Explain how the Nazi regime impacted young people?

Young people were affected substantially under the Nazis. The most obvious impact was through the youth organisations all young people were expected to join. The forced closure of many religious youth groups as well as all other youth organisations now falling under the control of the Nazis meant that young people could not escape the reach of the state, particularly seen in the Hitler Youth movement. The Hitler Youth was a collective term for 4 different youth organisations:

• the Hitler Youth - for boys aged 14-18
• German Young People (Cubs - boys)
• League of Young Girls
• League of German Girls

At first it was voluntary to join, then after 1936 it was made compulsory but the wording of the decree was unclear so that was reaffirmed 3 years later when it was made crystal clear all children older than 10 had to join the age appropriate group for their sex. The emphasis for boys was on military training and relentless physical exercises. The emphasis for girls was also on physical training but also on learning how to be a good wife and mother. All groups would be taken into the countryside on trips during the holidays. Regardless of which movement you joined, you were constantly exposed to Nazi racial theory and propaganda emphasising the superiority of the aryan race and the importance of blind obedience to Hitler.

A small minority of children refused to join, forming rival groups like the Edelweiss Pirates, but most complied and by 1939 there were 7 million children between 10 and 18 attending weekly Hitler Youth gatherings. 

A second way the Nazi regime impacted young people was through education. Just as in the Hitler Youth movements, the curriculum was quickly changed to ensure biology lessons emphasised Nazi racial theory, history was rewritten to emphasise the glories of Germany’s military past and maths and physics lessons were altered to teach the students about the engineering behind military equipment, whilst at the same time rejecting theories from Jewish thinkers such as Albert Einstein as the curriculum focused quack scientific ideas known as ‘German physics’.

• paintings of Hitler on the walls 
• Nazi flags hanging outside every building
• constant radio broadcasts of Hitler’s speeches
• ‘Heil Hitler’ greetings from student to teacher before each lesson

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