The Waffen-SS "Hitler Youth" Division

Formation and Recrutment

In early 1943, plans were put in motion to form a twelfth division ot the Waffen-SS. Unlike some which had been formed previously, it was not based on ethnic Germans, foreigners or a mixture oi the two. After three years of war and now facing a serious manpower shortage, the Waffen-SS fell upon a vast and highly acceptable pool of recruits .... the Hitler Youth. The Hitler Youth (Hitler-Jugund or H.J.) was, as its name implies, the Nazi Party's youth organization. As early as 1922, a Youth League of the NSDAP was in existence and in 1925 a student named Kurt Gruber was leader of the Saxon National Socialist Youth (Sachsische National-sozlalistische Jugend) in Plauen. Early in 1926, Gruber joined the Hitler Youth and this embryo organization was given official recognition at the 2nd Reich Party Congress at Weimar on July 4, 1926. it was at this Congress, that Hitler appointed Kurt Gruber as Reich Leader of the Hitler Youth (Reichsfuhrer der Hitler-Jugend). It was also on this occasion that the very name "Hitler-Jugend" was coined by the notorious Gauleiter, Julius Streicher. By the time the 4th Reich Party Congress was held at Nuremberg on August 4, 1929, the H.J. had grown to approximately 2,000 members.

The overworked Gruber fell ill and when his health forced him to retire, Hitler replaced him on October 30, 1931 with Dr. Theodor Adrian von Rentelns. On May 13, 1932, when the H.J. numbered about 35,000 members, the former leader of the National Socialist Association of German Students (Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund), Baldur von Schirach, was named Reich Youth Leader (Reichsjugendfuhrer). On June 15, 1932, the National Socialist School Children's Association (NS-Schulerbunds) was taken over by the H.J. and its members incorporated.The first Reich Youth Congress (1. Reichsjugendtag der NSDAP) was held at Potsdam on October 1 and 2, 1932, when 110,000 members of the H.J. took some seven hours to march past Hitler.

In 1933, von Schirach staged a coup with the help of elements of the SA and took over the Reich Committee of German Youth Associations. As this controlled the majority of the German youth movements, the H.J. gained tremendous influence and a vast number of additional members. Hitler appointed von Schirach as Youth Leader of the German Reich (Jugendfuhrer des deutschen Reiches) on June 17, 1933, and consequently the leader of the Party's youth became leader of the German youth. The remaining independent youth groups were gradually absorbed or disbanded and it is not surprising to note that those with religious backgrounds held out the longest. On December 1, 1936, the German Cabinet passed a Reich Youth Law which entrusted the H.J. with the task of organizing the entire German youth within the territory of the Reich.

A Youth Service Order (Jugenddienstverordnung) was passed, in April 1939, making membership in the H.J. compulsory for all German boys and girls aged between ten and eighteen years. To preserve the elite within the enlarged and less select H.J., the Stamm—H.J. was formed. Membership in this elite cadre was voluntary yet highly selective and the same racial requirements were demanded as for acceptance into the Nazi Party itself.
So it was that from humble beginnings in the early 1920s, the H.J. had grown with the Party and by the year the Second World War broke out had a total monopoly of the youth of Germany. With war becoming imminent, its vital new role was being planned. The Supreme Command of the Armed Forces (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, O.K.W. ) and the Reich Youth Leadership (Reichsjugendfuhrung, R.J.F. ), in early 1939, agreed that the H.J. should receive military training from the Wehrmacht and the latter provided a liaison officer for attachment to every HJ-Bann.The fateful and almost total involvement of the H.J. in Nazi Germany's war effort had begun.

At first, H.J. boys and to a lesser extent girls, were used on the homefront. They attended to behind-the-lines duties such as assisting the state services, undertaking fire-fighting and air-raid protection duties and acting as messengers between the various military offices and establishments scattered throughout Germany. In September l939, the opening month of the war, over a million H.J. members were reported as helping the war effort.

Later, H.J. boys became more directly involved with the actual job of fighting by becoming auxiliaries in the Navy and Air Force. Boys from seafaring backgrounds and/or those who had been in the H.J. Marine Service (Marine-HJ) became naval auxiliaries (HJ-Marinehelfer). Those with flying experience or members of the H.J. Flying Service (Flieger-HJ) served as Luftwaffe auxiliaries (HJ- Luftwaffenhelfer) and anti-aircraft auxiliaries (Flakhelfer). The H.J. was thus helping at home by fulfilling essential duties and allowing German men to fight at the front. Nearer to the front, they also helped the armed forces as auxillaries.From the outbreak of the war, however, the older boys also joined the fighting services as true soldiers.

First to join, having completed the compulsory Labour Service, were the H.J. leaders and by 1943 no less than 95% of the pre-war H.J. leadership had joined the armed forces, Many had followed Baldur von Schirach's example by entering the Army's elite "Grossdeutschland" Infantry Regiment, which later became a division and then a corps. The need for a more intensive pre-military training for these H.J. boys was met in the summer of 1942, by the establishment of a number of special training camps (Wehrertiichtigungslager). These were setup by the H.J. in conjunction with the Wehrmacht or Wafien-SS and were identified by numbers and the locations. Each camp appears to have been preparatory for a given service .... for example, Marine-HJ camps existed for the training of future sailors. This would also appear to have been the case for the Army, Luftwaffe and Waffen-SS. These camps provided the 17- and 18-year-old H.J. boys with the essential preparatory training required before they could be turned over to the Labour Service. They were taught to handle military weapons and were instructed by Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS soldiers with frontline experience. These instructors were often picked from ex-members of the Hitler Youth for the obvious propaganda reasons. In 1943, about 150 such camps were reported and at least twice that number are believed to have been formed before the war ended.

The Waffen-SS was therefore recciving a flow of former H.J. boys through the pre-military trainmg camps by late 1942. Needless to say, they were more than welcome to Waffen-SS recruiting chief Gottlob Berger, for young Germans devoted to the cause of National Socialism were ideal material. Brought up since the age of 10 (in the DJ from 10 to 14 and then in the H.J. proper from 14 to 18) in blind devotion and obedience to the person of Adolf Hitler, his Third Reich and the "struggle for the survival of the German race" (as they considered the war), they could not have been better suited, On top of the ideological training, they formed part of a complicated para-military organization which had been carefully planned to produce soldiers for the future. They had para-military ranks and uniforms and a prolusion of insignia, Their training was based on marching and included map reading and small calibre rifle shooting. In certain areas, boys could choose a speciality and apart from the Marine-HJ and FliegerH.J. (both of which were barred from joining the Waffen-SS and had to enter the Navy and Luftwaffe respectively) boys could become junior engineers, motor mechanics and drivers, signallers, medical orderlies .,.. in fact, all the trades so necessary to the running of an army. It was for these reasons that the Waffen-SS recruiting officers courted the H.J. so intensely. With their ever-present shortage of man-power, the Waffen-SS looked to the vast H.J. organization as an ideal and virtually unlimited means to replacement and expansion.

It is of interest to note the requirements set by the Waffen-SS for entry into its ranks of a member of the H.J.. In 1942, the boy had to have reached his 17th birthday and be over 1.68 meters in height (the limit was lowered from 1.70 meters for the under 20s). He had to be eligible for military service, be in possession of the necessary document proving his Aryan descent, be without a criminal record and be physically fit to serve. The only cases of exclusion once these requirements had been met were boys coming from a seafaring or flying background or members of the Marine-HJ and Flieger-HJ (who had to become auxiliaries or join the Navy or Air Force respectively) and those who had already enrolled or been accepted by the Wehrmacht. All H.J. boys meeting the above requirements were acceptable but members of the Patrol and Land Services were especially welcome. lt would be well at this point to cxamine these two services briefly and see why they should have been held in such high esteem by the Waffen-SS.

The Patrol Service of the H.J. (Strcifendienst der Hitler-Jugend) was an elite patrol service which acted as a junior police force and generally supervised all members during and after service hours. It can be likened to a pre- or junior SS and in fact was intended to provide future generations of SS leaders. The HJ-Streifendienst often trained with the SS and courses (Streifendienst-Lehrgange) were held with such notable elements as the Leibstandarte-SS "Adolf Hitler".

The H.J. Land Service (Landdienst der Hitler-Jugend) was a service where-by H.J. boys and girls were put to work on the land. Started before the war, the original intention was to try and counteract the move of the German land worker from the fields and into the more lucrative industries. With the advent of war, the need for increased agricultural production clashed with the demand for able-bodied labourers to fight at the front and the H.J. members' year of service in the Landdienst helped to lessen the problem.

Once the year's service had been completed, it was hoped that the H.J. boys and girls would choose to stay on the land, eventually marry and so become and help to produce a breed of "new" or "military peasants"(Wehrbauer). The latter concept so appealed to Reichsfiihrer-SS Himmler that in 1939 he had reached an agreement with the then Reich Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach that the HJ-Landdienst should provide members for the SS.

On May 28, 1942, the Landdienst was opened to non-Germans of so-called Nordic blood and young people from Holland, Flanders, Norway and Denmark served in the "Germanic Land Service" (Germanische Landdienst). It can now be seen why preference was given to the members of the Patrol and Land Services of the Hitler Youth .... both were considered as training grounds for the SS itself.

Waffen-SS propaganda played on the glamour of the uniforms and stressed that service in the Waffen-SS counted as fulfillment of the compulsory military service. It gave the impression that the men of the Waffen-SS were soldiers like all the others and stressed that the H.J. volunteers would be fighting "shoulder to shoulder with soldiers of the Army". To attract the much-needed specialists, attention was drawn to the fact that although smaller than the Army, the Walfen-SS was also made up of a number of arms of the service (Waffengattungen). Therefore, a boy could continue in the Waffen-SS that specialist training he had begun in the H.J.. The SS propagandists added that by having freedom of choice as to the arm of the service, a boy could follow the "military tradition of his family".

An H.J. boy interested in joining the Waffen-SS was invited to contact his local Waffen-SS Replacement Bureau (Erganzungsstelle der Waffen- SS). Alternatively, he could collect a recruiting brochure at any office of the General SS, Police or Gendarmerie and complete the enrollment form this contained. The boy then entered pre-military training (Wehrerttichtigunglz) at one of the special camps sei up by the H.J. in collaboration with the Waffen-SS. The day this course ended, he could join the Waffen-SS, although permission could be given to cut these courses short H.J. boys volunteering for the Waffen-SS were permitted to by pass the compulsory Labour Service, where as conscripts usually had to serve their time in the R.A.D.

Other schools also existed through which former H.J. boys could pass into the Waffen-SS. Of particular note in this respect was a Motor Driving school (Kraftfahrschule) . Here, regular six weeks' courses were held for groups of 300 16- and 17-year-old H.J. boys, some of whom naturally came from the Motor-H.J. Once the course was over, the graduates were expected to enroll in the Wdfen-SS. Another school worthy of mention was that located at Eipel in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia which produced H.J. leaders and Waffen-SS NCOs (HJ-Fiihrernachwuchs und Aushildungsschule der Waffen-SS). The H.J. boy had therefore been a prime target for the Waffen-SS recruiters and a considerable number over the age of 17 had joined in the early years of the war. But they joined as individuals and were incorporated piecemeal into the Waffen-SS. In that way, they were difused and perpetuated nothing of their former organization .... the Hitler Youth.

Roger James Bender and Hugh Page Taylor, UNIFORMS, ORGANIZATION AND HISTORY OF THE WAFFEN-SS, VOL.3, R. James Bender Publishing, 1972

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