Broken Lives Read online

  The effect of the Nazification of German youth was neither as great as NS leaders claimed nor as slight as later apologists maintain. Due to the Hitler Youth’s increasing organizational monopoly, its membership was almost all-inclusive by the late 1930s. The pressure of home, school and public propaganda compelled most youths to join, unless they were excluded as leftists, Jews, or other “misfits.” Their peer group also exerted such a powerful pull through friends, leisure activities, and rebellion against adults that many adolescents insisted on becoming members, studiously ignoring the reservations of their parents. But the constant repetition of slogans, paramilitary training, and endless marching also generated revulsion among some of the young, who only conformed outwardly while ignoring the ideological messages. Though capturing the majority, such compulsion and repression also galvanized opposition, undercutting the very aims the HJ sought to achieve. No matter what the response, Ruth Weigelt recalled, “The Nazis threw everything and really everything into confusion.”6

  YOUTH NAZIFICATION

  The indoctrination of German youth had already begun before Hitler’s seizure of power with the rapid growth of the Nazi movement. As long as the party was considered to be on the fringe, only fanatic nationalists or racists were ready to join it, and public servants were widely forbidden to become members. But unemployed men such as Ursula Mahlendorf’s father increasingly became members of the SA or SS because of their camaraderie and toughness in street battles. In their uniforms, they “cut quite a dashing figure,” thereby receiving the respect that they craved. After the election victories of 1930 and 1932 that made the NSDAP the strongest party, white-collar opportunists also began to enter it in droves and soon numerically overtook the hard core of the “old fighters.” Moreover, firms exerted pressure on their staff members to join a Nazi organization. Hence, adolescents were increasingly confronted by a dynamic movement that promised to end the Depression, “bring order and stability,” and create a better future.7

  In many families, the rise of the Nazis created conflict. Not only Communists and Jews were horrified by its nationalist message. At holiday get-togethers, intense quarrels broke out between leftists who favored Thälmann, moderates who supported Hindenburg, and rightists who preferred Hitler. Even if Hellmut Raschdorff did not quite understand the implications, his Catholic father predicted clairvoyantly, “When Hitler takes over, there will be war.” Among the Bauckes, the revelation that the father was a NSDAP member created “a great family row.” When Mrs. Baucke found the anti-Semitic journal Der Stürmer in the family’s coffee shop, “she stormed into the study, thumped the paper on the desk and hissed ‘Hugo, I won’t have this trash in my house,’” reminding him how much they owed to their Jewish customers.8 Confronted with such emotional scenes, the older children became politicized by having to choose sides.

  After the actual seizure of power, the Nazis immediately displaced the Weimar elite and claimed the spoils of victory. Using the Reichstag fire on February 27, 1933 as pretext, they jailed Communists such as Ingrid Bork’s great-uncle, who was rounded up while collecting money for indigent leftists and “put into a concentration camp” for a year. On April 1, 1933, NS thugs boycotted Jewish businesses, forcing them to close and turn their clients away. Although fur merchant Albert Gompertz proposed “that all Jews be granted passports to leave the country,” the timid leadership of the Centralverein vetoed the idea, lest it rouse more ire. The Nazis did not even respect their nationalist allies such as the journalist Fritz Klein, who “endorsed the change of government in principle.” But because he added “numerous question marks” about excessive enthusiasm, they forced him to resign as editor of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung.9 These actions left little doubt that the “national revolution” was creating a dictatorship.

  By insisting on a series of shared rituals, the Nazis enforced an appearance of unanimous support for the Third Reich. In daily usage, “Heil Hitler” was supposed to replace innocuous greetings such as “good day,” to show one’s support for the new regime. Critics merely mumbled, joined both hellos together, or waved their arm instead of extending it. On special days, each family was also compelled to hang a swastika banner from the window to make their political approval public. Reluctant folks such as the Schöffskis, who could not completely avoid the hated ritual, showed only the smallest possible flag. Similarly, neighborhood wardens checked to be sure that every household subscribed to the party paper Völkischer Beboachter so as to get the official line. But they could not keep old copies from serving as toilet paper.10 While some adolescents resented their parents’ reluctance, others learned to how to appear to obey.

  Known political opponents such as Social Democrats or Communists faced intimidation and violence. As long as critics were keeping their opinions to themselves, they were only passed over for promotions or transferred to less-attractive locations. But if they openly “cursed and combated the Nazis,” they were “taken into ‘protective custody’ by notorious SA men,” where they were beaten and pressed to divulge names without a court order. Early one summer morning in 1933, Hans-Harald Schirmer’s father was awakened by SA thugs shouting, “Get dressed, follow us.” Confused, he complied, only to be taken to the police. “In the cellar of an office building [he] was forced by torture, lack of sleep, and starvation to incriminate himself” as having plotted a coup. After a few days, he came home “with bruises, distraught and mentally absent.”11 Caught up in propaganda, many adolescents such as Benno Schöffski failed to understand why their parents resisted Nazi appeals.

  In the schools, NS teachers, often wearing an SA uniform, sought to indoctrinate their pupils in nationalist and racist ideas. “Even for us children they were recognizable by their [demeanor], ranging from servile dullness to brutal fanaticism,” wrote Hans Schirmer, who was appalled that “the ridiculously bragging Nazi teacher of stenography became rector in 1934 as a dedicated old fighter and party member [in spite of] his rather limited abilities.” Tom Angress suffered with a history teacher who had lost a leg in the war: “Now and then he made an anti-Semitic remark that had nothing to do with what he was lecturing on at the moment.” Albert Gompertz cringed when “our music teacher, who wore a Swastika button in his lapel … led our class in the presence of Jewish students … in the singing of Nazi songs, one of which had the refrain, ‘When Jewish blood runs from our knives.’”12 Such verbal abuse made Jewish pupils feel increasingly insecure.

  One important part of the Nazification of the school system was the transformation of the traditional curriculum. According to Schirmer, “seen in retrospect, the teaching of history became partisan by introducing Nazi ideology almost imperceptibly.” Instead of the usual recital of kings and battles, the national-political instruction tried to be cool and interesting: “The key points of the NSDAP program were the restructuring of Germany and ethnic German states into a Greater German Reich, Hitler’s struggle against Bolshevik ideology, and the system of international Jewish-Zionist world capital for the sake of destabilizing and dominating Europe.” In Hermann Debus’s experience, “the concepts of Führer, Volk and fatherland were daily presented to us” so as to affirm “an image of Hitler’s and his helpers’ infallibility.”13 Confronted with such slanted instruction, most pupils could not help but absorb some of its ideological biases.

  Another element of indoctrination was the introduction of new subjects such as “racial science,” which taught a hierarchy of races with the Aryans on top. When an anti-Semitic chemistry teacher sought to illustrate the differences in phenotypes, he pointed to Tom Angress and announced, “This boy has a well-formed Dinaric head, just like Reich Propaganda Minister Dr. Goebbels.” Since he had called the only Jewish pupil in the class an exemplary member of the Aryan race, “a burst of laughter broke out.” When he was writing on the blackboard a few days later, the pupils pelted him with dried peas and chased him out of the room. Their homeroom teacher, a Nazi dandy, stormed in, foaming with rage and accusing Angress, “You o
f all people, YOU have to do something like that.” But because the entire class owned up to the prank, he could do nothing but condemn it to three hours of detention.14 While the claims of racial science seemed hard to believe, its slogans reinforced prejudice.

  In spite of their Nazification, schools had to compete with the Hitler Youth for time and importance in training the young. Initially the introduction of the Reich Youth Day made Wednesday afternoons and Saturdays free of classes and turned them over to HJ exercises. Due to countless marches, hikes, sports events, and collection campaigns, Gerhard Krapf remembered later that pupils had little time “to learn how to read and count correctly.” In 1936, the HJ Law that required all children to become members stipulated, “All of German youth must be educated beyond home and school in the Hitler Youth physically, intellectually and ethically in the spirit of National Socialism so as to serve the Volk and the national community.”15 Even if it reduced the required time, this legislation set the HJ up as coequal authority with family and school. No wonder that teachers had a hard time coping with arrogant leaders who disrupted instruction. Typical outing photos like that of Ruth Bulwin’s League of German Girls group show happy youths roaming the countryside (image 8).

  8. League of German Girls. Source: Ruth Bulwin, Spätes Echo.

  Confronted with propaganda demands, it was risky for administrators and teachers to defend educational standards. In Erich Helmer’s Gymnasium in Braunschweig, “the majority of the teachers were politically neutral; one of them was even apparently an opponent of the new regime.” Ignoring the obligatory German salutation, he demonstratively greeted the class with “good day” and captivated his pupils with imaginative role-play. At his high school in Lichterfelde, Tom Angress was fortunate to have “a straight German nationalist” as principal, because he “was fair, approachable and had a sense of humor.” Other teachers who were proud professionals continued to instruct in their subject matter, although they made occasional rhetorical concessions to the reigning ideology. Even Angress’s physical education teacher, a convinced SA man, was so impressed by the teenager’s skill in gymnastics that he nominated him for interschool competition.16 But to speed rearmament, the high-school curriculum was shortened by one year.

  Outright opposition in the Third Reich was generally impossible, because open dissent was rigorously repressed by party zealots and servile opportunists. Already in the spring of 1933 Jews, leftists, and Republicans such as Joachim Fest’s father were purged from the high-school faculty by the law misleadingly titled “for the restoration of professional public service.” Only much later did Gerhard Krapf understand that in his own school, “Herr Scheuermann had been removed because he was Jewish.” Other unorthodox teachers were spied upon, censored, demoted, or fired as well. Courageous instructors who dared “fulfill their pedagogical duties wisely” had to dissimulate in order “to offer other perspectives beyond the official version neutrally but interestingly” so as to inspire critical approaches. Since the great majority of the teachers conformed to Nazi ideology, “instruction in school did not offer the pupils any criteria for the distinction between humane and inhumane” actions for their later life.17

  Increasing Nazi influence in schools isolated Jewish pupils and made them targets of abuse and discrimination. Gisela Grothus became aware of “how many Jewish students there were” in her girls’ high school only when half of her classmates failed to observe the Christian holidays. German patriots like Tom Angress felt more and more awkward when having to celebrate national holidays and attend Nazi rallies in which Jews were not wanted. One older Hitler Youth named Arndte, who had already repeated two grades, began to bully him with verbal attacks such as “Wake Up Germany! Death to the Jews!” But he lost much influence when Tom beat him in a rope-climbing contest in gym. Many classmates withdrew from contact with Frank Eyck, but some decent adolescents such as Wolfgang Schmidt continued to befriend him in spite “of the political situation and the division of the German people into Aryan and non-Aryan.”18

  Faced with such ideological hostility, Jewish youths had a difficult time figuring out how to respond. If they were in a liberal institution with kind teachers and other Jewish classmates, they might hope that the entire Nazi storm would eventually blow over. But many of the excluded children “asked their parents, when seeing the marching [Hitler Youth], why they were not allowed to belong” to it. If they were physically assaulted by Nazi sympathizers, they could pluck up their courage like Tom Angress and fight back against the attacker in order to gain the respect of their classmates. When a friendship was strong enough, such as one with a squad leader of the Hitler Youth, it might continue on the basis of mutual respect. But in the long run, Jewish adolescents felt increasingly isolated at the onset of puberty. Many “preferred to deal with instances of malice and humiliation” by themselves.19

  The rise of anti-Semitism in the schools, punctuated by insults such as “Jewish pig,” triggered a partly voluntary, partly compulsory withdrawal of Jewish pupils. When a class project led to the discovery that Erich Helmer had a Jewish grandmother, Pastor Helmer shielded his son by also finding a distant relationship to Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Nazi foreign minister. Tired of the “very depressing” situation in public schools, some Jewish adolescents who were proud of their origin transferred to separate Jewish institutions. Others, such as Frank Eyck, who were fortunate enough to have the means and connections, resolved to continue their schooling abroad: “The anti-Jewish measures affecting my life at school strengthened my willingness to emigrate.” Beginning in 1936, most Jewish pupils were expelled from public schools, with the last completing their graduation examinations, or Abitur, in 1938.20

  The indoctrination of gentile adolescents in school was complemented by a stream of general Nazi propaganda that celebrated the “German rising” as a step toward the “rejuvenation” of the country. On “the day of Potsdam,” Hitler, dressed in a tailcoat, “bowed in the garrison church to the Reich president in uniform” in a gesture signaling “that the rowdy NS regime had made peace with the Prussian past.” Gerhard Baucke experienced the ceremony as a belated form of “inner national exaltation.” Similarly, the proclamation of “the day of German labor” on the first of May covered up the destruction of the unions. In “one long procession, not only uniformed party members marched but the different crafts-guilds also showed their skill in great floats.” Moreover, in impressive newsreels the Führer and some followers “took the shovel” in order “to break the ground for the building of the [superhighways of the] Reichsautobahnen.” This message suggested, “things are getting better, soon there will no longer be any unemployed.”21

  The high point of publicity was the staging of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, which appealed especially to the young. Welcoming international youth to the new Olympiastadion, the Nazi regime temporarily suspended its repression and racism in order to show a benign side of the “new Germany.” With thousands of schoolchildren like Ruth Bulwin forming the Olympic rings and the flag, “the jubilation and enthusiasm knew no bounds” during the opening ceremony. The “whole world was overjoyed” because it wanted to believe in peace and recovery. While Americans recall the triumphs of Jesse Owens, Germans instead celebrated winning the medal count. Many of the attending foreign journalists and athletes “carried the good news of a vibrant Germany, disciplined and orderly, peace-minded and industrious, into their homelands.” Moreover, the talented director Leni Riefenstahl, renowned for her 1934 depiction of the Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, captured the Nordic beauty of athletic bodies in an impressive documentary film.22

  More practically useful was the Nazi policy of sending underweight city children to the countryside so as to make them healthier. Even without prodding, families with rural relatives began to ship their offspring to grandparents or other relations on a farm to profit from better air and more copious food during the summer vacations. Moreover, once a year “a public health officer came to school in order to e
xamine all children” for problems that could be corrected by receiving a daily bottle of milk. For the needier he would “propose relocating the children” to a group home in the countryside. There they would spend several weeks with minimal instruction and plenty of fun, while being fed more abundantly than at home. Although a few were initially homesick and had trouble dealing with the regimentation, most enjoyed the change of scenery and gained weight while away. Even if he did not really need it, Hellmut Raschdorff “gratefully accepted this possibility as a present.”23

  The Nazification of adolescents therefore involved a contradictory blend of compulsion and consent. On the one hand, the silencing of critics, persecution of political enemies, and exclusion of Jews from the community showed the dictatorial face of the Third Reich. On the other hand, the real enthusiasm, revived pride, and returned hope reinforced the improvement of the public mood, making the Nazi regime genuinely popular among most of those whose lives were getting better. Especially among the young, these paradoxical impressions generated “an impenetrable mixture of strongly opposing emotions, which ran the whole gamut from childlike or childish enthusiasm [to] revulsion [and] alienation.” Heinz Schultheis remembered the “almost schizophrenic feeling” of the initial Nazi years, when the majority of people “could hardly distinguish clearly between the evident successes and the evil compulsion of these new potentates.”24