Willi F. Könitzer: Enthusiastic Austrian Hitler Youth Boy (1938)

Figure 1.-- After World War II, the Hitler Youth were roundly condemned. Austrian boy Willi F. Könitzer was looking forward to being aart of the New Germany and joining the HJ. And although they did not talk about it after the War, manh HJ boys had fond memories of theur time in the HJ and the friends that they made.

After the War, the Hitler Youth was roundly condemned by both Germans and non-Germans. We suspect that most of the Germans commnting are being honest and they now saw their country in ruins because of the NAZIs. Not said is the fact ghat the opinions of mny Germans was affected by the fact tht the NAZIs lost the War and brought down Germany with them. The sameis true of many former HJ members. Less often said was the fervor with which msny boys join the HJ. Some might say that their comments were the result of NAZI propaganda and this is true to an extent. Scholars may debate the relative importance. It should not be forgotten that the German population embraced the NAZIS becausethey agreed with many NAZI policies. This did not include the War and Holocaust, but did inclue issues like repudiating the Versailles Treaty and reparations, regaining lost territory, national revitalization, remilitarization. These were issues that excited many ardently patriotic boys. Here is a short essay written by one such boy in 1938.

Song of the Faithful

Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels saw to ot that the 1938 National Book Prize was awarded to a collection of poems and essays written anonymously by members of the Austrian sections of the Hitler Youth and published as The Song of the Faithful. Here we poems and essays unabashely laud Reich Föhrer Adolf Hitler as if he was a god. Even in terms of the 1930s this material would seem enbarsing, but that as not the case in the Reich during 1938. At the time this material was written, Hitler had just enginered the Anchluss, annexing Austria to the Reich. It should also be born in mind that the boys and girls who wrote this material had not been propagaized by years of Goebbels propaganda, but grew up in a country with a relativefree press and the abiity to debate and discuss issues. Some of the poems and essays seem to have been written before Hitler seized Austria. The poems and essays wax on about the Führer, militarism, German culture, and youth.

The Hitler Youth as the Carrier of New Values

Willi entitled his essay as 'The Hitler Youth as the carrier of new values'. Here is what he wrote:

The figure of Adolf Hitler, himself a wonderful embodiment of the union of politician with artist, impresses itself on German youth as a binding model for how to give shape to the totality of their lives. And thus a symbolic power of the volume of poetry awarded the National Book Prize lies in the fact that it was written for the German people by the youth which bears the Führer's name and who live in the newest German province.

Whatever strengthened faith and hope during the political struggle, and whatever attracted the gaze of active longing from the Ostmark towards the Reich of Adolf Hitler, found immortal expression in these poems. Can there be more valid proof of the unity of the people, of the emergence of the new German man than the fact that the political commitment of the youth does not make them estranged from or indifferent to artistic experience, but rather causes them to express in poetic language everything which fulfils them and spurs them on to make that commitment?

The education for Germany, which is organized by the Hitler Youth itself in accordance with the Führer's will that "Youth must be led by youth," necessarily embraces the whole of a youth's existence. Certainly it is an education in developing a martial bearing. But here as everywhere else the example of the Führer makes any objections that might be raised invalid: a martial bearing, worlds removed from the military drill of a bygone age, does not exclude the love of art, but is what gives it its deeper meaning.

And just as the Hitler Youth is neither a league for pre-military training, nor a sports club, so it has no room, either, for the cultivation of a separate youth culture in musical groups and Hitler Youth Choirs, in literary clubs and theatrical societies. Whatever is happening within the new German youth happens exclusively in compliance with the great and unalterable law: the commitment to the Führer is the commitment to Germany.

This commitment is fulfilled in the forming of the young German in his totality, just as much in a physical and intellectual direction as in the cultivation of a spiritual sensibility and his education in the correct appreciation and evaluation of artistic achievement. The German people has become great in the eyes of the whole world through its impressive cultural achievements. Germans of the future, as they grow up as Pfimpf and Hitler Youth or as Jungmädel and members of the Bund Deutscher Mädel, must be educated to recognize German cultural values and the duty to uphold them, and to feel awe for the creative powers of the German people's soul which will ensure that its culture will be preserved.

Thus the goals of the cultural work carried out by the Hitler Youth remain conditioned by political needs: the political education of the German in the National Socialist sense is to be conceived as a unity of thinking, feeling, willing, and action, one which will determine the face of the Third Reich, the lines which compose the picture of the future Germany.

Source

The Song of the Faithful (1938). Propaganda Mimister Goebbels ordred a thin poetry book written by Hitler Youth members in Austria 'during the years of persecution'published in the Reich. The poems are worshipful, almost religious in tone.