The Hitler Youth is a youth organization under the NSDAP, which was officially formed in 1926. The organization was headed by the Reich Youth Fuhrer, who reported directly to Adolf Hitler. Initially it was voluntary, but after the Nazis came to power it became mandatory for all male teenagers. The Hitler Youth had branches not only throughout Germany and in the countries conquered by the Germans, but also in the Axis powers - in Italy and Japan. During the Second World War, especially at its final stage, the Hitler regime decided to use the organization for military purposes. Initially, the younger Hitler Youth worked in the rear, and their older comrades were called up to the front. But at the final stage of the war they began to put everyone under arms without exception. The organization ceased to exist immediately after the defeat of Germany, along with the dissolution of the Nazi Party.

Currently, one of the most poorly studied and little-known pages of the world war concerns the role of children and adolescents participating in hostilities. We often hear that the Soviet government and Stalin exterminated their own people, and Hitler and the Germans destroyed other peoples, but then it was Hitler’s regime that threw children and teenagers into the millstones of war. In the Red Army, the conscription age began at 18 years. Even during the most difficult years of the war for the Soviet Union, there was no reduction in the conscription age. Only the last conscription in 1944 began at the age of 17, but teenagers called up at this age mostly did not take part in battles, being used only in the rear in numerous auxiliary detachments and units.

Even during the most difficult months of the Great Patriotic War for the USSR, when German troops stood at the gates of Moscow and on the Volga, the conscription age in the Red Army was not lowered. And a completely different situation was observed in Germany. And although the conscription age for the Wehrmacht did not officially drop below 18 years, it was the German combat units that took part in the hostilities that consisted of 16-17-year-old teenagers, and at the very end of the war even 12-year-old children could be found on the fronts.

At the same time, it is much easier for adults to bring children to a state of mindless submission and force them to fight fearlessly. Children are good fighters because they are young and eager to prove themselves. They believe that what is happening is some kind of game, which is why they are often so fearless. All this was fully characteristic of students of the Hitler Youth and those who, at the end of World War II, found themselves in Volkssturm units or Werwolf units (German militia for waging partisan warfare). As a result, even experienced Soviet front-line soldiers were often surprised by the fearlessness and belligerence demonstrated by German youth. Often these teenage soldiers threw themselves under tanks.

With fanatical tenacity, they could burn Soviet and Allied tanks, shoot and shoot down planes as part of anti-aircraft crews, shoot unarmed captured soldiers, and some especially fanatical ones continued fighting after May 9, 1945, shooting front-line soldiers from ambushes. Children and teenagers were often more violent than adults. Today this continues to be true, but in Africa, where huge numbers of children, sometimes as young as 8 years old, fight in various paramilitary forces and have no mercy for their enemies.

At the same time, little has been preserved of documentary evidence of war crimes that would have been committed by minor soldiers of the Wehrmacht and SS troops from among the pupils of the Hitler Youth during the Second World War. There are two explanations for this - the juvenile criminals themselves did not want to remember and brag about their “exploits” during the war. In addition, there was an unspoken taboo on the dissemination of such information in the USSR, and children and adolescents themselves were recognized as victims of the Hitler regime.

There was really little evidence of crime. So, for example, one of them refers to the memoirs of Lieutenant Colonel of the Allied forces Robert Daniel and concerns the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. It is perhaps the only documentary evidence of crimes committed by minor Nazis. According to the officer's recollections, he heard the sounds of shots and approached the fence of the concentration camp. There were four young SS men or even Hitler Youth students standing there, they all looked very young. They all shot at living people and corpses, while carefully aiming at the crotches of men and women, trying to cause them maximum pain. Robert Daniel shot three of them, and the fourth managed to escape. What happened to that “fourth”, how his fate turned out, and what kind of life he lived, now hardly anyone will know. But the fate of some members of the Hitler Youth is known to historians quite well.

To the pope and to the communists

For example, the previous Pope Benedict XVI in the world was called Joseph Alois Ratzinger. In 1941, at the age of 14, he joined the Hitler Youth, and later served in air and anti-tank defense units and in the infantry. A few days before Germany announced its surrender, he deserted and spent some time after the end of the war in an American prisoner of war camp. After his release from the camp, Joseph Ratzinger radically changed his life by entering a theological seminary and was ordained in 1951. In 1977 he became a cardinal and then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In 2005, after the death of John Paul II, he became the new pope.

Konstantin Aleksandrovich Zalessky, an employee of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies and a military historian, notes that the fate of Joseph Ratzinger is not only unique, but also to some extent typical for German teenagers during the war. German children who were intoxicated by Nazi propaganda in the Hitler Youth and, participating in armed resistance to the Allied forces on the Eastern and Western Fronts, became, in fact, victims of that war. Having already matured, many of them were able to reconsider their views regarding “Great Germany”.

Pope Benedict XVI

The fate of another famous German teenager, Alfred Cech, who was born in 1933, is also indicative. He was a member of the Jungvolk organization (a division of the Hitler Youth for teenagers under the age of 14). On April 20, 1945, this German boy was awarded the Iron Cross by Hitler himself, he received the award for saving wounded German soldiers from the fire of the Soviet army. After the award, he was immediately sent to accelerated courses in handling, and later to the front, where he spent the last weeks of the war. After not fighting for even a month, he was wounded and ended up in a prisoner of war camp, where he spent 2 years.

After returning home, he discovered that he would no longer live in Germany. His hometown of Goldenau was transferred to Poland. Having matured, the former member of the Hitler Youth, who received an award from Hitler, joined the Communist Party (who would have believed this even in 1945!). True, he did this in order to get the opportunity to emigrate to West Germany, where he worked the rest of his life as a construction worker. He had 10 children and more than 20 grandchildren.

Alfred Cech - the youngest holder of the Iron Cross 2nd class

German teenagers go to war

The defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad was one of the reasons for the involvement of members of the youth organization Hitler Youth in armed resistance to the advancing units of the Red Army and its allies - the USA and Great Britain. Already in January 1943, the service of German youth of pre-conscription age was established. Most often, we were talking about high school students who were recruited to serve in anti-aircraft artillery units by entire units of the Hitler Youth under the command of their “Jugendfuhrers”. Such teenagers were considered to be performing “youth service” and not real soldiers, although they actually served in the Wehrmacht. They also allowed adult anti-aircraft gunners to be sent to the front.

Apparently, these were the “cheapest” soldiers in Hitler’s army. Before they reached the age of 16, they received only 50 pfennigs for each day of service, and after reaching the age of 16 - 20 marks per month. In the final months of World War II, even girls began to be recruited to serve in air defense units. German teenagers were also recruited to serve in the Air Force, where in 1944 there were already 92 thousand young men who were sent here from the Hitler Youth; teenagers were also used in the navy.

From the end of 1944, Adolf Hitler authorized total mobilization in Germany. According to the personal order of the Fuhrer dated October 18, 1944, the entire male population aged 16 to 60 who is not in military service is subject to mobilization. By May 1945, Germany managed to form approximately 700 Volkssturm battalions, which operated on the front line against Soviet troops. On the Eastern Front, some of these units provided fierce resistance to the advancing units of the Red Army. Volkssturm fighters distinguished themselves in the battles for the Prussian village of Neuendorf in November 1944. Their resistance was no less fierce in Bresslau, which they defended together with Wehrmacht units from January to May 1945; the city’s garrison capitulated only on May 6, 1945.

Since 1944, 16-year-old German boys have been sent to the slaughterhouse for the sake of their Fuhrer. But this threshold did not last long, and soon the Hitler Youth sent 12-15-year-old German children into battle. At the final stage of the war, Werolf detachments began to be organized in Germany, which were supposed to carry out sabotage in the rear of the Allied troops and wage guerrilla warfare. Even after Germany surrendered and the war was over, some "werewolves", among whom were many children aged 14 years and above, continued to carry out their combat missions, since they did not receive orders to cancel them. At the same time, the fight against individual “werewolves” in East Germany and a number of other countries in Eastern Europe continued almost until the beginning of the 1950s. Even while suffering final defeat in the war, the Nazi regime dragged tens of thousands of children and adolescents into oblivion.

12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend"

One of the divisions of the German army, which was formed entirely from students of the Hitler Youth, was the 12th SS Panzer Division of the same name. On February 10, 1943, a decree was issued according to which the formation of the SS division “Hitler Youth” began; it was to consist of conscripts born in 1926 (age -17 years, previously only conscripts over the age of 23 were recruited into the SS troops). SS Oberführer Fritz Witt from the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler division was appointed commander of the new unit. Before September 1, 1943, more than 16 thousand members of the Hitler Youth were drafted into the new unit, all of them underwent special six-month training. In addition, more than a thousand SS veterans and experienced officers from Wehrmacht units were transferred to the new division. The total strength of the newly created unit exceeded 20 thousand people with 150 tanks.

With the start of Operation Overlord, this division found itself at the epicenter of the fighting in Normandy. The Hitlerjugend division, together with the 21st Panzer Division, turned out to be the German tank units closest to the Allied landing site. In the very first days of the battle in Normandy, the 12th SS Panzer Division was able to prove itself very brightly, inflicting significant losses on the Allied troops in manpower and equipment. In addition to its military successes, the division earned a bad reputation as ruthless fanatics not only among the enemy, but also among German troops. In the June battles in Normandy, both sides rarely took prisoners, military historians say.

Formation of tankers of the division during its inspection by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundsted, France, January 1944.

Indeed, the Canadians and the British behaved far differently than Captain Miller from the film Saving Private Ryan, who simply released a prisoner who had nowhere to go. The British and Canadian military sometimes killed German prisoners - especially in tank regiments that did not have sufficient infantry to escort prisoners to the rear. But there were more such cases on the conscience of the German troops. Already in the first days of the fighting in Normandy, the Germans executed at least 187 Canadian soldiers, most of these victims were accounted for by the SS Hitlerjugend division. A French woman from Cannes, visiting her elderly aunt in Autie, discovered about 30 Canadian soldiers who had been shot and hacked to pieces by the Germans.

On June 14, 1944, the commander of the Hitler Youth division died, and was replaced by Kurt Meyer, who became the youngest division commander in World War II (33 years old). He would later be accused of committing numerous war crimes; among other things, he demanded that his units not take enemy soldiers prisoner. The Royal Winnipeg Fusiliers later discovered that the SS had shot 18 of their captured comrades who were being interrogated at Meyer's command post in Arden Abbey. At the same time, one captive, Major Hodge, had his head cut off.

A captured panzergrenadier of the division, taken prisoner by a Canadian reconnaissance company during the Battle of Caen. August 9, 1944

Ideologically, the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend" was one of the most fanatical units in the SS troops. Its soldiers perceived the killing of prisoners as retaliation for the bombing of German cities. The fanatical unit fought well, but by July 1944 it suffered significant losses. Over the course of a month of fighting, the division lost up to 60% of its original strength in killed, wounded and missing. Later, she ended up in the Falaise pocket, where she lost almost all of her equipment and heavy weapons, was subsequently withdrawn for reorganization and continued fighting until the end of the war. She took part in the offensive in the Ardennes, as well as in the battles near Lake Balaton.

Information sources:
http://tvzvezda.ru/news/forces/content/201502220847-kobc.htm
http://spiegel.org.ua/text/articles/hellsinginfo02.htm
http://maxpark.com/community/14/content/3121771
Beevor E. Landing in Normandy. M: KoLibri, 2014.

They fought for Hitler: the bloody “exploits” of the Hitler Youth

Little documentary evidence of crimes committed by juvenile Wehrmacht soldiers from the Hitler Youth (Hitler's children - a Nazi youth organization) during the Great Patriotic War has been preserved. There are two explanations for this - the juvenile delinquents themselves never boasted in their memoirs about the “exploits” they accomplished in the service of Hitler. And besides this, there probably was and is an unspoken taboo on information about how 10-15-year-old Hitler Youth burned our soldiers alive in tanks, shot down our planes, shot unarmed prisoners, and, finally, after May 9, 1945, aimed at sniper scopes on front-line soldiers celebrating the Victory.

The recollection of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Daniel of the Allied forces about the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is almost the only documentary evidence of the crimes of the Nazi minors: “I heard the pop of shots and went to the fence. There were four people standing there, young SS men, maybe even Hitler Youth; they looked very young. They shot at corpses and living people, carefully aiming at the crotches of men and women in order to inflict maximum pain. I shot three of them, and the fourth ran away.” What happened to that “fourth” is now unlikely to ever be established. How this man’s fate turned out, who he became and how he lived his life is unknown. In modern history, there are only a few reliably known biographies of former members of the Hitler Youth.

Benedict XVI Pope

The real name of Pope Benedict XVI is Joseph Alois Ratzinger. In 1941, Joseph Ratzinger Jr., at the age of 14, joined the Hitler Youth, and later served in air defense, anti-tank defense, and infantry units. A few days before the surrender of Germany, he deserted and spent some time after the war in an American prisoner of war camp. After his release, Joseph Ratzinger entered the theological seminary; ordained in 1951. In 1977 he becomes a cardinal, then the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and in 2005, after the death of John Paul II, he becomes Pope.

In an exclusive interview with the Zvezda TV channel, military historian and employee of the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies Konstantin Aleksandrovich Zalessky undertook to comment on the history of the Hitler Youth: “Of course, the fate of Joseph Ratzinger is unique, but it is also typical in some ways! German children, intoxicated by Nazi propaganda in the Hitler Youth, participating in armed resistance, in fact, themselves became victims of that war. Having matured, many of them revised their views on “Greater Germany”.

Albert Cech, a German, born in 1933, is a member of the Jungvolk (a division of the Hitler Youth, which includes teenagers under 14 years old), on April 20, 1945, at the age of 12, he was awarded the Iron Cross by Hitler himself for saving wounded German soldiers from under the fire of the Soviet army. After the award, he was immediately sent to accelerated courses in weapons handling, and later to the front. After not fighting for even a month, he was wounded and ended up in a prisoner of war camp, where he spent two years. Upon returning home, he discovered that he would no longer live in Germany - Goldenau, his hometown, had passed to Poland. As he grew older, he joined the Polish Communist Party in order to obtain permission to emigrate to West Germany, where he lives to this day.

“Temper like steel!”

A little-known fact is that Adolf Hitler never managed to learn to ride a bicycle in his entire life. At the same time, the leader of the Third Reich made special demands on the physical health of members of the Hitler Youth. “The students of this organization had to prove their courage. For example, those who could not swim were forced to jump into the water from a three-meter springboard. They were pulled to the ground only after the unfortunate jumpers managed to dive under water a couple of times and float to the surface again,” says historian Zalessky.

A former student of Adolf Hitler's school in the city of Sonthofen, Hardy Krueger, describes an even more risky test: “One winter, my platoon made two large holes in the thick ice of a frozen lake. The distance between the ice holes is almost 10 meters. The task is to jump into the ice hole and swim under the ice to another hole.” All these tests corresponded to the attitude towards the younger generation in Nazi Germany. Hitler formulated the task for the parents of “real Aryans” back in 1933: “Your child already belongs to us today. And you? You haven’t made up your mind yet, but your offspring are already in the new camp.”

1943 Hitler Youth takes up arms

The loss of the Battle of Stalingrad was one of the reasons for the involvement of members of the Hitler Youth in the armed resistance of the advancing troops of the Red Army and its allies - Great Britain and the USA.

“In January 1943, a service for pre-conscription-age youth was established. As a rule, these were high school students who were recruited to serve in anti-aircraft artillery units by entire units of the Hitler Youth, under the command of their “Jugendfuhrers.” They were considered to be performing “youth service” rather than soldiers, but actually served in the Wehrmacht; making it possible to send adult anti-aircraft gunners to the front. These were, apparently, the “cheapest” soldiers of Hitler’s army - before reaching the age of 16 they were paid 50 pfennigs per day of service: and after this age - 20 marks per month. At the final stage of the war, even girls began to be recruited to serve in air defense units. Teenagers were also recruited to serve in the air force (in 1944, 92 thousand young men sent here from the Hitler Youth served here), and teenagers were also recruited into the navy,” says military historian Zalessky.

Even experienced Russian front-line soldiers were surprised by the belligerence of German youth. “They fearlessly threw themselves under the tanks. It was indescribable. They really were children,” says Great Patriotic War veteran Alexander Semenovich Martyshko. “I was 17 years old at the time, but among us there were fifteen-year-olds and even younger ones. Without looking back they walked towards death. And on many streets they managed to repel Russian attacks. After the battle, children in their Hitler Youth uniform remained lying on the pavement,” Gerd Hefner, one of the members of this Nazi organization, later recalled.

Hans-Dietrich Nikolaisen remembers how he was sent into battle: “We were armed with French rifles of incredible length. The cartridges had to be stuffed into coat pockets. We didn't have bandoliers. Each one had a grenade launcher. The charges were stuffed into his pants pockets. We put hand grenades in our belts. In this form we went to the positions.” But the Hitler Youth, despite all this, was eager to fight, and “Hitler’s children” fought, judging by the memoirs of veterans, with desperate cruelty. Former Red Army soldier Vasily Manturov experienced the danger posed by them during the battle at the Anhalt station in Berlin: “One of them fired from a Faustpatron and wounded me. It was a little boy in a Hitler Youth uniform."

12th SS Panzer Division - "Hitler Youth"

The idea of ​​​​creating a Waffen SS division from members of the Hitler Youth appeared in early 1943. Himmler, the head of the SS, was delighted with it; the Fuhrer was in full agreement with him, and on February 10, 1943, an official decree was issued on the creation of the 12th SS Panzer Division - Hitler Youth. “In the summer of 1943, more than 10 thousand people had already gathered in training camps specially created for this purpose to undergo training and get into the division. The guys recruited there were mainly those born in 1926,” says military historian Konstantin Zalessky.

On June 6, 1943, the joint Anglo-American Operation Overlord began. In the very first days, the 12th SS Panzer Division - the Hitler Youth - showed itself very clearly, inflicting great damage on the Allies with minimal damage to itself and earning a reputation as ruthless fanatics not only among opponents, but also among German troops. “Cruelty reigned on both sides, and both of them rarely took prisoners,” says the military historian. During 1 month of service, the division lost 60% of its people killed, wounded and missing. Immediately after this, the unit was thrown into the Falaise region, where the Hitler Youth again held back the Allied forces for a whole month, allowing German troops to escape the encirclement. Losses amounted to 80%.

“After this, the division was quickly replenished - with those who came to hand - pilots, sailors, wounded discharged from hospitals - and junior Hitler Youth members, who were immediately thrown into battle: in the Battle of the Bulge, in an unsuccessful attempt to recapture Bucharest...”, says historian Zalessky. Some members of the Hitler Youth were accused of war crimes, but these were children - so no one made any special effort to bring them to justice.

Photo for memory"

Well-preserved photographic documents show those same Hitler Youth fighters, not just tankers. Here is an English soldier guarding two so-called “tank destroyers”. He is armed with a STEN Mk.III submachine gun, and on his shoulder is a German StG 44 assault rifle “confiscated” from teenagers. Bicycles with pairs of “Panzerfaust” cartridges attached to them are visible in the foreground and to the right. Similar bicycle tank destroyer units were widely used in the last months of the war in Germany.

These photographs show young SS men, tank crews of the 12th Hitler Youth Division. The photographs were taken in the vicinity of the French village of Rho. There is no fear, much less remorse, in their poses or in their eyes.

12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend" (12. SS-Panzer-Division "Hitlerjugend").
This formation owes its formation to SS Gruppenführer Gottlob Berger, who proposed to Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, in January 1943, to create an SS division from members of the Hitler Youth. On February 10, 1943, a decree was issued according to which the formation of the SS Hitler Youth division was allowed from conscripts born in 1926 (age - 17 years; previously, for volunteers entering the SS there was an age limit of 23 years). SS Oberführer Fritz Witt from the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler was appointed division commander, which also provided other personnel for the newly formed units. Through a competition, a distinctive sign of the division was established, on which the Sowilo rune (the symbol of the Hitler Youth organization) crossed with a master key (the sign of the SS division “Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler”, which arose from the surname of its first commander, Joseph Dietrich (German: Dietrich - master key) ).
Fritz Witt

Formation of tankers of the division during its inspection by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundsted, France, January 1944.

Captured German soldiers from the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend" under escort of the military police of the 3rd US Army. These child soldiers (16 and 17 years old) were captured on the outskirts of Magerotte, east of Bastogne, Belgium.

Before September 1, 1943, more than 16 thousand members of the Hitler Youth were drafted and underwent six months of training. In addition, more than 1 thousand veterans of the SS troops, as well as experienced officers from the Wehrmacht, were transferred to the division. The total number of personnel exceeded 20 thousand people with 150 tanks. During training in Beverloo (Belgium), it was decided to reorganize the originally Panzergrenadier division into a tank division and change its name to the SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend. When the Waffen-SS units were renumbered on October 22, 1943, the division received the number 12, and its grenadier regiments received the numbers 25 and 26.

Since June 1944, the division was on the Western Front in Normandy.
Grenadier of the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth" on the road in Orne, Nomandy.

On June 6, 1944, the Allies launched the invasion of Normandy with Operation Overlord. The 12th SS Division Hitlerjugend, together with the 21st Panzer Division, were the closest tank units to the landing site. However, due to air raids, they reached the battlefield only at about 22:00 near Evresy.
On June 7, the 25th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment under the command of SS Standartenführer Kurt Meyer, together with the 12th SS Panzer Regiment, managed to repel the attack of the Canadians, and 28 tanks were destroyed, and the Nova Scotia Highlanders infantry regiment suffered heavy losses. At the same time, the division's losses amounted to six people. During this operation, soldiers of the division in Abbaye d'Ardenne killed 20 Canadian prisoners of war.
Kurt Meyer

On June 8, the 26th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment under the command of SS-Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Mohnke reached a position west of Meyer's regiment. The regiment struck in the direction of Saint-Manvieu-Norre and captured a strategically important village.
Two M4 Sherman tanks of Squadron A of the 2nd Canadian Tank Division, knocked out and burned on June 11, 1944 on the street of the French town of Rots during a battle with the 12th SS Panzer Regiment of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitler Youth "

Captured soldiers of the 12th SS Division "Hitlerjugend" (12. SS-Panzer-Division "Hitlerjugend") having lunch in a field in the vicinity of the French town of Rots.



On 14 June the Royal Navy bombarded the position at Venoix, killing Witt. His place was taken by Kurt Meyer, who became the youngest division commander of World War II (33 years old). Meyer was later accused of committing war crimes, as he demanded that his units take no prisoners.
The division was ordered to capture Caen within the next four weeks, although it was greatly outnumbered and had no air support.

Panzergrenadier of the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth", captured by a Canadian reconnaissance company during the Battle of Caen. August 9, 1944

Tank Pz.Kpfw. IV (Panzerkampfwagen IV, Ausf. H, tail number 626) of the 6th company of the 12th tank regiment of the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend" (6.Kompanie/SS-Panzer-Regiment 12/12.SS-Panzer-Division "Hitlerjugend") on a march along the streets of the French city of Caen.

Another Pz.Kpfw.IV tank with tactical number 625 from the same company of the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth".


In the first weeks of July, the division suffered heavy losses. Therefore, Meyer ignored the order to hold the northern border of Caen and retreated with the remnants of his troops to the south. By this time, the division had lost 4 thousand people killed, 8 thousand wounded and a large number missing.

A machine gunner of the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth" fires at the enemy with an MG-42 machine gun. France, July 1944.

Eighteen-year-old SS Sturmmann (corporal) Otto Funk from the 25th Grenadier Regiment of the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth" in Rots after a failed German attack on Norrey-en-Bessin, northwest of Caen, France.
On June 26, 1944, Otto Funk (06/06/1926-09/11/2011) was wounded in the Cheux area, and on May 8, 1945 surrendered to units of the US 65th Infantry Division in Enns, Austria.

Rewarding division soldiers for the June-July battles in Normandy

By August 17, the main forces of the division found themselves in the Falaise pocket, where they operated north of the city of Falaise. On August 29, the remnants of the division managed to escape from the encirclement, having lost about 9 thousand people, almost all tanks and most of the heavy weapons and equipment since June 6. Until September, the personnel decreased by another 2 thousand people and amounted to about 3 thousand people. Meyer himself was captured on September 6 by Belgian partisans, as a result of which SS Obersturmbannführer Hubert Meyer took command. Continuing the retreat, the division passed through Vielsalm and Malmedy. Having reached the Western defensive rampart, the division took part in the defense of the canal and the Eifel region.
In November, the division was transferred to Nienburg, where, due to its actual destruction, it was re-formed. Meyer was replaced by SS-Obersturmbannführer Hugo Kraas. The division was assigned to the 6th SS Panzer Army under the command of SS Oberstgruppenführer Sepp Dietrich to participate in Operation Watch on the Rhine.
M4 Sherman tank (board number 14) of the Canadian Sherbrooke Fusiliers regiment and soldiers of the Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal regiment in battle with the group of SS Sturmbannführer Krause (Kampfgruppe Krause) 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend" (12. SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend) on the street of French Falaise.

Captured soldiers of the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth", captured in the Falaise pocket.

The operation, which began on December 16, 1944, despite all efforts, did not achieve its goal - to break through the enemy’s defenses. The reason was strong resistance from opposing American troops. Following this, the division was withdrawn to take part in the siege of Bastogne. Until January 18, 1945, the division, like other German units, was pushed back to its original positions.
Grenadiers of the 25th Panzergrenadier Regiment (SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 25) of the 12th SS Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend (12. SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend), killed in battle with the 509th Parachute Regiment of the US Army on December 26, 1944 during offensive in the Ardennes.

Captured young German soldiers of the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend", captured by soldiers of the US 7th Army in the city of Schillersdorf, France.

Captured soldiers of the 12th SS Division "Hitlerjugend" (12. SS-Panzer-Division "Hitlerjugend") load a wounded man into the back of an American GMC truck

Captured soldiers of the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend".

On January 20, 1945, the 6th SS Panzer Army received orders to redeploy to eastern Hungary to take part in the battles for Budapest, where 45 thousand people of the 9th SS Mountain Corps were surrounded. The transfer of units began on February 2, and already on February 4 the first units arrived in the area south of Kolta. On February 5, the division went on the offensive near the city of Gran on the Danube. By the end of the month, the bridgehead at Gran was eliminated. Then the SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth" took part in the battles for the Paris Canal, Barth and Beny.
Subsequently, the division took part in the offensive on Lake Balaton, during which Germany planned to regain its oil fields. Units of the division operated near the eastern part of Lake Balaton. Hitler tried to keep this operation secret and ordered no reconnaissance of the battlefield before the offensive began. After initial success, the operation was interrupted by a Soviet counter-offensive.
A German Pz.Kpfw tank destroyed near Lake Balaton. V Ausf.G "Panther" from the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitlerjugend". The vehicle is of late production, the gun mantlet has a peculiar tide in the lower part - a “beard”, which makes it impossible for the turret to jam when hit by a shell, and also prevents the shell from ricocheting into the turret plate. The car's gun barrel was shot through. The number of the Soviet trophy team is “79”.


After March 15, the Hitler Youth division began to retreat along the Veszprem-Papa-Raba route. Having crossed Raba and Sopron, the remnants of the division moved at an accelerated march towards the advancing American troops deep into Austria. After passing Enns, the remnants of the division surrendered to the 65th Infantry Division of the US 7th Army on May 8, 1945. Of the 21,300 personnel available in the division as of December 1943, 455 soldiers and officers survived. The division retained one tank.

History of the Hitler Youth Vasilchenko Andrey Vyacheslavovich

"Hitler Youth" during the Second World War (1939 - 1945)

The beginning of the Second World War meant a drop in the standard of living of all social groups of the Third Reich - with the beginning of the war, housing construction decreased, spending on education and health care decreased. After 1942, many social benefits for young people began to be cut, with loans to newlyweds, holiday travel arrangements and reduced end-of-week fares being phased out. Boarding houses and sanatoriums were filled with refugees from areas that had been bombed. Even before the war, the shortage of workers gave rise to a law on one-year labor service for girls and young women without children. However, before the start of the war, only 50 thousand of them fulfilled this requirement of the law. Sanctions against those who did not participate in labor service were not applied by the Nazi state in the early years of the war, which was due to the growth of cheap labor among prisoners of war, as well as residents of occupied countries. In 1939–1941, there was even an outflow of women from the production sector.

Only after a radical turning point during the Second World War, associated with the defeat of Hitler’s troops at Stalingrad, did Hitler sign a decree on the widespread involvement of German men and women “in the task of defending the Reich.” According to it, all women aged 17 to 45 could be forced to work. About 3 million girls and women were subject to the decree, over 900 thousand of them worked in military enterprises.

In the last war years, working youth, like all workers, were actually assigned to enterprises producing weapons, and their opportunities for changing jobs were limited.

The main direction of the work of the “Hitler Youth” during the war was the comprehensive involvement of young people in the war efforts of the state. In 1940, the Reich leadership of the Hitler Youth was headed by Arthur Axmann, the former deputy of Baldur von Schirach, who was appointed Gauleiter of Vienna, which was the result of a behind-the-scenes struggle. Unlike the latter, known in the circles of the Nazi leadership for his penchant for romantic rituals and pompous public events, Axman was characterized as a sober pragmatist, endowed with remarkable organizational abilities.

At Axmann's initiative, the leadership of the Hitler Youth carried out campaign after campaign, during which more and more new responsibilities were assigned to the youth. Traditional annual campaigns were also preserved, so 1940 was proclaimed “The Year of Testing Strength”, 1941 was held under the motto “Our Life is the Path to the Fuhrer”, 1942 - “Development of the East and Rural Service”, 1943 - “Youth Contribution to the War” , 1944 - “Year of Volunteers.”

The number of different youth actions throughout Germany cannot be counted. They were adapted to all age groups. Thus, pimphs had to participate in the collection of waste materials and scrap metal. The amount collected was noted for each person on a separate special card. The raw materials were used primarily for military purposes, and the funds received for them went to various funds to help the children of dead soldiers. Girls from the Hitler Youth units took part in collecting gifts and money for the wounded, and took part in concerts held by the Hitler Youth units in hospitals. In addition, teenagers were used by the NSDAP and Hitler Youth organizations as watchmen and couriers, distributors of propaganda materials. They worked as postmen, helped distribute food cards, and acted as guides through darkened cities. Members of the "Hitler Youth" could be used in stores to distribute and deliver food, and remove snow and garbage. It was declared an “honorable service” for girls to provide assistance to the families of those killed in the war in caring for children and running the household. They worked in kindergartens, hospitals, sanitary inspection centers, homes for the elderly and disabled. Cultural landings of youth from the “Hitler Youth” were organized in the countryside, where propaganda work was carried out in this way.

Such activities of the “Hitler Youth” were supposed to contribute to the formation of a “popular community” uniting in the fight against enemies during the war. The majority of young people believed in the nobility and sublimity of this goal, providing difficult, often social assistance to their adult fellow citizens, thereby ensuring the strength of the rear of Hitler’s army. One can cite many examples of self-denial, selflessness and even self-sacrifice shown during these actions; Providing assistance to the families of the dead, the disabled, and the elderly in the difficult conditions of the war years corresponded to the norms and values ​​of Nazi humanity, but they were used by the Nazi elite for their own criminal purposes, to prolong its dominance in the conditions of a war that was becoming increasingly hopeless for Germany.

Along with everyday actions, the nature and direction of which often changed, young people found themselves drawn into larger and longer-term campaigns. One of them was participation in the development of lands occupied by Nazi troops in the East. In February 1940, under the youth leadership of the Reich, a special bureau for the resettlement of youth “East” was established. It had close contacts with the SS and Himmler personally, who, among other things, was also the Reichskrmissar “to strengthen the German spirit” in the occupied territories of Poland and Czechoslovakia. A number of territories were declared "Hitler Youth areas", including areas in the north and north-west of Poland - along the Warta River and in the "Polish corridor". They appointed special leaders of the Hitler Youth to create local Volksdeutsche Hitler Youth organizations, the purpose of which was to colonize these areas. As a result of the activities of this program, 300 Hitler Youth camps were created in the “eastern territories”. The “rural service” of youth also took part in the “development of the East” and “instilling the spirit of the German people.” In 1942, 30 thousand German girls and boys were involved in this action. In the same year, 28 educational institutions of the “Hitler Youth” operated in the “eastern lands”, preparing a contingent from the local population capable of collaborating with the Nazis.

Since, due to the war, an acute shortage of teachers began to be felt in Germany itself, “school assistants” from the “Union of German Girls” began to be attracted to schools in the “eastern regions”. In 1944, 700 girls from the Hitler Youth worked in schools in Wartheland and Danzig - East Prussia. Their level of qualifications, as a rule, was low. Their pedagogical training was limited in most cases to 4-month courses; only 20% of them graduated from high school, while the majority were graduates of “public schools” (grades 8–9). Their responsibilities also included teaching German to the adult population, conducting “worldview conversations” with them, consulting peasant women on child care, housekeeping, etc.

In addition to everything in agriculture, for the period from June 1, 1939 to September 1944, the number of regular workers decreased by 2,297 thousand people, or almost 30%. Of these, 1,926 thousand people were drafted into the armed forces, and the rest were transferred to other sectors of the economy. To make up for these losses, the Nazi regime tried to involve large sections of the rural and urban population in agricultural production, and also sent large numbers of foreign workers and prisoners of war to the countryside. According to wartime laws, every boy and girl was required to work in agriculture for one year after graduating from school. In many areas of Germany, forced labor camps were created, in which tens of thousands of young people, without wages, only for a boarding house, were forced to work in the fields.

As mentioned above, in Nazi Germany there was a whole network of organizations designed to send young people to work in the countryside - “Rural Year”, “Rural Service” and others. In addition, numerous schools of assault and security detachments sent their pupils to the village for education. The scale of their activities during the war can be judged from data on the work of the “Rural Service” during this period. This organization represented the village in 1939 - 26 thousand people, in 1940 - 18 thousand, 1941-20 thousand, 1942-30 thousand, 1943-40 thousand. Another organization, “Rural Year,” annually sent up to 17 thousand teenagers to work in agriculture.

By a joint decision of the head of the “Hitler Youth” Arthur Axman and the Minister of Education Rust, from 1942, elementary school students up to the age of 10 inclusive began to be widely involved in spring-autumn work. As a result, every year the village began to receive about 1 million additional workers.

All these youth contingents were sent to the village in the context of “village helpers”. Social legislation (even in the reduced form in which it existed in National Socialist Germany) did not apply to them. Large landowners used "rural helpers" as cheap labor, which greatly affected the position of rural workers. In general, during the war years there was a profound change in the composition of the labor force employed in agriculture. Skilled labor was replaced by semi-professional or even unskilled labor. The social composition at the level of individual villages looked approximately as follows. So in the village of Bad Freinwald (near Frankfurt an der Oder) in August 1940, instead of rural workers drafted into the army, there were 536 Wehrmacht soldiers, 155 members of the Hitler Youth, 60 students, 299 Italian workers, 600 Polish farm laborers and 1,320 prisoners of war.

Often, especially at the end of the war, boys and girls from the “Hitler Youth” sent to work in the occupied territories became victims of retribution from the local population. Some of them, especially those who fanatically introduced the “new order” here and were involved in the repressions carried out by the Nazi administration, were later subjected to judicial punishment. This was the price to pay for participating in the criminal policies of Hitler's Reich.

Large-scale military operations required ever new replenishment of the Wehrmacht. Throughout the war, personnel training for the armed forces was carried out through the Hitler Youth system. In 1942–1944, almost all youth of pre-conscription age were trained in specially prepared camps. Unlike the pre-war years, classes in them were mainly conducted not by Hitler Youth inspectors, but by Wehrmacht officers from units stationed in the country, or dismissed from the army due to injury. As a rule, entire classes of schoolchildren underwent military training there. Working youth studied military affairs during their vacation time.

On a large scale, through the “Hitler Youth” system, children and adolescents from cities subjected to intense bombing were relocated to the countryside. Teenagers were taken from large industrial centers to such camps for the purpose of “health improvement.” In total, 800 thousand people were housed in rural camps between 1941 and 1944. Nazi propaganda widely touted the health benefits of rural camps for displaced youth. Indeed, they were located in ecologically clean, often resort areas; boarding houses, hotels, tourist centers and shelters were used for them. They provided good food. However, the establishment of these camps was not only intended to have a healing effect, which should indicate the care of the Nazi state for the younger generation. To a large extent, the creation of rural camps was determined by the desire to test in practice the Nazi system of education, excluding from it all “external influences,” including the influence of the family. Such camps created absolutely favorable conditions for the “total” education of youth in the spirit of the “national community.” When children were moved to camps, parents were prohibited from accompanying them, and restrictions were even imposed on visits. Children and teenagers were under the complete control of inspectors from members of the National Socialist Teachers' Union, leaders of the Hitler Youth and "school assistants" from the Union of German Girls. In this way, the isolation of youth from “extraneous” influences was achieved.

At the final stage of the war, the fate of many of the displaced children, especially in the territory occupied by Nazi troops, turned out to be sad. Some of the camps found themselves in a war zone, and children, often abandoned by their mentors, fell into this whirlpool. Many of the deported children and teenagers did not find their parents’ home, destroyed by the war, and faced insurmountable difficulties caused by the post-war devastation. Some died.

As the military situation in Nazi Germany worsened, young people were increasingly recruited to participate in various jobs on the home front. These works became virtually comprehensive only after Germany declared “total war” in 1943. in September 1944, the leadership of the Hitler Youth announced a “Youth Gathering” - all young people had to provide detailed information about themselves in order to subsequently involve them in certain war-related matters. they also had to immediately report all their movements.

In January 1943, a service for pre-conscription-age youth was established. As a rule, these were high school students who were recruited to serve in anti-aircraft artillery units by entire units of the “Hitler Youth”, under the command of their “Jugendfuhrers”. They were considered to be performing “youth service” rather than soldiers, but actually served in the Wehrmacht; making it possible to send adult anti-aircraft gunners to the front. These were, apparently, the “cheapest” soldiers of Hitler’s army - before reaching the age of 16 they were paid 50 pfennigs per day of service: and after this age - 20 marks per month. At the final stage of the war, even girls began to be recruited to serve in air defense units. Teenagers were also recruited to serve in the air force (in 1944, 92 thousand young men sent here from the Hitler Youth served here), and teenagers were also recruited into the navy.

At the end of the war, a recruitment of young people into the Volkssturm people's militia was announced. Despite the crushing defeats and huge losses of Hitler’s army, many members of the “Hitler Youth” retained the illusions cultivated by Nazi propaganda about the possibility of a German victory in the war and believed in the legend of the “miracle weapon.” Some of them showed readiness for senseless self-sacrifice “for the sake of the Motherland,” but in fact in order to prolong the agony of the Hitler regime.

The Deutsche Wochenschau (Weekly German Review) played a significant role in this. It was these short film clips that played a leading role in the creation of the Nazi myth of heroic self-sacrifice. At the end of 1944, in one of the issues of the Review one could see huge crowds of members of the “Hitler Youth” volunteering to go to the front. The class of 1928 was especially distinguished for its devotion to the Fuhrer and the nation. In one of its most powerful scenes, Review correctly captured youthful idealism and pathos. Thousands of young men stood in formation, and loudspeakers above the square dispassionately reported statistics on the huge number of teenagers who expressed their readiness to fight for the Fuhrer and the Fatherland. This willingness to stand to the end became clear evidence of the statement made by one of the narrators of the review: “I can die, but to become a slave, to see Germany enslaved, I cannot bear this!” And while a bravura march sounded over the square, the camera focused on one young face, a symbol of National Socialism and the willingness to sacrifice oneself. These shots of the film were especially heartfelt: the orchestra played “Our banners flutter before us” - a touching anthem of the “Hitler Youth”, a memory of bright days.

Such groups of young volunteers gave Hitler the idea of ​​dictating a widely circulated proclamation, evoking memories of Hitler's earlier, chillingly prophetic statements assuring German youth of his devotion. In 1934, he told members of the Hitler Youth: no matter what happens, they forever linked their fate with him and Germany, for this generation, in his words, was “flesh of the flesh and blood of the blood of the nation.” Hitler warned young people not to give up in the face of the enemy. At the NSDAP congress in Nuremberg in 1936, the Fuhrer said: “We are accustomed to struggle, because we came out of it. We will stand firm on the ground and withstand any storm. And you will stand next to me if such a time is destined to come.” Such an hour came on October 7, 1944. Once again the old rhetoric was brought to light, portraying the Hitler Youth's dedication to victory in the flowery language of Nazi propaganda. Here is the document:

“My Hitler Youth!

I was happy and proud to learn about your desire to go to the front as volunteers with the entire class born in 1928. At this decisive hour for the Reich, when the threat of a hated enemy loomed over us, you gave us all an inspiring example of fighting spirit and reckless dedication to the cause of victory, no matter what sacrifices this may require of you. The youth of our National Socialist movement, both in the rear and at the front, lived up to all the expectations of the nation. Your volunteers have given us the clearest proof of their devotion and unshakable will to win by serving in the Hitler Youth, Grossdeutschland and Volksgrenadier units, as well as as fighters in all ranks of the armed forces. Understanding of the need for this struggle fills today the minds and hearts of the entire German nation, and especially the youth. We know the plans of the enemies aimed at the ruthless destruction of Germany. It is for this reason that we will fight even more faithfully for the sake of a Reich in which you can work and live with honor. However, as young fighters of National Socialism, you must demonstrate even more than the rest of the nation your endurance, tenacity and steadfastness. The sacrifices made by our heroic young generation will be embodied in a victory that will ensure the proud and free development of our people, the National Socialist Reich.

Adolf Gitler.

Since 1943, recruitment campaigns have been carried out to recruit teenage volunteers to serve in the main units of the Wehrmacht. 1944 was, as already mentioned, declared the “year of the volunteer.” In January 1945, the leadership of the Hitler Youth announced an “imperial conscription” into the ranks of the armed forces. Over 70% of young men born in 1928 had to declare their readiness to serve in the Wehrmacht. Girls were drafted into auxiliary corps. From September 1944 to January 1945, 150 thousand girls were recruited to serve in Hitler's army.

Already in the conditions of the collapse of the Nazi empire, a call for “volunteers” of 15–16 years of age began to take place. From these schoolchildren soldiers, “werewolf” (werewolf) units were formed. They had to fight until their last breath. They were tasked with covering the withdrawal of Wehrmacht units and committing acts of sabotage in the rear of the anti-Hitler coalition troops. Even after the surrender of Nazi Germany, some “werewolves”, among whom there were even 14-year-old teenagers, continued to carry out their combat missions because they did not receive an order to cancel them. One of these battles was described by the famous Soviet journalist M. Merzhanov, who was a correspondent for the Pravda newspaper in those days: “Suddenly a bell rang at the regiment commander’s command post. The battalion commander reported that about 400 young men, dressed in black school jackets with gold buttons and black trousers, were moving in orderly order along Kolonenstrasse. The boys grew up in pious awe of tanks, airplanes, and Faust cartridges. They pronounced the names of Hitler, Goebbels, Goering, as they pronounce the names of saints, raising their hands to the sky. they walked at a slow pace and held their Faust cartridges at the ready... These were Arthur Axman’s suicide bombers, fanatics who decided to give their lives for the Fuhrer, went on a “psychic attack”, believing that they would scare the Soviet soldiers.

What should I do? - asks the battalion commander. - Should we let them through to the rear or open fire on them?

Refrain, - the regiment commander replied, - find a way to disarm...

Meanwhile, the youths came closer. The battalion commander fired several yellow rockets - a signal indicating the leading edge of the front. But in response, the youths, coming close, began to throw faust cartridges (shoot them at Soviet positions? - A.V.) The wounded and dead appeared. The boys, with wild eyes, rushed into hand-to-hand combat. I had to open fire. For several minutes, because of the smoke and indiscriminate shooting, nothing could be understood, and then the youths, throwing faust cartridges, began to run to their rear.

The wounded schoolchildren, crying, during interrogation, told how they were led into battle by the head of the district committee, who assured that Tempelhof would be easy to take back ... "

Having already suffered final defeat, the Nazi regime carried with it into oblivion thousands of lives of teenagers and children it had deceived.

Identification mark SS divisions « Hitler Youth.

Soldiers and officers SS divisions « Hitler Youth» in Normandy

At the end of the war, the Nazi leadership even formed a special SS tank division, the Hitler Youth, staffed mainly by 17–18 year old volunteers who had previously been trained in Hitler Youth camps and then in SS military sports centers. The division first saw action on June 6, 1944, during the Allied landings in Normandy, where it suffered significant casualties.

Of course, not all German youth retained faith in the chimeras created by Nazi propaganda. During the period of the Nazi dictatorship, there was passive resistance of some young people, which was expressed in avoidance of joining the “Hitler Youth”: 8-9% of young people of the corresponding age remained not included in the “Hitler Youth”. There was also a widespread reluctance to participate in the actions and campaigns of the Hitler Youth and the Nazi leadership. Some young people tried to avoid labor and youth conscription. Parents often helped them in this, citing a lack of funds to buy Hitler Youth uniforms, shoes, sports uniforms, and the need to help the family and care for younger children. The reluctance to join the Hitler Youth clearly manifested itself during the war years, when the contradiction between the real world and its distorted propaganda reflection became increasingly obvious. Thus, in a report from the Berlin security service in August 1943, it was stated that only a small part of young people sought to join the NSDAP for ideological reasons. The majority of young people show insufficient internal readiness and indifference to joining the NSDAP. At best, the party's presence was seen as a "necessary evil" or a springboard for a professional career. Some, it was noted in the report, join the NSDAP in order to be freed from youth conscription and membership in the “Hitler Youth”, hoping that in the party they will not be so intensively involved in various actions and be under such vigilant control as in the “Hitler Youth” There was also an increase in the number of young Germans who consciously rejected joining the NSDAP.

USSR in World War II (1939-1945) August 23, 1939 - Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact By the end of the 1930s. A very tense situation has developed in Europe. Many countries were alarmed by the aggressive actions of Nazi Germany. In addition, the USSR was worried about Japan's activity in