Youth and Educational Policies

Question 1

Youth and Educational Policies
Background Fact - What was the Nazi aim?

Answer 1

The Nazis aimed to indoctrinate the youth into idolising Hitler and growing their support. They did this by targeting school and children’s free time with Nazi propaganda.

Question 2

Youth and Educational Policies
Nazi youth groups - Girls

Answer 2

• Girls however, were taught domestic skills unlike the boys, which included sewing and cooking. Girls were trained to be future wives and mothers and to have as many children as possible.

x However, many girls within these youth groups thought it was unfair that boys got to do more thrilling, outdoor activities, while they were trapped learning how to do house work.

Question 3

Youth and Educational Policies
Nazi youth groups - Boys

Answer 3

• Male Nazi youth groups focused on training boys into future soldiers and workers, teaching them more physical and activities like boxing.

✔ This helped to instil the Nazi standard in you boys, that they were expected to fight for Hitler and when they grow up, effectively raising a generation of Nazi soldiers.

x However, the Nazis saw resistance from the youth as they grew tired from their constant obedience to the Nazis.

Question 4

Youth and Educational Policies
Schools -

Answer 4

• Teachers were forced to be members of the Nazi Teachers League and by 1937, taught from a Nazi perspective which commonly villainised the Jews in history.

x If however lessons were not monitored, teachers could easily alter their teachings and teach from their perspective rather than from a strictly Nazi one.

Question 5

Youth and Educational Policies
Schools -

Answer 5

• Nazi propaganda was also usually plastered around schools, like swastika banners and posters.

✔ This made it very difficult for children to avoid Nazi propaganda, being surrounded by it inside of school and outside of it.

x The Nazis however still received resistance from the youth, b people children who simply refused to follow orders from authority.

Question 6

Youth and Educational Policies
Lebensborn - The goal

Answer 6

• The goal of the ‘Lebensborn’ was for Aryan women to have children with SS members, to create a generation of Aryan babies.

x It was difficult to force men and women to have children, based primarily on their looks.

Question 7

Youth and Educational Policies
Lebensborn - Population

Answer 7

• The Nazis aimed to increase Germany’s population to 120 million with the new generation of Aryan babies.

✔ This would have expanded the Volksgemeinschaft and helped to build a pure Nazi state.

x However, the children born out of Lebensborn would not have been old enough to fight in the war.

Question 8

Youth and Educational Policies
Historians - Rebel forced to join

Answer 8

Detlev Peukert - Towards the start of WW2, many young people in Germany had started to rebel against the groups they were forced to join.

Question 9

Youth and Educational Policies
Historians -

Answer 9

George Mosse - Nazi attempts to educate young people had a limited effect; the success of the indoctrination depended on the specific school and teacher.