped the noose in what was understandably a vengeful and politically motivated show trial.

[@cheeseburger6117]

He stood up for his charges and deflected any and all blame they could receive onto himself. He gets credit for that. But "my fault" doesn't mean "I'm sorry".

[@shortlivedglory3314]

@@cheeseburger6117 not sure you read the whole testimony. He said he did it because he believed in Hitler and that it was wrong. He said that the Holocaust was evil and that he helped enable it.

[@Emppu_T.]

History doesn't exactly repeat itself, but it does rhyme a bit. Interesting video. Good work.

[@ReneeandJimmyG]

I live in New York, on Long Island. The town next to mine is Yaphank. There was a Hitler Youth Camp there! Please Google it and do a spot on this wild tale! Oh, side note, just south of Yaphank is Patchogue. Hitler's nephew was supposedly "hiding" here. Changed his name after serving the US during the war. Raised his family on Silver Street. Submarines were spotted during the war right in the waters off of Patchogue. Interesting stuff!

[@mariekatherine5238]

Everything you say is true. My mother had a German friend who attended Camp Siegfried with her brothers and sister every year. In the mid-1930’s, my mother, her brother, two cousins, and neighborhood teens went as guests to an end of session celebration at the camp. She distinctly remembered the swastikas on flags and banners, martial music, and marching. When her mother (my grandmother) found out where they’d been, she was NOT happy about it and had “words” with the neighbor who’d provided the transportation from Riverhead. This was the last time in which there were known relatives in Poland. After Poland was invaded, these people seemingly disappeared, but it was known to the older people in the US what they thought of the new German chancellor. Numerous attempts after the war to reestablish contact met with failure and pretty much concluded with a great aunt’s visit to Poland in 1978. She ascertained the deaths of the middle-aged couple in 1940. As to their children, without names, it proved impossible to trace them. The land was no longer in their surname in the 1950’s or since. (Remember, Poland was still a Communist country in 1978.) Unfortunately, Mom passed at age 98 in January and didn’t leave any of this in writing. I’m in the process of writing down the stories I heard from her and my grandmother, great aunts and my uncle lest they all be lost to time.

[@hippomancy]

Lord Baden-Powell's Boy Scout movement had a huge influence on the early German youth groups - gave them an idea for framework and activities. the largest groups in Germany were attached to christian churches. Schirach absorbed all these as you pointed out. but many in fact did not "enjoy" the Hitleryouth, but were required to join. if families were unable to afford the uniforms their local townships would pay for them, but sometimes had to buy for passively resisting families...

[@KarldorisLambley]

my grandmother was born in 1928 in Vienna. she flapped a flag at the anschluss and saw hitler live. she joined the jungvolk and told me that this was the first ever time she had been given a new item of clothing. a vest. they took her on holiday and she got meat once a day. before this she had eaten meat once a year.

[@joebob4579]

Yea bad situation

[@ontheleveltk]

Baldur von Schirach’s parents were both American citizens. One of his grandfathers who was from a German state immigrated to the US and was a major in the Union army during the Civil War. Even crazier is that through one of his grandmothers he was related to a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Not to mitigate or apologize for his crimes and evil deeds but it seems like the time, place and cultural trends do have a huge impact on the path that people take in life.

[@golferorb]

I watched JoJo Rabbit so I already know the answer to this.

[@derekosterholm1350]

JoJo Rabbit was interesting to see I don't recall seeing any other movie depict what it might have been like in the Hitler youth

[@Rabbit-the-One]

I was about to comment about how I had just watched that film recently, then I saw this one.

[@BinkyBorky]

such a good movie. I also really enjoyed what we doing the shadows

[@B_Estes_Undegöetz]

Except without the ironic, mocking satirical post-modern (and yes … very funny) veneer added to it by Taika Waititi. I think 21st century mainstream liberals have developed a thick cynical outer facade and have a really hard time accurately depicting or even watching accurate depictions of such things as the Hitler Youth, enacted with the serious earnestness and discipline which they certainly were by the original participants. It makes us so uncomfortable because we feel our own adjacency to it; our implication in so many of its rotten ideas and principles; “principles” that we barely conceal from ourselves with a thinnest tissue of bourgeois wealth and civility. When that middle class bourgeois wealth is threatened, or stripped away though … as has been happening now in America (and other neoliberal capitalist democracies) for two generations now, we see how quickly we too adopt and are consumed by fascist tendencies. Our first cynical impulse is to deny the very possibility of this phenomenon by adopting satire to distance ourselves from it or critique it as only a problem for a subset of society that is not “us” (the “rubes” or “rednecks” etc.) After forty years of such liberal comic critique … Carson became Letterman became Colbert … it should be clear that satire is a cynical response to deny our own culpability in the economic systems of oppression that is causing resentments to grow into fascism in the first place among an ever growing segment of the population. After forty years now perhaps a better reply than satirically mocking the fascist is to seek out the rentier capitalist that’s transforming the working people of all races genders orientations etc. into an increasingly feudal state of debt servitude in the so-called “first-world” capitalist nations. And before anyone gets started … there’s no religious code word employed here. Modern late 20th century, Post-Reagan-Thatcher, Post-Welch, Neoliberal Capitalist ideology has no trouble embracing and including (and now with the power of the internet even commodifying) any necessary religion or race or culture or identity and thus subsuming it to its own material prerogatives … it’s the hierarchy imposed by adopting the ideology of the 1% and the divisive self-oppressive myths they propagandize to the working people that are the root of fascism and Hitler Youth type movements. The myths are stories told to impose a discipline that reinforces the wealth of the ruling 1%. This is what must be resisted. Not the people that join the groups. The tiny number of ideologues that organize them.

[@duncancurtis5108]

Hans Gruber now I have a gun ho ho ho.

[@justinantonius2823]

I personally met a member of the Hitler youth here in Maui Hawaii he was a very old German gentleman father of a handyman I knew, he recounted many tales from WW2 including the Battle of Berlin and his surrender. He said he had no hate left in his heart since 1945 only joy for life he told me these stories as he ate 15 loaded marijuana cookies at Thanksgiving 😂😅 and I'm Jewish

[@jewel65]

That would be so interesting to talk to someone like that! Quite the opportunity!

[@justinantonius2823]

@@jewel65 I'm very interested in WWII history so I had some choice questions and he did tell me he was questioned after the war and described that and further re education and undoctrination

[@lucajohnen6719]

My great grandmother was in the BDM back when it was still just "encuraged volunteering", much to the dislike of her father who was a catholic and staunch monarchist. She said she got beaten at home when singing BDM songs, but loved being there, even later on. When the Volkssturm got formed she became a FlaK Helfer and got assigend to the eastern front, but when she arrived on train she had missed her units redeployment by a few hours. When she arrived at the second staging ground, the unit was already destroyed and disbanded so without orders she returned home and never had to fire (or help fire) a shot in anger.

[@lucajohnen6719]

Now that I see this again, she passed 2 weeks ago, 1 day after her 98th birthday. I regret not getting all her stories of the time taped, but her mind hadn't been lucid enough for a few years.

[@Casutama]

Not super important, but "v" in German (in words such as "Wandervogel" or "Jungvolk") is pronounced "f" as in "file", *not* "v" as in "very"

[@petesplacestuff4781]

The hue of his nose matched his brown shirt!

[@sasquatchbigfoot4314]

My grandma grew up in Germany and went to one of the Hitler Youth camps. She’d tell a story how she and girls there would have to use the bathroom. They would see and hear owls hooting. How scary it was in pitch black

[@skateruwu]

Shout out to the writer, loving how well written this script is

[@brandonfrench1699]

There's voices I remember from my youth, mostly educational shows my mother would watch, and if by chance I hear them now, they always bring back good feelings and memories. Simon, I want you to know that your voice, whether it's educational, humorous, or disturbing, has become as important, and my children will remember it as adults the same way...😊 Also they have no choice in the matter, considering I watch WAAYY too much Simon Whistler... actually I don't think that's a thing!

[@metanoian965]

Children can also learn to count by noting the number disappearing hair follicles.

[@johnstevenson9956]

I wish more people understood these histories. We wouldn't be so maddeningly close to repeating them.

[@PoopaChallupa]

We're already repeating many aspects. Children are being recruited and indoctrinated into gender ideology. Those that don't go along are removed from class and punished for going against the state approved truths. Parents are being condemned by their children for not going along. Companies are required to hire pure aryan p... i mean, diverse people. Those that disagree with the the State approved ideology are banned for hate speech. Labeled undesirables and bigots. They don't deserve a platform. They must be hidden from society. Parents are having their children taken from them for not aiding their child's gender transition. Accused of child abuse, the state removes the child from the parents. The Pure blood aryans.. i mean, the trans and gay community has free reign to do as they please. Even twerk nude in front of children at parades. I've made my point.

[@MichaelMoore-nx5ue]

You had me at 19 year old piano polisher

[@paigetomkinson1137]

I hadn't heard of the Patrol Force before. Excellent video describing the HJ.

[@krisfrederick5001]

"This one time, at Nazi band camp..."

[@lon3don]

Thanks for that excellent synopsis of what happens when a country goes crazy. BTW, "Volks" is pronounced "Folks" V is pronounced like a F.

[@johnthomson6507]

As for alot of people in central and eastern Europe. The Nazis and the soviets it was just a case of swapping one form of tyranny for another.

[@reliantncc1864]

That's definitely true. A lot of people welcomed the Germans just because it meant throwing off the Soviet oppression. I don't want to blame them too much for it, because they had a point.

[@TheVeryLastHippy]

Robert Middelmann seems like such an incredible story. He needs to be better known.

[@paulmeredith2037]

Hi Simon can you please do a video Sir Nicholas George Winton MBE was named a British Hero of the Holocaust by the British Government. Winton was awarded the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Fourth Class, by the Czech President Václav Havel in 1998. he was a British humanitarian who helped to rescue jewish children who were at risk from Nazi Germany just months before the start of World War II he saved 669 children all of them would’ve probably have been killed by the Nazis if he hadn’t got them out please do a video on this man thank you Paul.

[@karlj8092]

This was interesting, and went deeper than I thought it would. Have you done anything in this series about Paragraph 175 and the Nazi's? Homosexuality was already illegal, but they changed how to identify one. Simply point and announce that he had an unnatural look in his eyes. This was not changed after the war (until 1969). When the Concentration Camps were closed, the gays were still kept, since homosexuality was illegal in the US, too. The US Army hid this from visiting congressman so they didn't get attention. If the prisoners complained about being kept, this would constitute a new charge of homosexual behavior, and have more time added to their present stay. The Holocaust Museum has plenty of info on this. (And the US doesn't talk about this much.)

[@steffenschiller3189]

Excellent video as usual..Just one short comment. The "Wandervögel" (migratory birds) movement mentioned early in the video was not a predecessor movement to the Hitler Youth. They fiercely opposed the Hitler Youth and were later banned in Nazi Germany.

[@brendanmcculloch2406]

in the sense that they were a youth organisation that predates hitler youth, they were. not sharing ideals is not a factor, and is hardly surpiring since if they did have matching ideals then the latter would've had a harder time recruiting members compared to the established and known group. the video also describes them as having been started in opposition to the earlier group.

[@michaeljordan215]

I have read that when speaking about the activities of jews they were talking about the centralizing of banking and the promotion of homosexuality/transgenderism as a healthy and acceptable lifestyle. Both of which are well documented by all sides.

[@joebiggs135]

This

[@whitestar20]

This is why real history needs to be taught and not book bans

[@adamloverin231]

The commonalities between Stalin, Hitler and Putin are frankly staggering.

[@lazyishardwork]

there's no difference between dictators

[@bikerdude923]

@lazyishardwork Dick-Taters are basically the same, good thing Sam Gamgee told us what to do with them taters "boil 'em, mash 'em, stick them in a stew". 🤣

[@reliantncc1864]

Putin trying to paint Ukrainians as being Nazis looks very stupid to anyone who understands the history. Putin looks a lot like Hitler on a geopolitical or strategic level.

[@trenaceandblackmetal5621]

Putin is a child compared to Hitler and Stalin

[@adamloverin231]

@@bikerdude923 Putin Tay Toes?!?!

[@felixapplejuice]

The throwing grenades instead of clubs/balls was actually a thing in East Germany even in the mid 80s. My mum (1972) told me that they learned how to throw grenades in PE (they were actual grenade shells if I remember right and they were as heavy as regular grenades, they just weren’t loaded with explosives obviously)

[@TARANSWHEEL]

Simon’s wearing my favorite sweater again..

[@Rubsomedirtonitgardening]

My great grandmother came from Germany right before the start of WW1. When WW2 broke out for several years she would send packages to her family still in Germany and she would have to be sneaky in sending medicine and other such items. She found out after the war that those packages she sent of canned food, clothes and medicine ended up being all they had to survive on. A lot of people don't realize how much the German people who were just your standard laborer or farmers were suffering greatly under that evil regime. She had a nephew that was in the Hitler youth towards the end of the war and I got to meet him when the wall fell, they were in East Berlin, and he was a very pleasant man who was so excited to be in the US to visit. He was almost childlike in his demeanor. From what I have been told he didn't talk about that time like many others. I agree how others have stated that you can't hold children responsible for their brainwashing. Kids are so easily manipulated. And for the German youth it wasn't like they had a choice. It was mandatory.

[@RubberDhingyRapids]

Great video Simon, would love a follow up on what the FDJ got up to in the post war years

[@mikusguitarius]

"The hue of his nose matched the hue of his brown shirt". Superb!! 🤣🤣🤣

[@ignitionfrn2223]

1:30 - Start of the video

[@Torkum73]

Very good videos, but could you please write the german names, titles, places and so on on screen? As a german it is very difficult to understand. In another video it took a while, before I understand your pronounciation of "Dachau" as the place near Munich.

[@Tehed82]

Jesus, Simon... I had to listen 5 times until I finally got "Völkischer Beobachter" from the sounds you were making :D

[@folya38]

We are actually extremely lacking such organizations

[@biancastrauss464]

Thank you for your time and information

[@NotoLeft]

Your sarcasm is brilliant Simon! Nice vid as always

[@WolfGrin86]

My grandfather had to join when he went to Germany some years before the war when studying there,

[@jacobhuff3748]

I remember some stories of Interactions between BDM & Hitler youth leading to unplanned pregnancies which the leadership neither Condemned nor Condoned but given what we know about how the SS viewed marital relations we can guess what there unofficial view was.

[@reliantncc1864]

Abortion was banned for ”Aryans," but of course encouraged for anyone else.

[@matthewmaxfield8443]

did you by chance recently read or listen to Hitler youth by Susan Campbell Bartoletti?

[@vickiewallace415]

Wish he was named Hans…. Who wrote this GOLD?

[@chiefslinginbeef3641]

Huh that description of Kristaal Nacht sounds really familiar.

[@mkiefer10]

My grandfather was also part of the Hitler Youth on the Western front. He survived, but he said he did what he to in order to survive. Also, he had no food for one week during the end of the war.

[@imnotyourfriendbuddy1883]

In a picture of prewar Hitler Youth try to guess how many of those prime fighting age young men on 1939 survived the war.

[@daveanderson3805]

Fantastic video. Very informative and detailed. Well done

[@Ryattt81]

My step grandfather was a Hitlers youth and fought in the war a few years later. He deserted, ran and spent a night in a local barn. When he awoke 2 German officers were standing over him and he thought he would be killed for treason, but it turned out they wanted him to drive, as they were deserting too. He later married my Jewish grandmother. I did not like him particularly. Hadnt spoken to him since about 2000 until his death a couple of years ago.

[@naly202]

I can't help thinking that excepting indoctrination and the involvement in pogroms, the Hitler Jugend must have been an awesome experience, building strong characters that could survive through tough times. I have a feeling that the well known German resilience owes a bit to that movement.

[@InquisMalleus]

Hitler Youth - like Boy Scouts, but with artillery - Robin Williams

[@Zand3rsson]

Your background music sounds so much lime chop suey - system of a down sometimes

[@Rae0811]

24:03 I’m also curious (nothing more, really), but why did you leave out “Before God”’when reading the quote?

[@mygeekspace6912]

I was wondering too. Perhaps avoiding the YT algorithm solitary confinement at the mention of ‘God’ in his videos?

[@marksavage7701]

Army cadets, sea cadets and air cadets 😂 always made me chuckle that the officer in charge of the international camps at RAF Bruggen et al was the camp commandant

[@iforgetiremember5243]

recently switched to my sound system, and i gotta say that you go from lightly talking into the mic, to basically yelling into it way too much. seriously, there has to be some kind of software to equalize that shit because i was changing volume levels waaaay too often to watch/listen without waking up the others in my house.

[@EmperorTakashi]

19:15 what that Hitler guy? I can't believe it. Lol

[@xredhead7135x]

Show begins at 1:28

[@lindamedina64]

Also there was at least one meeting where the KKK joined in at Camp Nordland. It didn’t go over well since the KKK was also anti-immigrant and many that belonged to the camp community were German immigrants or German descent. Fun fact: VW used prisoners of war to make their cars during WWII because their workforce were involved in the war efforts.

[@georgegrinter209]

Safe to say simon is either editing the videos himself or is on holiday 😂

[@Foxrich99]

What's up with the weird "dirt filter" over all the photos?

[@PUAlum]

Don't know if posting a comment here will help, but the audio fluctuates too much.

[@WormholeJim]

The example for using a VPN is a bad solution to a real problem. A much better solution would be for people to come together in interest-groups to put pressure on the companies (travel agencies being just one of many, singled out to serve the example) using this model for online shopping to stop the practice all together. Individual solutions like when using a VPN, only makes the models used for increasing revenue more predatory in nature to make up for lost ground; a sort of arms race for the money in your pocket resulting in ever more unhealthy online environments and relations. It's a serious problem now, that needs to be dealt with on a structural level, not on an individual one, and it's going to get tenfold worse once quantum computing have cleared that final corner and enters the market to make a joke of encryption. Just getting that off my chest, getting riled up over the issue presented as an example. I harbour no ill will against VPNs as such, on the contrary they are invaluable when scouting out things like the chinese underground punk scene, that most of the world is otherwise barred access to. Crazy stuff, that scene and by the way. A governmental game of whack-a-mole where the mole is these punkbands popping up to play unannounced shows and give it everything in the few weeks, sometimes days and hours, that they have to do it in before getting shut down by the authorities. Check it out using one of those VPNs Simon advertises.

[@jesusnavarrete6317]

For the life of me I cannot find the Hitler youth Maidens video where the girls where dancing in gas masks. Anyone know the documentary.

[@werre2]

lots of outdoor activities and camping with friends, sounds like an awesome time. Also cool daggers.

[@LazyIRanch]

Oh crap, TIL that the happy little tune we sang in German class, "Der fröhliche Wanderer", most likely had roots in Hitler Youth since it was written in late 19th century but first became popular in Germany in the 40s. Please say it isn't so!

[@jhdix6731]

It probaby was sung by the Hitler Youth, but it's origins are much earlier (lyrics were written in 1847, music was added to the poem in 1876).

[@LazyIRanch]

@@jhdix6731 That's good! I feel better now. I still remember how to sing it in German.

[@Keiru]

I'm really interested in History. If anyone had any family who were part of Hitler Youth (Boys or Girls) please share their stories in this thread.

[@deadcard13]

When I clicked on the video, I wasn't expecting to have already had a reasonable idea of the organization from watching JoJo Rabbit.

[@MorganHorse]

Highlight History? I’m already subscribed to like 10 of this man’s channels HOW MANY ARE THERE?

[@ComfortsSpecter]

19:10 He Didn’t Even Vaguely Start WW2 He Started And Participated in Many Wars of WW2

[@apolloniapythia9141]

The GRÖFAZ had only been "private 1st class" in WW I and there a re no documentations that he ever got the EK I.

[@CalopsitaVanderbilt1911]

Ferdinand von Schirach, the Grandson of Baldur v Schirach is a lawyer and crime bestseller author.

[@chrisschultz8598]

I can now understand and how the German Army continued to fight even when it was apparent that tIhe war was lost. It was all they knew how to do.

[@doctorouroboros]

Damn, Hitler gave the Iron Cross to 12 year olds on his birthday? That sounds wild.

[@24934637]

Like many aspects of Nazi Germany, the original idea, and theory was absolutely fantastic! Having a Nationally run, Nationalistic and military organisation is not all that different from 'cadet organisations' here in the UK, such as the 'Air Training Corps', 'Army Cadets', and 'Sea Cadets'. It DOES however go somewhat pear shaped when it as too much of the political indoctrination and hatred involved.

[@DonOmarRamiro]

15:13... NOW HOLD UP.... HAHAHAHAHHA (Sorry, I shouldnt laugh but this got me...)