I Remember 9/11 Differently as a Mom and a Teacher

Last year I posted a story a student told me in class about her recollection of being a 3 year old driving over a bridge from NYC to New Jersey, seeing people jumping out of the burning Twin Towers.  Today I realize that she is probably one of the last students I will have who has memories from that day--most of my 7th graders this year weren't even born yet!
My 9/11 story is like so many others who were 12 at the time--I knew something was going on but my school didn't let us see the footage until about 1pm.  I remember sitting there watching the footage and thinking about my dad, who was in the middle of a 10-day canoe trip in Algonquin, Canada. As scary as it was that he wasn't with us, I was so glad that he was there in stead of what he was usually doing during the week--flying.
I also remember the first time I flew on a plane.  I was about to turn 16, almost 4 years after the attacks, and we were flying to Alaska and back on a total of 6 different flights.  It was hard not to scan the faces of everyone on the plane as we walked back to our seats before each flight.
People talk about "When I was young we didn't have x, y, and z." but they are mistaken.  You had terrorist attacks and sexual abuse and drugs in schools in the 70's.  What you didn't have, though, was a spirit of fear hanging over you as a result of knowing every detail.  Part of it was the naïveté of youth, but I don't remember being afraid of being in airports until after 9/11.  I don't remember being afraid of schools until after Columbine.  I loved driving through the "big city" and fearlessly wanted to explore it until the '96 Olympic bombings.  I, and others my age, grew up in a time when information was becoming increasingly accessible as we were becoming aware of the fact that the world around us is much bigger than what we experience.  With an abundance of information comes an abundance of fear, and now we are starting families in an age where there is no real way to hide information--everything comes out in the end.
I don't advocate hiding the truth from kids, my own or my students, of the media or the public. I do advocate presenting truth in a way that both discloses reality and gives hope within the darkness.  We live and are raising our kids in a dark world, and darkness must be exposed.  But it cannot be exposed with despair; it must be exposed with light--the light of truth.  The truth is that terrorists and Ebola and ISIS and "JV Presidents" and the NFL are not our greatest enemies; the US Military and the CDC and the UN and elections and legal reforms are not our way of escape.

Psalm 27

1The Lord is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the defense of my life;
Whom shall I dread?
2 When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh,
My adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell.
3 Though a host encamp against me,
My heart will not fear;
Though war arise against me,
In spite of this I shall be confident.
4 One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord
And to meditate in His temple.
5 For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle;
In the secret place of His tent He will hide me;
He will lift me up on a rock.
6 And now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me,
And I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord.
7 Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice,
And be gracious to me and answer me.
8 When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You,
“Your face, O Lord, I shall seek.”
9 Do not hide Your face from me,
Do not turn Your servant away in anger;
You have been my help;
Do not abandon me nor forsake me,
O God of my salvation!
10 For my father and my mother have forsaken me,
But the Lord will take me up.
11 Teach me Your way, O Lord,
And lead me in a level path
Because of my foes.
12 Do not deliver me over to the desire of my adversaries,
For false witnesses have risen against me,
And such as breathe out violence.

13I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord
In the land of the living.

14 Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the Lord.

Why Home Schoolers Should Care About Common Core Standards

My Disclaimer and Introduction
I am going to begin this post with a disclaimer in stead of a true introduction.  I know that this is not the post most of you are expecting to, or frankly wanting to, read.  Over the last few weeks I have read many articles about the Common Core Standards that discouraged me greatly.  Please keep in mind that I wrote in the title "Standards" and will continue to base my argument on Common Core Standards (CCS), not the specific curriculum proposed or supported by the government at various levels. I will also not make many statements about the elementary level of these standards because I do not teach elementary students; this is mostly due to the fact that I can barely handle the way a 7th grader crafts a sentence and can't add or subtract without the use of my fingers even when my life actually depends on it. However, based on what I have studied of the secondary level of these standards in my content areas, the primary level cannot be too terribly different at least in their level of expectations for students.

My Credentials
I'm not sure if all of these things I'm about to list really qualify as "credentials," but they will answer your question "Why is she qualified to even have an opinion on this?"
I was home schooled from Kindergarten through 4th grade with no real supplemental classes but many group field trips and activities.  In 5th grade I went to a tiny elementary school in Canton, Ga where I stayed through 6th grade.  In 7th grade I went to a slightly larger, but still small in comparison, middle school in the same area for exactly 6 weeks when I had to transfer to a large and brand new middle school in a different county due to a move.  I hated that school so much that, after finding out my 3 sisters got into a private school which didn't have room for me, I decided to revert to being home schooled so I didn't have to go back.  I spent 8th grade being guided by my mother but essentially teaching myself science, history, and language arts while taking supplemental classes for Algebra I.  I spent all of High School at a school which, at the time, we called a "Home-school school" but is now considered a University Style School. As the name implies, students spend fewer days in class being taught by a teacher than they do on their own doing homework. They come out of school with a High School Diploma from an accredited educational institution.  I even joint-enrolled at my chosen university my senior year (which I learned later was very wise and was the only reason I was able to graduate on time).  It was awesome.
After high school, I attended a state university with the 3rd largest education program in the state and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in History Education.  I acquired other state certifications in Middle School Social Studies and Science and spent my first year teaching supplemental classes at a church-affiliated home school program before getting a job at the school I graduated from teaching 7th Grade Science.  This year, my second year at the school and third year teaching, I added World History and Economics making me a busy and diverse addition to the faculty.  Oh, and I also added a child to their (free to staff) pre-school.
All of this to say, I am a home school graduate, certified teacher to home school students (and their parents), and future home school mom.  I am "qualified" to discuss both the "real teacher" and "home school" perspectives of this issue, in case you were in doubt.

My Argument
So, what is my argument?  It is as follows: The new Common Core Standards are one of the most valuable tools the Federal Government has ever made available to the home-educating public.

My Reasoning
Here are just a few reasons I disagree with many home schoolers' fear of the Common Core Standards and support their usage by public schools as well as home schoolers both affiliated with a school or completely independent.

1. They answer the question "What should my 3rd grader be able to do?" with resounding clarity.
I just recently looked at the common core standards for my classes (7th Grade Science, 10th Grade History, and 12th Grade Economics) and nearly laughed.  This is it? THIS is what all the fuss is about?  It's a list of things these kids should be able to do by the end of the year, or set of years.  Things like "Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including how an author uses and refines the meaning of a key term over the course of a text."  If a 12th grade Social Studies student can't do this by the time they graduate, their success in further education (whether college or a job-specific training program) is in severe jeopardy. These expectations are tiered based on age.  A 6th grader is only expected to be able to figure out a word's meaning based on context while a 12th grader needs to be able to easily do that as well as differentiate the dictionary definition from how the author uses the word. These standards establish grade, not age level, expectations.  If the standards for 3rd grade expect more than what your 8 year old is capable of even attempting, maybe your 8 year old should not be in 3rd grade.  This tool gives parents, both public and home educating, power to place their child in the correct educational group based on ability and not on age. It also gives legitimacy to educational institutions' placement tests.  If your student is a senior and having trouble with accomplishing many of the tasks expected of them in these standards but still expects to attend college classes next year, you may want to consider some sort of college-prep program before asking or expecting them to succeed in those classes.

2. They do not answer the question "What should my 6th grader know?" nor do they attempt to.
These are performance standards.  Performance standards do not address what someone should know, only what they should be able to do.  The state of Georgia has something called Georgia Performance Standards (which are misnamed presumably for the favorable acronym of GPS) that lay out what content each class should contain.  The World History standards are both exceedingly broad and void of interesting detail, but are helpful in paring down (even if only slightly) what of all 6000+ years of history is really important for my students to know before they leave my class.  This helps guide me in both planning my daily lessons and test writing.  The new CCS should do the same--the state standards (which my school adapts to fit our specific educational and religious goals as home school parents do) guide content while the CCS guides cognitive development.  Technically, my students will get smarter if I teach the same exact way to my 7th graders, my 10th graders, and my 12th graders because they will be adding content.  Your home schooled student will too. The differentiation that the CCS lays out for each level, however, guides cognitive development and aids students in gradually becoming more independent learners.  This can be accomplished in a home school setting, for example, through having your student read gradually more involved texts with gradually less guidance.  As a teacher, I don't expect my 7th graders to glean much from reading Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle without guided questions.  However, I do expect my 10th graders to read parts of the Magna Carta and explain to me, with only a few general questions, what it means and how it impacted both government and society.  My Seniors get very little guidance—they read about Keynesian and Classical economics on their own and then come to class and solve all of the government's problems from both perspectives in 30 minutes or less.  As you can see, the Federal Government is not laying out content expectations that each teacher must convey but asking for teachers to foster cognitive development by giving them clear guidelines as to what each group of students should be able to do by the end of the year or set of years.

3. They can not accomplish a "teach to the test" class format.
Content-based standards, such as GPS,  foster a teach to the test attitude by setting up exact items a teacher needs to teach and test on in a given year.  For the CCS, the standards (for secondary education) are broken up into 3 groups: 6-8th grade, 9-10th grade, 11-12th grade.  This disallows for any one teacher to 1) Teach ONLY what is in his or her standards, or 2) Formulate one test to prove proficiency in each area.  Could such a test be formulated and given at the end of each level? Possibly.  But why would you? Success on tests such as the SAT's and ACT's already show whether students have mastered many of these abilities.  SAT's and ACT's are cognitive abilities tests, not content tests, and  through them schools and states were "graded" on these standards long before the "rubric" of the CCS came into existence.  One note, the new CCS do create problems for teachers, especially those who have 120+ students.  Teachers do need to have some sort of evaluations to make sure that their students are on track and teachers with this many students have a hard time performing these evaluations.  Sure, some of these standards can be assessed by normal multiple choice tests that are graded on a Scantron machine, but many require written answers which overworked and underpaid teachers do not have time for.  I have slightly more time for this as my class sizes are smaller and I have fewer in-class hours a week, however I teach 3 different subjects to roughly 85 students and do have a hard time carving out 3-5 hours of my home (read: unpaid) time every 2 weeks to carefully grade and provide feedback on each evaluation.  This leads to my next point...

4.  They could foster interdepartmental cooperation.
How do I know if my student in history is capable of determining the meaning of words in a text from the context?  Ask the language arts teacher to see his grades from their literature test.  How does the language arts teacher know if a student shows domain-specific literacy?  She asks me to see the matching section from Life Science test.  I'm not super creative in this realm and and probably too independent as a teacher for my own or my student's good, but I see the possibility of actually using the village in which I am a part to teach each student.  For a home schooling parent this process of evaluation is much easier; you grade all their tests, so you are able to see patterns of weakness or strength more clearly.  You are also able to more easily merge subjects.  While reading a history textbook will not satisfy literature class requirements, it is a very simple way to accomplish history work as well as testing for reading and vocabulary proficiencies simultaneously.  Stopping students to re-read ares they have fumbled (for younger students reading aloud) or giving a list of words at the beginning of the text that students must define accurately as they read (for older students) are ways of assessing multiple proficiencies all at once.

5. They have downsides, which prove they were written by humans and not computers.
Someone has to decide what makes the cut and what doesn't and there is a reason that person's name isn't published next to the title.  Some will say the standards are too advanced for certain age groups while being too easy for others.  Some will say it creates too much work for teachers while others say this is what teachers have been doing all along.  Some will say the federal government is trying to socialize and standardize all education while others will say having standards to meet is the only way to prove a student's progress.  All of these arguments have a certain level of legitimacy but none of them discount the invaluable nature of these standards to teachers and parents.

Conclusion
While I am certain that many fears will be realized through these new CCS, I cannot discount their helpfulness. When a brand new teacher looks at her rowdy bunch of 5 year olds beginning a new year of Kindergarten with varying levels of abilities, she can look at these standards as a guide to help all of her students exceed most of these standards by the end of they year and know that she has done a good job.  When a home schooling parent looks at their 8th grader's work and wonders if 4 years is enough time to get them to college or other future readiness, they have tools to evaluate their current strengths and weaknesses and standards to help guide them so they can meet the future prepared for whatever it holds. When I look at the test of a Senior who intends to go to college in a 9 months I can give specific feedback to help them improve skills that they will need to have in order to succeed in higher education.      This is the reality of the Common Core Standards—a way to help each student make sure they at least meet, but hopefully exceed, the expectations that educational institutions and society will inevitably place on them for their future. No tool is perfect, each has its weakness.  But, if used for its intended purpose, it usually creates a finished product worth its weight.

Primary Sources from the Common Core State Standards Initiative website:
1. http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RH/11-12 (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.4 quoted in pint one of the "My Reasoning" section.) 
2. http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RST/6-8
3. http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RH/9-10

Is this the main thing? My take on Christians' obsession with the Marriage Amendment

When I see comments about the essential ban on gay marriage in North Carolina (and the 29 other states that have preceded NC), I feel like a crazy person inside my head.  Here are the list of things going through my head to help you see my dilemma:
1. Marriage is between a man and a woman, that is true and right.
2. God isn't the only one who says gay marriage is wrong--can't people see that gay marriage isn't natural?  No wonder a majority of the country opposes it!
3. Wait, I have just found a slippery slope of doom!  What else in my life isn't natural?  Can the government make an amendment to prohibit me from doing those things too?
4. I am crazy. I need a nap.

That's the abbreviated version, but it's all there.  My belief in truth and my fear of giving the government power.  Giving the government power to say who can marry whom, no matter what I believe to be right or wrong, scares me.

My main problem with banning gay marriage is this-- I do not know that the US government, as set up in the Constitution, has the right to ban gay marriage.  Yes, the constitution passively gives the right to create marriage laws to the sates, but the government's involvement in marriage is almost exclusively economic in motivation and did not create nor legitimize the marriage covenant/contract.  The government must protect its citizens from 1) the government, and 2) each other.  The government is not required to protect its citizens from themselves or from the wrath of God.  Laws against abortion protect children from their parents and the government should the situation of their birth be less than ideal.  Laws against murder and rape protect people from both others and the government.  Laws against gay marriage protect insurance companies from having to give same-sex couples discounted rates.  In the current economy, I can see the wisdom in voting for an amendment to ban gay marriage for this reason.  However, I am still not convinced that the evil that is the practice of homosexuality is something the government has the right to control.  Does gay marriage infringe on the rights of others to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?"  I don't think so.  It might be annoying or infuriating, but that's not the government's problem.  Occupy Wall Street protesters annoy and infuriate me, but I don't want the government to ban them from legally protesting.  All of this to say, when thinking about this amendment (that doesn't explicitly ban gay marriage, just defines marriage as between a man and a woman) be mindful of the fact that power is being given to the government over something that God created, and even though this definition is in line with what God has set up for marriage it does not mean that the government will always protect the sanctity of marriage.

And now on to something more important and what I really wanted to say:  I am not sure that homosexuality is the big issue Christians should be rallying behind at the current moment.  This week alone I have seen far worse crimes against innocents in humanity-- rape, murder, and cure-all pills made from aborted babies.  To the homosexual couple out there saying their vows, I say "Eat your cake.  Men died for your freedom to do so without being murdered, but Jesus died for your freedom to see how wrong it is.  If your marriage is anything like a heterosexual one, it'll show you just how messed up you really are and maybe just how badly you need Him."  And then, I will buy something to support the IMJ or Wellspring, or Georgia Right To Life because Jesus died to set men free; if a couple of men want to stay in bondage, that is their choice but  I choose to fight for those who didn't get a choice.

So if Georgia gets to vote on an amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman, I will vote for it.  "Huh, crazy lady? Why?" you ask. Because I believe that is the true definition of marriage and I could not vote against the definition with a clear conscious.  But I will not be fooled--this does nothing to reach the millions of people in the US who disagree with this definition and will campaign for the rest of their lives (or move to Massachusetts) to have the right to get married.

Gay people need Jesus.  Just like my neighbors, just like my grandmother, just like my child will some day.  Telling any of them "you cannot marry someone of the same gender" is perfectly justified and right, but it is not the gospel.  We must remember that God did not choose to use the government to redeem mankind, He used Jesus.  We must not look to the government to do our work of preaching the gospel for us through laws and amendments, because they will fail miserably.  We must take the responsibility upon ourselves to say "Jesus died so that you can see your sin clearly.  Jesus died so you can clearly see His blood wash it all away.  Jesus died and rose again to conquer death--He has conquered your misguided notions as well. He will release you from the bondage of lies to the freedom of Truth." And we must say this with a smile on our face and love in our heart for those who Jesus died to save, even if they make us feel uncomfortable.

Please, be nice to me in the comments.

M

In honor of those whose lives were forever changed...

In college, the most insightful and life changing thing I did was sign up for one of the most difficult classes of my entire school career-- The Holocaust with Dr. Katherine Lewis. I (nor my uninformed friend who took it as an elective) did not know how hard it would be, but I also didn't know it would give me the most important piece of research and writing experience I'd ever be able to have. I credit my high school literature teacher and Dr. Lewis for my ability to write a cohesive paper that makes people understand something.

Only a few people have read this paper-- my professor, my friend in the class, 2 other classmates, and my husband (then boyfriend). Now, I'm posting it because it seems relevant and because I just found the graded version and edited it on my computer. I am proud of this paper because I worked hard, researched primary sources, and learned SO much, not just about the Holocaust, but about humanity and the way the world works. It's really long--25 pages including endnotes (which you should browse if you want to learn more about any of the points I present)--but if you have the time, read it and tell me what you think. I intended this paper to be a warning to youth--the college student that I was--that what their generation does can literally change the world.

School and Hitler’s Youth: The Scaffold and Scalpel of the Third Reich

In the early years of the Nazi Party’s growing dominance, its leaders realized that even the youth of Germany were unimpressed with the declining Weimar Republic. Nazi party leaders recognized that their revolutionary movement, just like any other revolutionary movement, would grow most rapidly if supported and carried along by the new generation. While young people may not have had a lot of money or social clout to contribute to party membership, they did have two common and necessary characteristics: passion and numbers. The age bracket ranging from age ten to age thirty normally comprises the largest percentage of any society and those individuals will be the most influential in the future. Hitler himself, on September 10, 1938, declared to a Nuremberg crowd of eighty-thousand children, “You, my Youth, are our nation’s most precious guarantee for a great future… And you are destined to be the leaders of a glorious new order…”[i] Between the initial stages of the Nazi rise to power in 1929 and Hitler’s speech in Nuremberg in 1938, the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) had grown exponentially in size and become an integral part of propaganda and security in Germany. Before the war, the Hitler Youth were recruited to confront local opposition groups, such as communists, and distribute propaganda.[ii] By the end of the war, many of the Hitler Youth members were recruited to assist German troops in Normandy and in defending Berlin.[iii]

The activities of the Hitler Youth are well documented all throughout the rise, duration, and fall of the Nazi party, but daily activities of the group are not of primary importance. The Hitler Youth, along with sweeping educational reforms across Germany, radically changed the educational experience of all students in Germany. However, the changes were not identical for all German youth. On the contrary, boys and girls had a completely different experience in the Hitler Youth. They were taught the same ideology, from anti-Semitism and anti-communism to racial purity, and instructed in the importance of hygiene and physical fitness, but their roles and spheres of influence were completely separate and distinct. Hitler’s primary purpose for his youth organizations and educational reforms was to capture the minds and passions of the young and shape them into loyal citizens and leaders in the Nazi regime. Hitler’s idea of a loyal citizen, though, was not as benevolent as what one would commonly think of when defining “good citizenship.” Though the idea of youth groups was not his original creation, after his rise to power Adolf Hitler outlawed all other German youth groups and used the Hitler Youth to replace the family, the church, and schools as the primary social structure of the state. The Hitler Youth indoctrinated students in National Socialist ideology, and relied heavily upon conventional gender roles to build the thousand-year reign of the Third Reich.

Like the Nazi party itself, the Hitler Youth was truly a grassroots movement. The idea of socially constructed youth groups did not begin with the rise of the Nazi party; they were common in German society before the beginning of National Socialism. Before World War I, the youth of Germany had already become dissatisfied with the state of the German nation and had begun to form their own idealistic groups and communities focusing on themselves, the youth of Germany. This movement became known as the Wandervogel, or “Wander-Birds.”[iv] It’s members organized their opposition against “older people [who] asked nothing better than to be lost and smothered in details… bound and strangled by city civilization; wrapped up in stuffy belongings… they were, in short, pretty tiresome.”[v] These young people left behind their families and university studies and wandered around the countryside and mountains living in tandem with nature and creating hostels in which they could live together without the oppression of “old people.” After many of these Wander-Birds were conscripted to defend their country during World War I, they returned to their fellow “Birds” and revivified the movement. Members of these wandering groups exceeded four million in number by 1931. By then, though, they were not the only group comprised of unsatisfied youths—the Catholics, Lutherans, and Nazis had formed youth groups modeled after the Wander-Birds.^[vi] Just after his appointment to chancellor in 1933, Hitler ordered that all German youth organizations, whether Catholic, Lutheran, or sport related, would become Hitler Youth organizations.[vii] With this decree, Hitler and the Nazi party had begun to obtain control over the next generation of Germany.

Unlike the loose federation of groups in the early twentieth century, the Hitler Youth was a hierarchical and highly regulated organization that closely mirrored the government that created it. On June 17, 1933, the Hitler set Baldur von Schirach at the head of the newly created office of Federal Youth Leader. Schirach was young, only twenty-seven at the time of his appointment, and passionate in his support of the Nazi party.[viii] According to Kenneth Roberts’ June 2, 1934 Saturday Evening Post story on the Hitler Youth, Schirach joined the Nazi party in college and headed up the Nazi Students’ League. He became a member of the party’s Reichstag in 1932 and was the youngest member. Upon his appointment, he gathered leading members of all Germany’s prominent youth groups and created a “Ring Council of German Youth” to facilitate the adoption of these other groups into the Hitler Youth. Schirach encountered opposition in the consolidation efforts from many older directors of these former groups, as well as from the ideology of some groups such as the conservative Greater German Youth.[ix] The only groups to not be immediately incorporated were the Catholic Youth and the Protestant Youth. The Protestant Youth were later incorporated and allowed only a limited number of days to attend church services and instructional meetings, while the Catholic Youth groups were allowed to remain intact as a result of the church’s direct negotiations with Hitler.[x] Hitler only allowed this exception to maintain peaceful relations between the powerful Catholic Church and the National Socialist Government. But, as of Robert’s 1934 article, the ideology of the party was beginning to erode the hold that the Catholic Church maintained on Germany’s youth.

As the Hitler Youth incorporated all other German youth groups, the primary aim of the initial German youth group, Wandervogel, which was to forsake materialistic civilization and commune with nature and likeminded individuals, was lost. Kenneth Roberts states in his Post article, “The changes in the German youth movement in twenty years’ time have been… striking. Twenty years ago it was a movement toward truth and liberalism and away from mechanization… from conflicts and from war… Today it is a marching mechanization; a movement dressed up in all the stupid panoply of war.”[xi] On December 1, 1936, Hitler made membership in the Hitler Youth mandatory for all German children, and soon afterwards passed stricter laws promising punishment to parents who did not allow their children to join.[xii] The only shred of the Weimar youth movement that was evident in the Hitler Youth was the disregard for parents and the traditional familial structure. In a speech on November of 1933, Hitler voiced his personal apathy towards to adults who opposed his youth organization and educational reforms: “Your child belongs to me already… You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing but this new community.”[xiii] With this statement, Hitler essentially said that he did not care what personal beliefs parents held; they were obligated to accept the new government regardless of their sentiments for or against its ideology. And, this new government was creating a society that was not for them; it was creating a society that would be built by their children.

If children chose not to officially join the Hitler Youth after forsaking a former group, or were lax in their participation after membership became mandatory, they could still not escape indoctrination in the Nazi Party ideology through their schools. Along with massive reforms in the social structure of Germany, Hitler and his agents drastically revised its educational system. The first most notable change came with a mandate for teachers to choose either joining the National Socialist Teacher’s Alliance to preach Nazi ideology to their classes or cease teaching. Emphatic Hitler Youth were often credited, or rewarded, for discovering disloyal teachers or intimidating uneasy faculty into compliance with the state.[xiv] Hitler’s emphasis on competition further encouraged members to turn in uncooperative teachers. Conversely, teachers were told to strongly encourage their students to join the Hitler Youth and often pitted members and non-members against each other to pressure students into membership.[xv]

Along with the injection of National Socialist political ideology and propaganda into the classroom, students also encountered changes in the content of their studies. Teachers advanced certain subjects, such as eugenics and racial sciences, which indoctrinated students to believe in the superiority of the Aryan race and the necessity of maintaining racial purity. Students were also indoctrinated in anti-Semitism and instructed in physical identifications of Jews, as well as other inferior groups. This education naturally led to the institutionalized discrimination of students who were all or part Jewish as well as others who were considered to be racially impure, such as Slavs and Afro-Germans.[xvi] Students also shifted from learning about traditionally ideal character traits, such as decency, kindness, and tolerance, to being “nurtured in vindictiveness and hate.”[xvii] Stressing these character traits was the first step in forming students into mechanized members of the National Socialist party.

Knowledge in the liberal arts, like the classical education German students were used to, undermined Hitler’s goal of having a state populated by obedient servants, so he implemented many educational reforms under the National Socialist system. In his 1939 article in the Journal of Educational Sociology, Edward Kunzer argues that the education children and young adults were receiving in Germany during National Socialist control was not a typical classroom education. Kunzer, to support his point, quotes a section from Mein Kampf in which Hitler explains his personal educational philosophy. Hitler believes that “Education in general is to be the preparation for the later army service… the state through this realization has to direct it’s entire education primarily… at the breeding of absolutely healthy bodies.”[xviii] Kunzer, in his analysis of this quote, states his belief that “the highest goal of Nazi education is to develop those attitudes, habits, and skills that will ensure perfect soldiers for the state, to the extent that it takes precedence over intellectual growth.”[xix] He understood, already in 1939, that Hitler was not making educational reforms to create a society of German scholars; Hitler, through his educational reforms, was moving to create a society of passionate and loyal Nazis. Hitler desired for the educational system to form the youth of Germany into citizens who were full of pride in their country and support for their government, and not “half a pacifist, democrat, or something of that kind…”[xx]

While Hitler did not abolish schools as a whole, he did diminish the fundamental importance of a liberal education and created a rift between the Hitler Youth and many German schools and teachers. Even before his party was in power, Hitler created his youth organization and “pitted [it] against schools and teachers.”[xxi] Hitler, from the beginning, did not support the school system and his distaste for traditional education was evident in the structure of the Hitler Youth program. None of the men he appointed as leaders of the Hitler Youth were exceptional students, and the first man he appointed, Baldur von Schirach at age twenty seven, was considered a “youth” himself.[xxii] Hitler encouraged the activism and revolutionary attitudes the youth of Germany had already been expressing since the beginning of the Weimar Republic. This radical support further restricted German schools’ ability to properly function.[xxiii]

Not only were students in the Hitler Youth disrupting the functionality of the German school system, but the Hitler Youth leaders were also consistently asserting their authority over schools. When youth activities conflicted with school schedules, children were given license to abandon school responsibilities in order to attend Hitler Youth functions.[xxiv] Daniel Horn, a scholar of German education and the Hitler Youth, quotes a member of the League of German Girls, the female chapter of the Hitler Youth. She explained that she enjoyed the plethora of extracurricular activities she was able to participate in, but “it had a bad effect on our school reports. There was hardly ever any time now for homework.”[xxv] Schools were at a loss when they encountered conflicts with Hitler Youth scheduling and insubordinate Hitler Youth members; teachers were accused of “fail[ing] to act as ‘real youth leaders’” and were forced to defer to Hitler Youth priorities. Many students developed negative attitudes toward school and the Nazis exacerbated such negative attitudes by limiting university enrollment and voicing fundamental disproval of higher education.[xxvi] Gradually, the Hitler Youth became so intertwined with schools that its activities and ideals determined school scheduling.

The Hitler Youth was, in essence, the perfect avenue for the National Socialist government to craft and control the next generation of Nazi soldiers and thus create obedient citizens of the Third Reich. On weekends students went on camping, hiking, and marching outings, but during the week members of the Hitler Youth were trained in military and civil service operations.[xxvii] Young men had more intense military training than younger boys, and girls engaged in an entirely different category of training, domestic engineering. In general, though, the training they received was intended to shape them into passionate, loyal, and productive citizens of the Third Reich. The Hitler Youth groups were the first step in ensuring Germany’s victory in World War II as well as success in the next thousand year Reich. The ideology of the Hitler Youth organization as a whole can be summed up in the refrain of its theme song:

Our banner leads us ahead!

We March into the future, man by man,

We march for Hitler through night and distress

With the banner of youth for freedom and bread.

Our banner leads us ahead.

Our banner is the new age!

And our banner leads us into eternity!

Our banner is greater than death![xxviii]

Throughout their years of involvement in the Hitler Youth, both boys and girls were submerged in ideology that taught them to believe that their country, their race, and their Fuhrer were worth more than their lives, and this ideology was at the core of all Hitler Youth activities. Yet, it was the official training activities of the separate boys’ and girls’ Hitler Youth groups that best displayed the Nazi intentions for Germany’s youth.

Boys and girls experienced different types of training that were circumscribed by gender and the skills they learned in the Hitler Youth were intended to prepare them for life in the new Nazi government. Both groups, though, were trained to support and sustain the Third Reich through conflict or prosperity. Boys were the most rigorously prepared for the new order since they would later be the soldiers responsible for fighting for the Reich. For a firsthand account of Hitler Youth military training, the American reporter Kenneth Roberts visited Germany in 1934 on an assignment from the Saturday Evening Post. Mere hours after he arrived, he got his first taste of the Hitler Youth culture. His first encounter with the Hitler Youth occurred on his first night in the small German town of Julich. Roberts witnessed what he thought was an odd sight: a group of uniformed boys marching in perfect time through the town streets and then disbanding to their homes.[xxix] The next morning he was awakened by their melodic assembly and uniformed marching and spent the remainder of his trip learning all he could about the Hitler Youth. He saw many more marches and training operations, but it wasn’t until near the end of his tour of Germany that he realized the magnitude of the Hitler Youth operations.

German boys in the Hitler Youth were trained in all aspects of military life. Even the youngest members of Hitler Youth organizations were trained on the proper way to march, but as boys got older they were trained in more strenuous and strategic military operations. Just like all armed forces branches, the Hitler Youth was organized in a hierarchy. There was the “junior Jungvolk” for younger boys and the “Hitlerjugend” for older boys. Both were organized into army-like groups of squads, platoons, companies, etc.[xxx] Alfons Heck, a famous member of the Hitler Youth, remembers the activities of the group, before the beginning of World War II, being much like Boy Scouts activities: “We had two rallies a week, usually on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, and often a parade on Sunday… Team sports were always emphasized, and there seemed to be some sports festival every month. In the summer, we often went on camping trips.”[xxxi] Heck also mentions, though, that included in these rallies, parades, team sports, and camping trips were war games, movies filled with Nazi idealism, and military-style drills and marches.

Young boys also underwent intense and specialized military training in Hitler Youth camps. Kenneth Roberts was able to investigate firsthand and report on one such camp in Trebbin, Germany, about forty kilometers southwest of Berlin. Roberts had to apply for special permission to see this site, but was given an enthusiastic tour of the areas where boys were trained in building glider planes before they were instructed on flying them. Roberts points out that while these camps are doing an exceptional job providing vocational training as well as giving boys a safe and productive place to spend their time after school, this camp, along with all other Nazi operations, had only one fundamental motivation; its main goal was to “provide Germany with thousands and hundreds of thousands of boys qualified to enter an airplane factory tomorrow…. [or] be made into efficient pilots in record-breaking time.”[xxxii] Just like Hitler’s emphasis on new media was really a pitch for his own propaganda, his mandatory Hitler Youth membership requirement was really a large-scale compulsory military training operation. This military operation was not only for the present health and security of Germany, but more importantly it was for the future security of the Reich.

Alfons Heck, probably one of today’s most well known members of the Hitler Youth, recalls in his memoirs and interviews, which Eleanor Ayer republishes in her book Parallel Journeys, both practical and ideological aspects of life in the Hitler Youth.[xxxiii] Heck joined the Hitler Youth at age ten and five months later was chosen to be one of two representatives for his district at the Nuremberg Party Congress in the fall of 1938.[xxxiv] Like the other Hitler Youth members, Alfons Heck’s participation in Hitler Youth activities increased with the beginning of World War II in 1939, despite his family’s lack of support for the movement. In his town of Wittlich, Germany, the Hitler Youth were in charge of ensuring that everyone complied with night time blackout rules, and they fulfilled their duties with great zeal. Heck and his comrades also enthusiastically supported the Nazi party in their invasion of Russia and in their increasing use of Jews as slave labor.[xxxv]

Heck’s zealous support of the Fuhrer was only strengthened between 1942 and 1944, the time he names as “the two best years of my life,” when he graduated to the upper division of the Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend) exactly three years after he was initially sworn into the Jungvolk (younger division of the Hitler Youth).[xxxvi] Heck was even given the opportunity to join the most elite class of the Hitler Youth—the junior Air Force—which he reluctantly accepted and was immediately ordered to report to a glider training camp in the summer of 1942 to begin his training. This flight training, which he excelled at, ousted former dreams of becoming a priest and replaced them with the passionate ambition to follow the advise of a teacher and join the Luftwaffe.[xxxvii] The next summer, after a year at home learning how to use a vast array of weaponry, Heck returned to his flight training camp and attained the highest flight rating the junior Air Force offered. Only months after he returned home from his second summer of junior Air Force training, at the age of sixteen, he became the leader of over 150 young men who were sent to be the first defense against the allied forces at the “West Wall,” German western front.[xxxviii] Heck eventually rose in ranks, commanded greater numbers of boys, and was even privileged enough to attend a meeting with Hitler in which he was reminded of his unparalleled task of protecting the fatherland.[xxxix]

Heck’s life story continues, ending with capture by the Allies and finally immigration to Canada, but it was his time as a leader in the Hitler Youth that has the most profound impact on his life as well as gives the most critical insight into the Hitler Youth experience. After the summer of 1941, which Heck spent running fundraising operations for the German war effort in Russia in the coming winter, neither the German army’s highly public failure to reach Moscow and dire situation en route to the Ukraine did not deter Heck or his comrades from proclaiming their full devotion to their fearless leader.[xl] Even when Hitler’s new Jewish laws caused him to lose his best childhood friend and his family began to doubt the wisdom of the Fuhrer’s choice to send Germany to war with Poland, Heck did not doubt his beloved Fuhrer.[xli] Heck, like many other Hitler Youth members of all ranks, felt a greater obligation to be faithful to their Fuhrer than the obligation to be faithful to their families. It was this blind, enthusiastic devotion that earned him a position as a Hitler Youth commander. Heck reflects on his beginnings as a commander by saying: “At sixteen I, too, had become tough and hardened. I loved my position of authority…. That power would soon increase by leaps and bounds.”[xlii] His devotion to the war and Nazi success would increase all the more and his swift rise in the ranks of the Hitler Youth made him an exceptional example of the intended result of Hitler Youth indoctrination and training.

Alfons Heck’s life clearly demonstrates the Hitler Youth’s twofold purpose of creating effective agents of the state and replacing family as the primary social unit of society. This was achieved with overwhelming ease while simultaneously reprogramming boys in the Hitler Youth to operate in a militaristic mental system that was numb to violence. Heck was, like all other children his age, fully immersed in National Socialist ideology from the age of five when he entered kindergarten, and never knew a time without Nazi controls. From Heck’s perspective, the Nazis, led by Hitler, were the rightful leaders of Germany and would lead them to certain Aryan domination. In Heck’s autobiography, republished in Eleanor Ayer’s book, he recalls his emotional response to Hitler’s speech to 80,000 Hitler Youth members at Nuremburg in 1938 reminding them of their destiny to rule the future. Heck recalls: “For minutes on end, we shouted at the top of our lungs, with tears streaming down our faces: “Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil!” From that moment on, I belonged to Adolf Hitler mind, body, and soul.”[xliii] For the remainder of Heck’s young life, the Fuhrer could do no wrong in his eyes, and this emotional response is exactly what Hitler intended. Hitler’s rallies, speeches, and increasing dependence upon the assistance of the Hitler Youth were meant to instill in blooming Nazis an unquestioning devotion to authority that resulted in blind yet impassioned loyalty that was not void of heroic actions.

The League of German Girls had goals that were complimentary to the goals of the boy’s Hitler Youth groups, but aimed to achieve a different end for young women. Young men were trained to be agents of the state who were fully immersed in the political ideology and processes of the government, unaffected by violence, and ready to defend the purity of the Aryan race and their beloved Fuhrer at any moment. Women, on the other hand, were, primarily trained to be mothers. Very few women were ever privileged enough to be appointed leadership positions in the Third Reich and even the most notable, Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, was only given leadership over other women within the League of German Maidens (BDM). Scholtz-Klink, in a speech to a group of Nazi women provokes them to forsake the 1920’s view of motherhood as a burden and “awaken once again the sense of the divine, to make the calling to motherhood the way through which the German woman will see her calling to be mother of the nation. She will then not live her life selfishly, but rather in service to her people.”[xliv] She implores women, young and old, to remember that being a mother was not simply about bearing children, but also caring for the future of the nation as a whole. Scholtz-Klink urges women to view hospital work, a factory job, participating in the labor service, or going abroad a way in which one could perform well as “one of the Führer's little helpers.”[xlv] She ends her speech by encouraging women to be strong, and to find that strength in selflessly giving their lives, and working hard to build a future for Germany in a time of war. Her provocative language was supported by programs and activities of the BDM which promoted motherhood and feminine strength to young women.

While the boys division of the Hitler Youth was not revolutionary in its military focus, nor was it unusual for boys to belong to politically supported youth groups, the girls’ participation in the BDM was truly revolutionary. Before the National Socialist reconstruction of education and familial traditions, most girls, especially of lower classes, were limited to a primary school education and a small, domestic sphere of influence.[xlvi] The BDM offered girls of all social backgrounds a chance to participate in political, athletic, and educational activities in which boys had been participating for many years. The social aspect of the activities was indeed revolutionary, but the educational content the girls in the BDM encountered was simultaneously revolutionary and historically conservative. Through BDM activities, girls exercised regularly and were educated in proper hygiene, sexual orientation and attitudes, and political propaganda. This educational curriculum, which was a mixture of traditional conservatism and revolutionary ideas, gave members a “sense of national responsibility: fit girls would develop into healthy women, bear healthy children, and therefore preserve the future health of the nation.”[xlvii] For girls, education in health and fitness was the most important since they were to be the “bearers of the next generation.”[xlviii] Jutta Rudiger, a BDM leader from 1937-1945, helped Baldur von Schirach, head of the Hitler Youth, expand the physical fitness aspect of the BDM in order to help young women properly develop. This physical fitness aspect mainly focused on gymnastics, which, along with being excellent exercise, helped young women grow in harmony and grace.[xlix] Along with simply being fit and healthy, women were continually warned of the dangers of mixing, or even interacting, with those who were inferior since they were responsible for maintaining a pure bloodline. [l] In the educational structure of the BDM, the future focus of the Nazi party is overwhelmingly evident.

In the BDM, girls were taught how to preserve themselves to further the future of the Reich, but they were also strongly encouraged to pursue marriage and motherhood. Young women in the BDM were taught by their leaders that marriage was a “dutiful, moral obligation” and they were to pursue motherhood within their marriages.[li] Contrary to popular perversions of the acronym BDM, which loosely translate to “squeeze me, laddie,” “make use of German girls,” and “league of German milk cows,” girls were taught purity and in no way encouraged to pursue sexual relationships outside of marriage. In fact, engaging in extra-marital sexual relationships, openly expression of ones sexuality, and even general sexual discussion was considered highly inappropriate.[lii] Through the BDM focus on marriage and motherhood, contradictions in the Nazi’s view of women become very obvious; the BDM was revolutionary in their admission of women into the “public” sphere through activities in the BDM, but the BDM activities and education thrust them once again into the private sphere of domesticity where the Nazi’s intended to keep them.

To aid girls in one day running their own households, participation in the Women’s Labor Service was made mandatory for young, unmarried women in January of 1939. The Labor Force had been an effective tool of the German government for many years before Hitler assumed power and it had done much to reduce unemployment and increase services, such as roads, in Germany. But, as he had done with radio and youth groups, Hitler used the labor force as an opportunity to further indoctrinate and train women in household and agricultural work.[liii] Unlike most of the BDM activities, the Women’s Labor Force had very practical applications and it was the only area in which women had any physical impact on the war effort in Germany. These young women worked in either agricultural or domestic roles and were housed at camps where they were educated in household management. While they did offer some aid the communities in which they were situated, the focus of the women’s service was still to be primarily on education, and therefore their impact was less than significant.[liv]

While the Women’s Labor Service did not have a significant impact on increasing farm or factory production, it did prove that the BDM’s ideological education was successful. Jill Stephenson in an article discussing the Women’s Labor Force claims that through women’s participation in the labor force it became evident that “the only training which they consistently had was in “political education,” and that did not help to bring in the harvest or release male labor for the armed forces.”[lv] Even though Germany desperately needed more laborers in agriculture and manufacturing, the Women’s Labor Force’s focus on educating the next generation of German wives and mothers made productivity a second priority. The main priority was twofold: education and health. Stephenson adds, at the end of her discussion of the unproductive nature of the Women’s Labor Service, that health was always the primary concern of BDM leaders for the women participating in the labor service, since “[women] were, after all, to become the mothers of a new generation of Germans.”[lvi]

Women were also fed propaganda that was tailored to strengthen their resolve to become good mothers and housewives. The publication Frauen Warte, translated literally “women wait,” was a National Socialist magazine published on a biweekly basis that dealt with issues of motherhood, domestic activities, fashion, and later, the feminine responsibility in the war effort. Calvin College, a Christian college in Michigan, has made a few translated articles available online. Most of the translated articles focused on the primary responsibility of women to be mothers, but also charged women to go to work if it would best benefit their country. In a 1940 issue, what seems to be a benevolent story about an overwhelmed newlywed turns out to be a plug for the “Reich School for Brides,” which was a six-week course for women exiting the working world and entering the domain of housewife. The anecdote follows the overwhelmed woman’s thought process in recalling all the things she learned from the school—cooking, sewing, shopping, budgeting, and childcare—and how invaluable such an education was to her.[lvii]

In articles from of the earlier volumes of the Frauen Warte the subjects are more idealistic and educational than they are practical applications or advertisements. In an article in the second volume of the magazine, the author instructed her readers that “the task of the woman is to replace the spirit of money and of self-interest with the spirit of the mother and the farmer. With this spirit, we women will be able to spread warmth and depth anywhere that our jobs may place us.”[lviii] The author also reminded women that their efforts and attitudes at home directly affected their families, and even more importantly, the state. She states: “The education of the youth is in our hands. Though our spirit, they become part of the nation.”[lix] She is, through this tailored publication, immersing women in the Nazi ideology that their only true place, supposedly a place of unparalleled importance, was at home educating their children in the ways of National Socialism. An article in a later publication explicitly lays out the educational reforms of National Socialism and informs them of the “four iron pillars of the national school and educational system… race, military training, leadership, and religion.”[lx] This article was essentially study guide for German mothers to ensure that they were correctly instructing their children in Nazi ideology. While Frauen Warte was not necessarily intended for young women who were in the BDM, its outline for appropriate feminine behavior in the National Socialist system gives a broader context in which to understand the BDM’s transmission of these same ideals to young women.

While Frauen Wart was an important source of ideological education for women in Nazi German, the most influential ideological education women received was that of the BDM and the Jungmadel, the junior BDM. In her book, The Shame of Survival, Ursula Mahlendorf presents her experience in the Hitler Youth and the impact it had on the rest of her life. Now a professor at University of California, Santa Barbara, Mahlendorf spent all of her childhood in Germany and offers an important perspective on the experience of childhood in Nazi Germany. Mahlendorf was born in Strehlen, Germany, now Strzelin Poland, on October 24, 1929. Economic calamities and the death of both grandmothers and her father thrust her, her mother, and brothers into near poverty by the time she turned eight. Mahlendorf’s mother worked as a seamstress to provide for her children, but she had to rely on the assistance of her unmarried brother and distant cousins for childcare during school vacations by the time World War II began.[lxi] At the age of ten, Mahlendorf joined the Hitler Youth where she “absorbed the national rationalization game like a sponge.”[lxii]

For Mahlendorf, and other girls involved in the BDM, graduation to leadership positions was a dream that exhibited the effectiveness of their absorption of ideological instruction. In July of 1941, Mahlendorf was chosen to begin training to be a Jungmadel leader upon her graduation to the BDM. She successfully completed the training and became a group leader in the spring of 1942.[lxiii] After being a group leader for nearly two tears she was selected to attend a teacher training program in Obernigk about twelve miles from her hometown.[lxiv] Her education there was interrupted when debilitating headaches sent her to a hospital for surgery then a health spa for recovery, but she was able to return to her training after a few months until the Russian invasion ended the program and she returned home.[lxv] After traveling to the Silesian mountain town of Lomnitz in 1945 with her mother and younger brother, Mahlendorf left her family to attend Red Cross training and upon it’s completion was sent to the infant ward in a mountain lodge villa, which had been converted into a hospital, where she and her BMD comrades were utilized as mother-baby nurses.[lxvi] The doctors and the SS men that guarded the facility vacated and left the nurses and new mothers to fend for themselves if and when the Russians attacked. Before an attack occurred BDM leaders moved the girls to an army hospital nearby which they soon abandoned when the Russians overtook the area. Mahlendorf eventually made it back to her hometown, which was soon under Russian occupation, and was gradually reunited with her family.[lxvii]

Before Mahlendorf became a leader in the BDM, was accepted into the teaching program, or was deployed as a state caregiver, she first had to absorb and enthusiastically act upon the ideology she had been fed since childhood. She was first introduced to Nazi ideology in nursery school, but doesn’t recall noticing anything in particular until Kristallnacht in November 1938, the first widespread Nazi effort to involve the public to destroying Jewish synagogues, businesses, and stores.[lxviii] Mahlendorf believes, though, that it was through school, where her teachers preached Nazi ideology, love for the Fuhrer, and closely followed the advances of the German army up until 1943 that she came to fully support the Nazi’s and their involvement in World War II.[lxix] One particular school memory that stands out for Mahlendorf is her teacher’s replacement of the traditional saying “God protect this house,” that hung above their classroom door, with the Nazi slogan, “You are nothing, Your people are everything.” Her response to this slogan shows just how entrenched in Nazi ideology students became at a young age. Mahlendorf states: “I did believe that I was nothing, unimportant, as the sign in our classroom said. All that mattered was the fatherland.”[lxx] Her Hitler Youth participation, though, helped combat the feeling of nothingness while still supporting her love for the fatherland.

Mahlendorf, like others who were in the Hitler Youth, discovered through continued education after the war that much of what she learned in the Hitler Youth and did through its activities was much more significant than she understood as a child. The most striking example of this is the work Mahlendorf and her BDM comrades did at the converted mountain lodge villa. She and her comrades found it odd, and even infuriating, that the women refused to care for their babies.[lxxi] Mahlendorf later came to believe, through her research, that this “hospital” was actually an facility in which Hitler’s eugenics program, Lebensborn, was being tested. Lebensborn, which was never officially confirmed as being fully operational, encouraged the forcible impregnation of pure Aryan women by superior SS officers to produce children that would essentially become agents of the state when they began schooling,. Mahlendorf was appalled that “We… had been their stooges. No one had explained to us what it all meant, and we, obedient as we had been taught to be, had asked no questions.”[lxxii] The willing and unquestioning participation of these young girls clearly displays the effectiveness of the indoctrination they received in their years of Hitler Youth training. It also shows the two-fold nature of their training; they were trained to be effective caregivers, but they were also trained to be unquestioning agents of the state just like the children they were sent to care for.

A comparison of the day-to-day activities of the Hitler Youth and the BDM shows the stark contrasts between the male and female experience in the Hitler Youth. First, one must look at the overall experience for Hitler Youth in general. Boys and girls both marched in the streets, participated in sporting events to promote physical fitness, were educated in racial purity, and had at least token interactions with the war effort. These obvious commonalities can be misleading, though. It is important to see that both the male and female branches of the Hitler Youth were created to form a foundation upon which the Third Reich would be built. It is equally important to see that young men and young women had completely different roles and experiences in the Third Reich. Looking at their separate training programs and activities clearly displays that keeping boys and girls in separate groups during childhood and educating them in their specific roles in the Reich led them into their appropriate social spheres in adulthood. These spheres were completely separate and were possibly more unequal than conventional gender roles. Hitler, beginning in the ideological training of the Hitler Youth, raised men to the status of defenders and agents of the Reich while confining women to the restricted role of bearing children who would ultimately become the property of the state.

A cursory review of all the firsthand accounts and educational materials produced by the Hitler Youth suggests that the Hitler Youth was nothing more than an overly-zealous generation of particularly dedicated boy scouts. But when these accounts and materials are paired with Hitler’s own words, in speeches and Mein Kampf, the political instruction children were subjected to, and contemporary scholarly analysis, a more sobering reality emerges. The intended end of the Hitler Youth was, much like the boy scouts, to produce good citizens who were well educated both in practical applications as well as socially. But, where the Hitler Youth differs from the boy scouts or other well known youth groups, is in its definition of a good citizen. Boy scouts sell popcorn, learn how to build fires in the rain, and help elderly people cross the street; members of the Hitler Youth, however, learn how to maintain racial purity, shoot machine guns and launch grenades, fly airplanes, and firmly believe that their utmost purpose in life is to serve their Fuhrer at all costs. Also, while there are obvious differences in the boy scouts and girl scouts, the differences between the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls were more fundamental and dramatic. Both of these programs, though, served Hitler in starting from scratch, with a young generation, and building his thousand year Reich on their foundation. His plan for young boys was to mold them into agents of the Reich who, at any moment, could serve him in one or many military positions. His plan for girls, however, was to protect and preserve the pure Aryan race; if Hitler had discovered a method to continue his perfect race without the use of women, he probably would have enthusiastically used it.

At it’s core, the Hitler Youth was just like anything else utilized by the Nazi party in the Third Reich: it’s purpose was to build for the future and prosperity of the Reich and protect the purity of the Aryan race. It was a highly gendered movement that embraced a dangerous and ultimately deadly form of social engineering that has broad implications for the post-war era. It’s revolutionary admission of young women into public life through the BDM, though, is a significant aspect and deserves a study of its own. In fact, research of many of the aspects of the Hitler Youth, such as its roots in the Wandervogel, its hierarchical structure mirroring that of the army, its authority over schools, its uses as a recruitment base for the German armed forces, and its efforts to grow ideologically and physically healthy young women to raise the next generation of Aryans, could fill books of their own. But looking at its roots, its structure, its authority over schools, and its separate intentions for boys and girls in one study displays how invasive its ideology was. Nazi ideology required a new generation that knew nothing of the German democratic past, therefore the Hitler Youth was created. In order for the Hitler Youth to be effected, schools must not interfere with its activities, and therefore its leaders infiltrated the German education system. In order to ensure that the next generation would be pure, safe, and obedient, Hitler’s gravest concerns, girls were instructed to remain pure and bear many children, boys were taught how to fight, and both were immersed in ideology from a young age. By looking at all of these things as a whole, it is easy to see how first Hitler, through the revolutionary Hitler Youth, built the unified scaffolding of the Third Reich, and then used separate but complimentary gender roles as a scalpel to once again place men an women into conventional roles in separate social spheres.

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[i] Geglen, Willhelm and Don Gregory. “Babe in Arms.” World War II. Oct/Nov2008. Vol. 23. Issue 4. p.48-53. 1 October 2009. http://proxy.kennesaw.edu:3224/login?url=http:// proxy.kennesaw.edu:2775/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=34687967&site=ehost-live. Pg. 49

[ii] Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow. New York. Scholastic. 2005. Pg. 10

[iii] Geglen, 52

[iv] Roberts, Kenneth. “Hitler Youth.” Saturday Evening Post. 26 May 1934. Vol. 206. Issue 48. p8-104. 1 October 2009. http://proxy.kennesaw.edu:3224/login?url=http:// proxy.kennesaw.edu:2775/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=18147189&site=ehost-live. pg.100

[v] Ibid, 100.

[vi] Ibid, 101.

[vii] Ibid, 104.

[viii] Roberts, Kenneth. “Hitler Youth (Part 2).” Saturday Evening Post. 2 June 1934. Vol. 206 Issue 49, p23-38. 1 October 2009. http://proxy.kennesaw.edu:3224/login?url=http:// proxy.kennesaw.edu:2775/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=18148033&site=ehost-live. pg. 23.

[ix] Ibid, 30. Some of these former leaders as well as senior members found themselves in concentration camps and their infrastructure was completely destroyed. The Professional Youth, another one of the incorporated bodies, eagerly joined and became a large part of the Nazi Labor Front.

[x] Ibid, 30.

[xi] Ibid, 32.

[xii] Bartoletti, 35

[xiii] Horn, Daniel. “Hitler Youth and Educational Decline in the Third Reich.” History of Education Quarterly. Vol. 16, No.4. Winter 1976. P. 425-447. 20 October 2009. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/367724. Pg.428.

[xiv] Bartoletti, 39.

[xv] Bartoletti, 40.

[xvi] Bartoletti, 42.

[xvii] Kunzer, Edward J. “’Education’ Under Hitler.” Journal of Educational Sociology. Vol. 13, No. 3. November 1939. P. 140-147. 1 October 2009. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/2262306. Pg.146.

[xviii] Ibid, 142.

[xix] Ibid, 142-143.

[xx] Ibid, 144.

[xxi] Horn, 426.

[xxii] Ibid, 426.

[xxiii] Ibid, 427, 429.

[xxiv] Ibid, 428-429

[xxv] Ibid, 429.

[xxvi] Ibid, 430.

[xxvii] Bartoletti, 29.

[xxviii] Mahlendorf, Ursula. The Shame of Survival. Pennsylvania State University Press. Universty Par, PA. 2009. Pg. 101.

[xxix] Roberts (26 May), 9.

[xxx] Heck, Alfons. “A Child of Hiter: Growing up in the Third Reich.” 1 February 1983. Boston Pheonix. 30 January 2008. 1 October 2009. http://thephoenix.com/ Boston/News/55446-child-of-Hitler/. Pg. 3.

[xxxi] Ibid, 3.

[xxxii] Roberts (2 June), 38.

[xxxiii] Ayer, Helen, with Alfons Heck and Helen Waterford. Parallel Journeys. Aladdin Paperbacks. New York. 1995. Ayer interviews both Heck and a Jewish Holocaust survivor named Helen Waterford in order to display the parallel yet directly opposite experiences of Hitler Youth and Jewish children in Nazi Germany. In the book, Ayer directly quotes large sections of Heck’s autobiography and puts it in context with her own research. She begins with Heck’s early years through his capture after the fall of Germany and ending with his move from Germany to Canada, while, alternating chapter by chapter, following Waterford’s life from her teenage years in Frankfurt Germany through her liberation at Kratzau, ending with her immigration to the United States. Information from this source cited in this paper is solely from the excerpts of Heck’s autobiography, unless otherwise noted.

[xxxiv] Heck, 2.

[xxxv] Ayer, 45, 53-55. Heck claims that his understanding, at the time, of Hitler’s “Final Solution” was simply more forced labor. He states on pg. 54 “We were desperate for laborers, so why would we kill people who were able to work for us?”

[xxxvi] Ibid, 71.

[xxxvii] Ibid, 73-74.

[xxxviii] Ibid, 77, 111.

[xxxix] Ibid, 120.

[xl] Ibid, 56-57.

[xli] Ibid, 25-26, 58.

[xlii] Ibid, 114.

[xliii] Ibid, 23.

[xliv] "Deutsch sein — heißt stark sein. Rede der Reichsfrauenführerin Gertrud Scholtz-Klink zum Jahresbeginn (To Be German Means to be Strong: Speech by the Reich Women's Leader Gertrud Scholtz-Klink)." N,S. Frauen-Warte Volume 4. 1936. pgs 501-502. 10 November 2009. http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/ scholtz-klink2.htm. The acronym BDM stands for Bund Deutscher Mädel, the German translation of “League of German Girls” and will be used in its place for the rest of the paper.

[xlv] Ibid.

[xlvi] Pine, Lisa. “Girls in Uniform.” History Today. March 1999. Volume 49. Issue 3. Pgs.24-30. 20 October 2009. http://proxy.kennesaw.edu:3224/login?url=http:// proxy.kennesaw.edu:2775/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=1620237&site=ehost-live. pg. 25.

[xlvii] Ibid, 25.

[xlviii] Ibid, 26.

[xlix] Steinhoff, Johannes, Peter Peehel, and Dennis Showalter. Voices from the Third Reich: An Oral History. Da Capo Press, Inc. New York. 1994. pgs. xxvii-xxviii.

[l] Pine, 26.

[li] Ibid, 27.

[lii] Ibid, 27-28.

[liii] Ibid, 29.

[liv] Stephenson, Jill. “Women’s Labor Service in Nazi Germany.” Cambridge University Press. Central European History. Volume 15. Number 3. (September 1982). pgs. 241-265. 20 October 2009. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4545961. Pg. 243.

[lv] Ibid, 244.

[lvi] Ibid, 260.

[lvii] "Gelernt ist gelernt: Mit Bildbericht aus der Reichsbräuter- und Heimmütterschule Husbäke in Oldenburg(An Illustrated Report from the Reich Brides' and Housewives' School at Husbäke in Oldenburg).” NS Frauen Warte. Volume 8. Issue 22. Number 2. May 1940. 10 November 2009. http://www.calvin.edu/ academic/cas/gpa/fw8-22b.htm.

[lviii] Günther, Erna. "Wir Frauen im Kampf um Deutschlands Erneuerung (We Women in the Struggle For Germany’s Renewal)." NS Frauen Warte. Volume 2. Number 17. 25 February 1934. p. 507. 10 November 2009. http://www.calvin.edu/academic/ cas/gpa/ fw2-17.htm.

[lix] Ibid.

[lx] “Die Erziehungsgrundsätze…”

[lxi] Mahlendorf 82, 85.

[lxii] Ibid, 85.

[lxiii] Ibid, 112, 135.

[lxiv] Ibid, 162-163.

[lxv] Ibid, 171-175, 181-182.

[lxvi] Ibid, 189-190,193-195.

[lxvii] Ibid, 198, 212, 216.

[lxviii] Ibid, 62, 65-68.

[lxix] Ibid, 82-83.

[lxx] Ibid, 83.

[lxxi] Ibid, 195-196.

[lxxii] Ibid, 198.

PS. I was advised to add a note stating the following: This is my original research, supported by the documents listed above. The work has never been published so is not a "peer reviewed" or "scholarly" source. However, if it assists in further research, please use the following citation:

Hollis (Wood), Emily. School and Hitler Youth: The Scaffold and Scalpel of the Third Reich. November 2009. Written under the guidance of Dr. Katherine Lewis, Kennesaw State University.