To What Extent Were Young People in Germany Completely Controlled by the Nazi Regime?

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To what extent were young people in Germany completely controlled by the Nazi regime? From my own knowledge, it is clear that one of the Nazis main pillars of control was through young people and education. The Nazis believed that one of the key ways to creating their master race was through young people. Their young, pliable minds absorbed the Nazi doctrine like sponges. The following paragraph describes the Hitler youth and how important it was to the Nazi regime. ‘The first stage was to establish an organization which could help to transform children into obedient Nazis. Fortunately for the Nazis, there was already one in place - The Hitler Jugend (HJ) or Hitler Youth - which was created in 1925 and by 1933 had 55,000 members. However, youth groups were very popular in the Weimar Republic and total membership of these groups were 5 to 6 million. The Hitler youth therefore represented only one per cent of all organized youth. During 1933, most non-Nazi youth groups were forced to join the Hitler youth as part of the policy of Gleichschaltung. The only groups to escape were the Catholic youth groups, temporarily protected by the Concordat signed by Hitler and the Pope. But even they were forced to give up their independence when a law of 1936 incorporated all youth groups into the Hitler youth. Extract from “Oxford advanced history, Germany 1858- 1990 Hope, Terror and Revival A.Kitson.” The above quote shows to us how the Nazis went from having one percent of control over youth groups, to controlling every single youth group throughout Germany regardless of the background or religion of these groups. This is an indicator of the extent to which the Nazis would go to control young people. No matter whether the young members of these groups wanted to be controlled by Nazis or not, they were. This shows that the young group members were completely controlled
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