Original subtitles

ARTILLERY FIRE

EXPLOSION

Berlin, April 1945: the last days of the Third Reich.

Some of the Fuhrer's last defenders were adolescents,

not yet 15 years old.

Their only goal was to protect their leader, Adolf Hitler.

Up against the Soviets, they had no chance of winning.

But only a few years earlier,

they had sworn to give their lives for Hitler.

They would stand by their promise and see it through to the end.

Who were these boy soldiers?

How did the regime win their absolute loyalty?

Some of these boys are still alive today.

They know what it meant to grow up during the Nazi era.

How did these boys get caught up in the darkness of Nazism?

They were the future of the regime, its showcase...

and its cannon fodder.

The Hitler Youth began with the Nazi Party, in the 1920s.

Germany was traumatised by defeat in the First World War.

The Treaty of Versailles required Germany to pay reparations

and cost it part of its territory.

Germans saw the treaty as a humiliation.

One man determined to overthrow it: Adolf Hitler.

After failing in a coup attempt in 1923,

he hoped to win power through the popular vote.

To help wage the campaign and hang posters,

the Party called upon its militia, the SA,

and on apprentices and high school students.

The young militants made up the Nazi Party youth wing,

known as the Hitlerjugend the Hitler Youth.

There was still only a handful of them, aged 14 to 18.

In 1920s Germany, almost every political party and trade union

had its own youth movement.

There were Young Communists, Young Catholics...

All were inspired by the example of the Boy Scout movement,

founded in England in 1907,

and all offered outdoor activities.

Like the other movements,

the Hitler Youth offered activities for boys without class distinction.

For many of them, it was more than they could have hoped for.

As in the Scouts, the compulsory uniforms hid social differences.

Like the Nazi Party itself,

the Hitler Youth movement rapidly gained ground.

At the start of the 1930s,

Hitler was not convinced that these youngsters,

all too young too vote,

were of any real use to him.

But in 1932,

over 70,000 boys packed a stadium in Potsdam

to greet Hitler.

On that day, Hitler realised that these youngsters

were the future of his movement.

He confided to his inner circle,

"We older ones are used up. But my magnificent youngsters!

"What material! With them, I can make a new world."

CRACKLE OF FIREWORKS

In 1933, the Great Depression helped carry Hitler to power.

The new German chancellor began bringing Germany to heel.

Democracy was dead. The opposition parties were banned.

Hitler wanted to transform the country with an extreme nationalism

focused entirely on its leader.

To draw the nine million German children into the ranks of the Party

and transform them into Nazis, Hitler would use both threat and seduction.

As of 1933, the youth organisations of all rival political parties

were dissolved and incorporated into the Hitler Youth

or the League of German Girls.

To attract the remaining young people, Hitler relied on seduction.

The Nazi youth movement took over all the summer camps,

which had been the highlight of the year for every youth organisation.

Far away from parents, in a setting that appeared adventurous and free,

it was easier to indoctrinate the children.

A holiday spirit and group activities

held out the promise of a happy future.

Supervised by leaders barely older than themselves,

most children loved it.

The numbers skyrocketed. In twelve months,

Hitler Youth membership went from a hundred thousand

to over two million.

As long as you were not Jewish or a political opponent,

life could be quite pleasant under the Third Reich.

There were boys and girls in the Nazi youth movement,

but it was the boys who were most important to Hitler.

They were the ones he was counting on to see his plans through.

They were the future soldiers of his empire,

and a special program awaited them.

Their activities imitated war.

They learned to use a compass and a map to cross enemy territory,

to camouflage themselves, and to make covert approaches.

They were fascinated by these "adventure games".

Their escapades were filmed like made-in-Germany westerns.

The films were screened in cinemas,

where they were widely viewed and attracted new recruits.

Hitler had written in Mein Kampf that a healthy individual

with a basic education but strong willpower

was more valuable than an intellectual weakling.

The king of sports was fighting.

Not every boy was cut out for this. The weak were humiliated.

The Nazis valued only physical struggle and victory.

Anyone who could not live up to these expectations was a failure,

and had to be treated as one.

MARCHING SONG

The harassment and humiliation were so intense

that some boys broke down, and even committed suicide.

But such incidents were covered up.

Officially, everyone in the Hitler Youth was a valiant fighter.

Three years after taking over the youth movements of the other parties,

the regime took over the church youth movements as well.

The churches were also excluded from sport

and even from education.

DRUM AND FIFE MUSIC

Young Germans could no longer belong to sports clubs

or go to summer camps outside of the Hitler Youth.

Soon one flag flew on every road in Germany:

that of the Hitler Youth.

Members of the Hitler Youth were permitted from an early age

to parade through the streets.

They were now the only youngsters to have this right.

The parades gave the boys a sense of unity

as they practised marching.

Their step became standardised, like their thinking.

The Hitler Youth were flattered, congratulated.

A showpiece of the regime,

they were carried away by the exhilaration of the parades.

BRASS BAND MARCHING MUSIC

RHYTHMIC DRUMBEATS

The Fuhrer himself would sometimes attend these gigantic rallies.

TRUMPET FANFARE

The nation of tomorrow would meet its creator.

MARTIAL MUSIC

BOYS SHOUT 'HEIL'

The sight of Hitler worked the boys into a frenzy of adulation.

CRIES OF 'HEIL'

Nazi propaganda sold German youth an agenda:

"You will be someone, you will be strong,

"you will have a wonderful life."

The young were only too happy to fall under its spell.

By 1936, there were 5 million to shout their adoration for the Fuhrer.

At every rally, they sang their hymn.

RHYTHMICAL SINGING

To complete the brainwashing,

the "Heil Hitler" salute became part of everyday life.

MARCHING FEET

SHOUTS OF 'HEIL'

Repeating "Heil Hitler" mechanically dozens of times a day,

the Hitler Youth were indoctrinated with National Socialism.

Ideological control was tightening.

The Nazis controlled everyone who had any contact with children.

The regime had already tackled the churches

by confining their activities to formal worship.

It had tackled parents by removing children from their influence

during summer camps.

It also drew up new curricula for schools.

Children were taught to hate "the Jew" and "the Bolshevist".

Racial laws were brought in.

Patriotic songs were replaced with hymns of hatred,

repeated so often that those who learned them

can still recall them 70 years later.

BREAKING GLASS

Being taught to hate made action easier.

The Hitler Youth joined the stormtroopers of the SA

in boycotting Jewish shops and humiliating their owners.

By 1936, Germany had recovered from the Depression.

Hitler had reduced unemployment through rearmament

and large-scale public works.

He had made Germany the most powerful country in Europe.

In the second half of the 1930s, he went on the offensive.

In 1938 he annexed Austria,

then seized the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.

War was approaching.

Hitler needed the Hitler Youth.

They were the future soldiers of the Wehrmacht.

Hitler meant to toughen and train them

to be the warriors he wanted.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

WHISTLES

SHOUTED INSTRUCTIONS

The boys of the Hitler Youth began to receive true military training.

A competitive spirit was encouraged at every level.

At age 16, the boys hiked for 20 kilometres with eight-kilo packs.

They learned to master their fear and how to be warriors.

They were given things they had dreamed of in the adult world.

They were taught to shoot, with air rifles for the youngest,

and then firearms.

GUNFIRE

They trained in small boats to prepare them for the navy.

And those who dreamed of the air force

could begin their training with gliders.

With these oversized toys, the boys of the Hitler Youth played at war.

And it was a serious game.

To obtain unconditional obedience from this army of boys,

there was one final step: the oath.

DRUM ROLL

At every age, members of the Hitler Youth

swore loyalty to the Reich and their Fuhrer.

But at age 10 they swore:

"In the presence of this blood banner which represents our Fuhrer,

"I swear to devote all my energies and my strength

"to the saviour of our country, Adolf Hitler.

"I am willing and ready to give up my life for him, so help me God."

They accepted this without batting an eyelid.

The Nazi youth movement had become a formidable organisation.

In 1929, it had numbered around 17,000.

Ten years later, 98 per cent of all young Germans were part of it,

that is, over 8 million children and adolescents.

It was a huge organisation, with its own Reich office.

To convince the last holdouts, membership became mandatory.

Refusing the call to join the Hitler Youth

exposed families to heavy fines, and even arrest.

Those who had reached fighting age were excited to joined the Wehrmacht,

and even the SS.

And the others would not remain idle.

SHOUTS OF 'HEIL'

ARTILLERY FIRE

On September 1, 1939, war broke out.

The Wehrmacht invaded Poland,

supposedly in retaliation for a Polish attack.

Its advance was lightning fast.

EXPLOSION

AIR RAID SIREN

Eight months after Poland, the Wehrmacht attacked in the west.

In May 1940, it invaded and occupied the Netherlands, Belgium,

Luxembourg and France.

For the German people, Hitler was the greatest strategist of all time.

Day after day, the boys of the Hitler Youth

followed the progress of the German troops.

They couldn't believe it:

in just six weeks, the Wehrmacht crushed France.

ANTI-TANK, MACHINE GUN FIRE

Hitler didn't stop.

In June 1941, he unleashed his offensive against the Soviet Union.

The years of training paid off.

The troops who had been part of the Hitler Youth

proved to be formidable warriors.

ROAR OF FLAMETHROWER

When they came home on leave,

they were called on to motivate the soldiers of tomorrow.

As the German army drove east, special units called Einsatzgruppen,

partly made up of former Hitler Youth,

followed in their rear.

Their mission: to kill Jewish civilians.

Salomon Perel was a young German Jew.

He had fled to the East to escape the anti-Semitism in Germany.

In 1941, he was captured and questioned

when German units entered Byelorussia.

Salomon Perel hid his real name

and went by the more German-sounding Josef Perjell.

Still a minor, he was enrolled in a Hitler Youth boarding school

in Germany, where he became a full member of the Hitler Youth.

As the war went on,

so did the physical and ideological preparation of the Hitler Youth.

Today's lesson: Aryan racial superiority.

It taught the ideal depth, height and width of the skull...

the ideal colour of the eyes and hair,

and the racial categories of Nazi science.

One day, Salomon Perel was questioned by his race teacher.

EXPLOSIONS

By the end of 1942,

Germany had lost the initiative in North Africa

and on the Eastern Front.

MACHINE GUN, ARTILLERY FIRE

Almost all the men of fighting age had gone to the front.

The Hitler Youth were mobilised to take their place.

From the age of 14, they were sent door-to-door

collecting rags, paper, and metals.

They were recruited as postmen, tram drivers

and unskilled labourers for work on the road and railways.

They were sent to work in the fields.

Their support for the economy was indispensable.

While the newsreels praised their iron will,

in reality the boys suffered and began to have doubts.

Their "community service" in factories and mines

was more like hard labour.

OMINOUS CHORD, HOWLING WIND

Early in 1943, the Hitler Youth were in for a shock.

The so-called "sub-humans" of the Red Army

had crushed the supermen of the Wehrmacht.

At Stalingrad, the Axis powers lost hundreds of thousands of men,

killed, wounded or taken prisoner.

All talk of a German victory parade in Red Square

was gone for good.

Germany was also losing the air war.

Long-range British and American bombers

were attacking Germany's industry and its cities alike.

WHISTLE OF FALLING BOMBS

The Hitler Youth had wanted to fight the war,

and now the war had come to them.

Germany was hard hit.

In the rubble, the Hitler Youth became amateur firefighters

and paramedics.

Indoctrinated by the Nazi regime for more than ten years,

the Hitler Youth were promised a dream

but now found themselves living a nightmare.

And worse was to come.

Nazi Germany's time of conquest was over.

As the Allies closed in on every front,

it would be left to these boys to defend the regime

until the final collapse.

CLATTER OF METAL