Affidavit on Nazi harassment of the American Colony School in Berlin in the 1930s, and extracts from the book "Education for Death" on Nazi educational and social programs, including sterilization and breeding, political instruction and monitoring, Hitler Youth, pre-military training, and Nazi dominance in the universities

State of New York County of New York
SS
Gregor Ziemer, being duly sworn deposes and says that:
I was borq at Columbia, Michigan. I received my bachelor's degree at the University of Illinois and an M.A. degree at University of Minnesota. I took nine semesters of postgraduate work at the University of Berlin in the American Division but discontinued my work in 1937 in the face of the decline in teaching standards and increased hostility towards nonGermans. I was Headmaster of the American Colony School, founded under the auspices of the American Ambassador, and the American Chamber of Commerce, in Berlin from 1928 to 1939. Neither I nor my wife are Jewish. I left Germany in the fall of 1939, and since that time I have been lecturing and teaching in this country until I returned to Europe as a representative of O.W.I., during this war. I was later assigned to SHAEF and attached to the 4th Armored Division as a correspondent. I remained with the 4th Armored until I returned to this country in the summer of this year.
The American Colony School received its first charter under the Weimar Republic. This charter was considered to be a mere formality at that time. However, in 1933 the school was required to reapply for a new license under the Third Reich. Be-£93259—4£-10
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fore the new license was issued, the school was directed by the district superintendent, to submit a report on the racial background of all students, parents, and teachers. I protested and after the American Embassy and American Chamber of Commerce appealed to the German Foreign Office, the license was issued without the submission of the above report. However, a six-months' report was required which gave a description of all the school activities in considerable detail.
In 1937 the presence in the school of Jewish students of several European countries who were awaiting exit visas brought relations between the Ministry of Education and the school to a temporary crisis. At this time, I was informed by the Ministry of Education that I would be required to dismiss a German Jewish teacher in my employ by the name of Elsa Danziger. Again, the school made an issue of this point and consequently, Miss Danziger was finally permitted to remain with the school on the condition that the school's Jewish enrollment would not exceed 1 percent of the total students attending.
In 1938, largely due to the school janitor's efficient spying and reporting, the school was dispossessed from its building at 115 Koenig Strasse and moved to a new location at Kastan Allee. In the spring of 1938, before the school had been dispossessed, the Gestapo made a thorough investigation, at which I was present, of all Jewish students attending the school. They were interrogated by a member of the SS in uniform who questioned them regarding their racial background, whether they or their parents had ever been arrested or had ever been placed in a concentration camp. This interrogation largely served as a form of psychological terror for the students and all concerned. No physical force was used on the children, since they submitted quietly to the examination. ,
There were frequent clashes between the Jewish students of the school and the local German youths. My appeals to the local German school superintendent were met with the answer that these clashes were merely popular uprisings and that the German school system had no control over such activities. These street fights had become so common by 1938 that I felt it was useless to do anything more than to submit a routine report to the American Embassy. I attempted to keep these clashes to a minimum by dismissing our students before the German children were let out of school.
In 1937, the school was assessed a retroactive corporation tax of 25,000 marks, and upon investigation by the school's lawyer, a Mr. Fritz Langbehm, located on the Wilhelm Strasse, it was
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discovered that this was a discriminatory tax only applying to German Catholic schools and American Colony School. The school protested the payment of this tax and finally secured its cancelation.
fsigned] Gregor Ziemer Gregor Ziemer
Subscribed and sworn to before me this 8 day of October 1945.
S. BARRY SHENK, Notary Public N.Y. Co. Clk's No. 196 Reg No. 954-8-6 Commission expires March 80, 1946
State of New York 1
SS
County of New York J
GREGOR ZIEMER, being duly sworn deposes and says that:
The following are true and correct extracts from the book entitled "Education for Death," of which I am the author, and which was published by the Oxford University Press in the year 1941; and that the statements made in these extracts are true and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief:
[Page 11]
"I knew enough about Nazi red tape to realize that if I wrote a letter it would get buried under the huge piles of decrees and counter-decrees which Herr Rust was always pouring into Germany. I would never see the inside of a German School. But 1 prepared my request, stating that I was an American in charge of the American School, grateful for German hospitality; that I was eager to understand the new Nazi methods and the efficient administration in his department; that I would soon return to America, would be asked about Nazi pedagogy, and would be able to talk with much more authority if I had actually visited some of the Nazi schools that were producing such unprecedented results.
"The interview was one I shall not forget. Nor have I forgotten much of the exact phraseology used by Herr Rust (Minister of Education). My notes were written out very completely in the lobby of the Adlen Hotel, two minutes from the Ministry.
[Page 12]
"Rust was a huge man, overflowing his mahogany chair and lolling over his polished desk. He was pasty-faced, his eyes shifted
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from object to object, his mustache twitched. He seemed indescribably sad and appeared to find concentration difficult.
'Heil Hitler!' he greeted me without rising. He glanced at my letter lying on the desk. 'You are an Amerikaner?'
'Yes, Herr Minister.'
'What do you Americans teach about us Nazis in your schools in America?'
"I regretted exceedingly that I could not tell him. I had not been back in America for some time, I said.
'But here in your American School in Berlin—you have an American school, nicht?—What do you teach about us?'
"I regretted again. Our school had only one purpose, I declared: to keep American Children in touch with American education. We avoided all politics. We taught only arithmetic, geography, writing, French, science. Of course, we availed ourselves humbly of the cultural opportunities Germany offered; we visited German museums, attended operas, and studied historic spots . . .
" 'And you have Jews in your school', he thundered, interrupting me.
"I was on thin ice. He knew that I realized it.
'Herr Minister,' I said, 'these Jewish students are boys and girls who are going to America shortly. And you don't want them in your schools, do you?'
[Page 13]
"I can still hear his answer. His half-shut eyes suddenly blazed hatred. 'America,' he said, 'America is foolish, furchtbar foolish, to absorb so many Jews. But then, America always has been foolish. Americans always knew everything better. You will see. I believe some day Germany will have to teach America a good lesson. And now—what do you want of me?'
"I repeated in substance that what I have already written.
"He leaned back again, seemed to consider, toyed with the iron Cross on the left pocket of his brown Hitler shirt.
'You want to inspect our institutions. Why?'
"I told him his system had been remarkably successful for its purpose.
"I wanted to confirm that personally.
"He peered at me as if trying to discover any lurking thoughts I might have. Impatiently he punched a button.
'Bring me the official teachers' manual,' he ordered.
"A paper-covered book, as thick as a high school algebra text, was reverently laid on his desk.
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"Rust became very official. In the book, he said, I would find the complete outline of all work done in Nazi schools. In the introduction, he added with self-satisfaction, I would discover what the Minister for Culture and Education had personally decreed. In these pages he had made his own views perfectly clear. I was advised to study the manual and tell American teachers about it. It would reveal that Young Germany was in deadly earnest.
[Page 14]
"I have another direct quotation in my notes: 'Germany always has been and by rights ought to be the focal point of culture in the world,' Rust informed me, pounding the table. 'Your democracies have temporarily degraded us with the cursed Treaty of Versailles. Those days are gone, never to return. German Nordic Culture will cover the world, will sweep all before it—wird alles vor sich her fegen. We will give your request due consideration. Meanwhile, you have the manual, the official basis for our education. Study it. Heil Hitler, Sieg Heil!'
"I had ample time to examine the precious teachers' manual, for I heard nothing more from the Ministry for weeks.
"That manual had the ponderous title: Erziehung und Unterricht—Amtliche Ausgabe des Reichs und Preuszischen Ministeriums fuer Wissenschaft, Erziehung, und Volksbildung. It was printed for the government by the Weidmannsche Verlagsbuchhandlung. The issue Rust gave me was dated 1938. There have been no new editions, according to the latest reports that I have been able to get from Berlin.
"As nearly as one can translate words, the connotations of which are more important than the denotations, the title of the manual means: Educational and Instruction, Official Publication of the Reich and Prussian Ministry of Knowledge, Education, and National Culture. It offered a fruitful field for investigation.
"After reading it I talked with scores of Nazi teachers about it. To them it seemed perfectly normal, a straightforward exposition of Nazi educational ideals. Some considered it almost too conservative. [Page 15] And Rust, I was informed, was never regarded as unduly radical—was, on the contrary, decidedly quiet and considerate in what he said, wrote, and did.
"I first inspected the introduction to which Rust had made personal reference, and of which he was obviously very proud. Compared with the educational methods of any country in Europe, Asia, or South America, the theories promulgated in the first twenty-two pages of this book are unique in spirit, content, and presentation. -
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"The orders Rust gives his teachers are couched in brutal, dogmatic words, saturated with the Nazi ideal that Nordic Nazi Might makes Universal Right.
"The Manual has its own Nazi terminology. A teacher is not spoken of as a teacher (Lehrer) but an Erzieher. The word suggests an iron disciplinarian who does not instruct but commands, and whose orders are backed up with force if necessary.
"Matters of the spirit are frankly and energetically belittled. Physical education, education for action, is alone worthy of the Nazi teacher's attention. All else can be dismissed as nonessential.
"Nazi education transcends old-fashioned pedagogy. Education in Hitler schools is not the result of a gradual evolution, but of revolution. It stems from political conflict and political victory.
"The Nazi schools are no place for weaklings. All children must, of course, finish the primary school before they are ten; but after that school are proving-grounds for the Party. Those who betray any weakness of body or have not the capacities for absolute obedience and submission must be expelled.
[Page 16]
" 'Students who are unable to produce required results (who are Leistungsunfaehig) or who betray any weakness, are to be kept out of the secondary schools,' states the iron Minister to his iron-minded teachers on page one of his iron-clad manual.
"The regime draws a sharp distinction between girls, inherently weak, and boys, natural exponents of Strength. Boys and girls have nothing in common. Their aims, their purposes in life, are fundamentally different. Boys will become soldiers; girls will become breeders. Coeducational schools are manifestations of decadent democracies and hence are taboo.
"Rust decrees that in Nazi schools the norm is physical education. After that, German, biology, science, mathematics, and history for the boys; eugenics and home economics for the girls. Other subjects are permissible if they are taught to promote Nazi ideals. Spirit education is definitely unimportant.
"Herr Rust is, of course, merely echoing the dictates of his Fuehrer, who has made it clear in speeches, letters, and in Mein Kampf that the education of the body must be paramount.
"Rust has instituted a new type of class, which he explains on page three. It is the Arbeitsgemeinschaft, a form of army-community group in the school, which discards marks, credits, and formal instruction. It is a clannish gathering of those students who show the greatest aptitude for Party duties. These Arbeits-
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gemeinschaften form the political units in the schools; members exert salutary influence on other students less alert to the privileges of National Socialism. Anyone who belongs to this unit is so thoroughly steeped in Nazi ideology that he can go out and enlighten those who are not aware of their duties as Nazis.
[Page 17]
"All classes must be flexible in their schedules. Should military parades or Party duties take students out of class, they are not to be molested with any form of review or make-up work later; teachers are not to stress class attendance.
"Nor is there to exist a rigid system of lesson plan». A history class, for instance, should be so organized that it can deviate at any moment from routine and avail itself of new material provided by Nazi activity. A biology class must be integrated only to the point where the instructor can make use of new racial angles as the Party wishes them stressed. For a while Russians were enemies of the State, then became allies, then enemies again. The schools reflected this change carefully and in detail. The schedule in a geography class must be so adjusted that new parts of the globe can be discussed as they become objects of interest subsequent to new conquests.
[Page 25]
" 'When does the Nazi Party become interested in the German child?' I asked a high official in the imposing office of Baldur von Schirach, Marshal of Militant Young Germany, Kronprinzen Ufer 10, Berlin.
'Before it is conceived,' was the quick answer."
"The tall young official glowed with arrogant enthusiasm. He saw my astonishment and explained in detail that there would be little use in driving out the impure Jew if Germany did not make a scientific effort to prevent undesirables from being born. Hitler wanted a super-race; this could result only from mating of healthy individuals.
His desk was littered with pamphlets; the wall was colored with statistical graphs and curves, all indicating the low birthrate during the German republic, but revealing an astonishing rise since 1933.
He lectured me on the efficiency of the Nazi Gesundheitsamt (health office) and the examinations which young mating couples cheerfully undergo before they obtain the Party sanction to mate.
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[Page 26]
He intimated that soon the Nazi health certificates would replace marriage documents. He explained the Erbgesundheitsgesetz, the Nazi law for hereditary good health.
'Is there no slip-up?' I inquired. 'Are there not undesirables who have children anyway, in spite of laws? Can you control the biological urge of a nation?'
'But we do not wish to control or stifle the biological urge,' he exclaimed briskly. 'On the contrary, we are fostering it wherever we can. But soon there will be no puny, feeble-minded, diseased children in Germany!' "
"I needed more information. He was very patient, but peered at me as if my naivete was appalling to him.
The undesirables, the feeble-minded, those afflicted with incurable diseases, even the antagonistic in spirit would not have any more children, he explained. That was the wish of the Fuehrer, and Young Germany carried out his decrees.
He thought for a while and then asked if I would not like to see what he meant. Of course, I would.
'Your nerves—are they strong?' he asked. I told him they were as strong as the average. He asked to see my letter once more. For the second time in a few minutes I produced the document from the Ministry which had made it possible for me to see this official in the first place. He studied it carefully, held it up to the light, and inspected the water-mark. He seemed satisfied.
[Page 27]
'Well,' he said, 'the Herr Minister Rust says you are to see things, and so you shall see them.'
"We walked along the winding shore of the Spree River, and came to Friedrichstrasse, the main business street of old Berlin. Across that, we found Ziegelstrasse.
'Here,' said my Nazi guide, as he entered one of the forbidding brick buildings. 'Here is the place where we prove that our interest in the child begins before he is born. This is Frauen Klinik—a city hospital for women.'
His black S.S. uniform opened all doors. In a small locker room we slipped into surgical aprons. We climbed some stairs and entered a second floor gallery, separated from an oval, well-illuminated operating room by a glass wall. Down below six doctors were hard at work.
"What I saw drove the blood from my'face for a while, I admit. Hospital beds came and went with methodical precision. The doctors made quick, deft incisions in white abdomen walls,
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spread the slit, and applied surgical clamps. They probed, delicately lifted a tube which they wrapped and cut. The wound was sewed, and the body was wheeled off to be replaced by another. .
'What are they doing?' I asked.
He informed me they were doing what the Third Reich had to do if Germany wanted to have a race of super-soldiers. 'These doctors,' he said, 'are sterilizing women.'
For more than an hour I saw women come in with the cradle of life intact, and leave empty shells.
[Page 28] .
"I asked what type of women were thus being disciplined, and was informed they were the mentally sick, women with low resistance, women who had proved through other births that their offspring were not strong. They were women suffering from defects."
'We are even eradicating color-blindness in the Third Reich,' my S.S. guide told me. 'We must not have soldiers who are color-blind. It is transmitted only by women.'
"Upon questioning he admitted that some of the women were sterilized because they were enemies of the State. Many of them should be in concentration camps.
'It is not humane to keep women in concentration camps,' he said. 'But a sterilized woman loses her interest in politics, especially if her fellow-women know that she is sterilized. And we see to it that the others find out'.
"He could not tell me how many women were sterilized yearly; but he knew that in this particular clinic six doctors operated four days a week. The process had been going on in all larger German cities since 1933.
'Who decides that the women are to be sterilized?' I asked. I do not require notes to quote his answer. It planted itself in my memory.
'We have courts, my dear Herr Direkter Ziemer. We have courts. It is all done very legally, rest assured. We have law and order.'
[Page 30]
"The most typical one (home for unmarried mothers) was near a small village in the Harz Hills, among the pines and lakes —Bad Sachsa. The large wooden structure, four stories high, had formerly been a luxury hotel managed by a Jew who is now in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. The swastika over it
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fluttered gaily. The spacious reception room was airy, comfortably supplied with wicker furniture, white curtains, and flowers.
"My arrival was expected. The middle-aged matron in charge greeted me with the usual Heil Hitler. I told her I was especially interested in what the Party did for women who were going to have State children (formerly known as illegitimate children).
"I was informed that the home was especially anxious to have such girls. They deserved special credit and special care for contributing a child to the State. According to the matron some of these girls still found silly, narrow-minded disapproval among relatives. As a result they occasionally developed Hemmungen (spiritual inhibitions). Thus handicapped, they would not produce good super-children. But they found peace and quiet in the NSV [National Socialist Welfare Organization] homes; the Party paid the bill.
[Page 31]
"When I asked if I could talk to one of the prospective mothers, she looked at me speculatively, trying to discover my motive in asking. Her sharp blue eyes betrayed distrust for a moment, but that passed. '
"Some of them, she told me, would not wish to talk to me, for they were in the advanced stages of pregnancy. But there was one—a very intelligent girl—that might. She hurried to her row of files and looked at her records. Each girl had signed a statement that the father of her coming child was Aryan and in good health. That was all the registration required.
"The girl's name was Magda. She was outside on the Wiese, the meadow. We found her. She was not beautiful, but definitely not unattractive. She was what the Germans call eine intelligente Frau, with sharp intelligent features, high forehead, delicate nose and brows. She was wearing a German Turnanzug, a blue jacket with long sleeves, open at the neck, and slacks to match. She was lying in the grass on her back, her legs up, reading a book.
"She rose carefully. The matron introduced us in the formal German manner. Madga, whose last name I never learned, was self-possessed and just a trifle sharp in her manner, obviously wondering what the stranger wanted.
"I explained that I was an American educator interested in the study of Nazi institutions. Her face broke into a very feminine smile. Wasn't I a bit early in coming to her with educational matters?''
" 'Not too early,' interrupted the matron. 'I am sure Madga's child is going to be a very good Nazi.'
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[Page 32]
"It was then I was allowed to peep behind the mask of this prospective young mother carrying an illegitimate child. Her eyes glowed with a fanaticism that was intense, devouring. Her answer was one of those I did not have to write down to remember :
" 'My child will belong to the State. I am bringing it into the world because he has asked me to.' She was referring to Hitler, of course. .
[Page 34]
"Every morning the women listened to an hour's lecture on what Nazism really meant. After they returned home they became the staunchest workers in their communities. And the Party kept complete record of the children too. [Page 35] Infants of women who have been in the NSV home were NSV wards. Representatives were sent out regularly to contact them.
" 'We keep the children safe for Hitler until the schools take them over at the age of six,' the matron summarized this phase of her work.
"She explained the NSV interpretation of sex. The whole subject of conception and child-bearing had been put on a new plane by the Third Reich. Mating was a biological problem. The courses offered in the home helped mothers and girls to understand how necessary to health were children, how necessary to their well-being were frequent intimate embraces with men.
" 'We knew from statistics that most of the women who leave here conceive again within a short time,' she said, according to my notes. 'The separation from their men for several weeks, the daily talks about sex, the stimulating literature we give them when they leave—it all helps to raise the birthrate. And that is our ambition—to raise the birthrate.
[Page 36]
"Before I left the matron gave me a stack of literature explaining the work of the NSV. She urged me to inspect the official NSV publication, Ewiges Deutschland [eternal Germany].
"The magazines were attractively printed in green ink, had numerous splendid photographs, many articles, and editorials which emphasized the importance of children and encouraged women to have babies in or out of wedlock. One article had a typical paragraph: 'In its deepest misery God bestowed upon Germany its adored Fuehrer. This is the greatest gift any nation ever received. It is now our sacred duty to prove ourselves worthy of our Fuehrer through fulfillment of our tasks, through
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unwavering courage and optimism which will answer 'Yes' to the challenge of Life; which will say 'Yes!' to our instinctive desire to bear children! [Ewiges Deutschland, January 1939, page 12].
[Page 42]
"A few days later I recalled what the matron had said about their checking on children before the schools took them over.
"My friend at NSV headquarters arranged for me to spend a day tramping the rounds in Berlin with one of the NSV sisters. Fraeulein Knoblauch was elderly, but as fanatic as any youngster. On her arm she had the official band with the NSV insignia —an 'N' with its arms spread wide to make room for an elongated 'S' with wings on its upper tip coming to a point and making the 'V'. Quite unabashed the lady informed me that the NSV insignia was the symbol of conception. A second inspection of the intricate pattern of the letters with their points, curve, and spread legs led me to agree with her.
"Miss Knoblauch's schedule for the day was to call on four women all of whom had at one time or other been guests of the Mother and Child Home at Fuerstenberg near Berlin. The babies were now old enough for investigation.
"The names on her list were Fricke, Dehniche, Strecker, and Zeidler, representing modest families scattered over various parts of the big city. They belonged to different professions.
"Our first address was in the Wedding Platz district, famous in Nazi history for bloody Communist-Nazi brawls. The apartment was clean but poorly furnished. The blond mother was nervous. At her side stood the youngster whom Sister Knoblauch had come to investigate. He also was blond, chubby and dressed in a clean playsuit. He stood very straight, inspecting us with bright blue eyes.
[Page 43]
'What does one say?' prompted the mother.
The youngster's dimpled right hand went up, he managed the gesture of clicking his little heels, and crowed, 'Heil Hitler.'
The Sister answered the salute smartly. 'Sehr gut (very good),' she pronounced judgment. Then she asked the boy if he knew who Hitler was.
'Hitler is our beloved Fuehrer,' the lad articulated, careful not to make mistakes in his memorized words.
'That's right. We all love our Fuehrer, don't we?'
'We all love our Fuehrer,' he repeated without conviction.
'You must grow up and be a big boy so you can fight for the Fuehrer.' Sister Knoblauch continued.
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But the boy did not run true to form. 'I don't like to fight,' was his unexpected rejoinder.
The Sister was genuinely shocked and looked accusingly at the mother. Patiently she explained to the youngster that Hitler's boys must all fight for him. They all had to grow up and be good soldiers.
'Am I a good soldier?' he asked.
"I wrote Sister Knoblauch's answer down while she had her back turned. 'You certainly are,' she said. 'You are a Hitler soldier. You are going to grow up and be a fighter for the Fuehrer. And then you can carry a gun and learn to shoot, so you can defend the mother.'
"The young mother was supposed to be thrilled by that. She wasn't. But she smiled bravely as she saw the questioning eyes of the Sister on her. With extreme politeness she asked us to come into the dining room and have substitute coffee. It tasted as barley coffee might be expected to taste.
[Page 44]
"Sister Knoblauch pelted the mother with questions. She wanted to know how often the mother discussed Hitler and the Hitler Youth with her four-year-old. She threw out broad hints that parents who neglected to teach their children the Nazi ideology vigorously and consistently, and who did not arouse in them a martial spirit, were not good Germans.
[Page 47]
"Sister Knoblauch had mentioned the Nazi day nurseries, the Kindertagesstaedte, in her discussion. I knew them to be institutions where working parents could leave their preschool children and be certain that they would not only be kept safe, be housed and fed, but would be taken by the hand and led to Hitler's altar there to worship. I visited several of them, obtained permission, in fact, to take the members of the Sociology Class of the American School through one in Berlin.
[Page 48]
"This Berlin institution was housed in a converted factory that had formerly belonged to a Jew. True Nazi organization was evident everywhere. The children were carefully classified: the small tots were on lower floors, older children were occupying the upper stories. Trained Nazi Erzieher were giving the children the best possible care. The Party provided food, entertainment, flags, pictures, supervision, and special uniforms for all, including the six-month-old babies.
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"It was at this preschool nursery that I heard a group of boys, hardly able to talk, memorize a song their teacher was drilling into them with enthusiasm
Unsern Fuehrer lieben wir,
Unsern Fuehrer ehren wir,
Unsern Fuehrer Felgen wir,
Bis wir Maenner werden;
An unsern Fuehrer glauben wir, Fuer unsern Fuehrer leben wir, Fuer unsern Fuehrer sternben wir, Bis wir Helden werden.
The English would be:
We love our Fuehrer,
We honor our Fuehrer, We follow our Fuehrer, Until men we are;
We believe in our Fuehrer, We live for our Fuehrer, We die for our Fuehrer, Until heroes we are.
[Page 49]
"While my Sociology Class was inspecting the clean kitchen where good food was being prepared for the next feeding, I had an opportunity to talk with the Nazi nurse in charge.
"She was friendly and glad to inform me about the smoothly functioning nursery. The Party was sparing no pains, no money, to make this institution an important cog in the system. They took only healthy children, of course, and those whose parents were of pure Aryan descent, which they proved with their Ahnenschein, their genealogical record. The parents had to sign a
paper that the children
inder the exclusive jurisdiction of
the Party during the time they were in the nursery. The Party could deal with them as it saw fit.
"According to the nurse, the Party had worked out a definite routine of training these youngsters in Nazi ideology. The teachers and nurses were graduates of special NSV schools where they had received minute instruction in courses planned by the Party.
"She explained that the children learned strictest discipline, absolute obedience, and became thoroughly acquainted with the Fuehrer Prinzip. They learned to revere the Fuehrer and look upon him as the savior of Germany. Their minds were too immature to realize all his great accomplishments, but no child left
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the institution without learning that Hitler was a superman, who alone could save Germany from her enemies.
[Page 50]
"And they sowed in the minds of the little boys, she said, the first great desire to become soldiers for Hitler; and the maternal instinct of the girls was fostered from the very moment when they felt like playing house or fondling dolls.
[Page 55]
"This is the story of the Pimpf, the Little Fellow. The Nazi Party takes him from the NSV at the age of six, and keeps him until he is ten. He wears a dignified uniform: heavy black shoes, short black stockings, black shorts, brown shirt with a swastika armband, and a trench cap.
"The Pimpf organization lays the groundwork for Party activities in the Jungvolk and the Hitler Youth. The boy receives a number, and is given a Leistungsbuch, an efficiency record book. Throughout the years it records not only his physical development, and his advancement in military prowess, but also his ideological growth. His school, home, and Party activities are minutely supervised, controlled, inspected, and indelibly registered.
[Page 56]
"At the age of ten the Pimpf must pass a rigid examination as outlined in the Pimpf manual, before he can be promoted to the Jungfolk. If he "fails to be promoted, he is made to' feel that he would be better off dead; if he does pass, he is told that he must be ready to die for Hitler in the Jungvolk, even as he was ready to die for him in the Pimpf stage.
"Half an hour before sunrise, 19 April, I hurried to the Marksburg, best-preserved medieval castle on the Rhine. Even before I reached the pinnacle I realized that the two hundred youngsters, aged ten, who would that morning be promoted from the Pimpf to Jungfolk had got up long before me.
[Page 57]
"The officer in charge introduced the guest of honor, a high official from the Hitler Youth, Munich division.
[Page 58] '
"The sun came crawling over the walls, and its rays stopped some of the youngsters from shivering quite so much.
"The speaker soon got into his stride. His voice was brittle. I had good opportunity to take notes up in my window. Here are excerpts from the address:
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" 'You boys must be hard—hard as iron; the Fuehrer has demanded it. You must be loyal; the Fuehrer has demanded it. But above all, you must be ready and willing to give up your lives for the Fuehrer; he has demanded that, too.
'On you rests the future of Germany. Our Fatherland needs you. Germany will some day be the ruler of the world. Our Nordic culture will go out and cover the earth. The youth of other nations does not understand us. They hate us. Democracies point fingers at us. They say we are making you boys into soldiers. Do we deny it? Certainly not. They do not realize how eager and ready German boys are to become soldiers for Hitler. We will make Germany what she should always have been, a force to be reckoned with. (Eine Gewalt mit der die Welt rechnen muss.)'
"He ended as he began, with a Heil Hitler. The only applause was a chorus of 'Sieg heil, Sieg heil, Sieg heil.' There was no cheering, no stamping of feet. This occasion was too holy for that.
"A penetrating fanfare of trumpets from the tower of the castle, more than a hundred feet above us, sent a flock of pigeons wheeling toward the valley. I could see tenseness in the young ranks. A short silence; somebody struck a note on a pitch-pipe, and the boys burst forth with Deutschland, Deutschland ueber Alles, and then Die Fahne Hoch, the Horst Wessel Lied.
[Page 59]
"Another fanfare shattered the spring morning. A sharp command, and from round the corner of the castle came a color guard of three boys. The one in the center carried ah old tattered swastika flag on a tall pole.
" 'Die Blutfahne,' said the commander. 'The bloodflag. And look, the sun! Casting its rays right on it.'
" 'The bloodflag— ?'
'Yes. It is one of the flags from the fighting days of the Party. Some member of the squad to which it belonged was killed by Communists. The flag was dipped in his blood. It is now a holy flag!'
"Quickly the boys formed a circle. Some were pale, some were flushed. The most momentous occasion of their young lives was approaching.
'Raise your hands,'came a command. 'Repeat after me.'
And the spring sunshine and the Rhine and the medieval castle heard the following:
'In the presence of this bloodflag which represents our Fuehrer, I swear to devote all my energies, all my strength to the savior of our country, Adolf Hitler. I am willing and ready to give up my
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life for him, so help me God. One people, one Nation, one Fuehrer.' "
"The hands relaxed. The youth leader spoke again, softly. 'Boys' he said, 'you have just taken an oath. Live up to it. You are no longer Pimpfs, you are Jungvolk. We will demand more of you than before; your duties will be heavier; your responsibilities greater. But your glory will also be greater.' His tone became informal as he told the boys to march back to their barracks and rest; there would be a trip up the Rhine in the afternoon.
[Page 60]
"A few minutes later I met one of the troop leaders in the Alte Schaenke, the historic drinking booth of the Marksburg. He was glad to talk. I asked specifically about a certain Leistungsbuch that many German boys of my acquaintance had always mentioned with bated breath.
"The leader called one of the youngsters and commanded him to show us his efficiency record.
"The lad reached into an oilcloth pocket dangling from his brown belt and pulled out a book with a stiff cardboard cover, the size of a school tablet.
"That book proved with what efficiency and thoroughness the Party governs the lives of every German boy. It was a complicated ledger dividing life into activities, called Bedingungen (prerequisites)."
I remember some of the headings:
Weltanschauliche Schulung (Ideological schooling).
Pimpfenprobe (Promotion examination)
Athletic achievements, including running, swimming, boxing, long distance hikes.
Military accomplishments, including the ability to erect a tent, march, make maps, find directions by use of the stars, do spy work, recognize trees and plants.
[Page 61]
Shooting, practice with bull's-eye, practice with stuffed dummy.
Party accomplishments, fervor for Nazi teachings, knowledge of Hitler songs, Hitler biography, Hitler oaths, Hitler holidays.
Auslands Kenntnisse (foreign affairs), names of territories lost by the Treaty of Versailles, knowledge of lost African colonies, names and locations of Stuetzpunkte, strategic positions in foreign countries of military value.
"The leader explained that this book formed the permanent record of everything the boy did, thought, or neglected to do from
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the age of six to fourteen. Every accomplishment and every mistake was registered, signed, and countersigned by officials.
[Page 63]
"Back in Berlin a few weeks later I attended a series of classes for boys below ten. I talked to many teachers. None of them ever heard of educational psychology as we know it. Terms such as memory span, motivation, motor skill, vocal auditory repetition meant nothing to them. They were imbued with one idea, and one idea only: to make the boy think, feel, and act as a true Nazi. The teachers knew that they would be rated as pedagogues not by the showing their classes made in school examinations but in tests given by Party officials. These tests were based on the Pimpf manual, and the grades were recorded in the Leistungsbuch.
"I spent one day at a Volksschule not far from the Christmas Kirche where Pastor Niemoeller formerly preached. [Page 64] I attended a history class, a nature-study class, a reading class, and a geography class. The Rector, a quiet, pudgy Berliner, informed me that I would find nothing extreme in his school, for he did not tolerate any excesses. In view of that, what I did see was singularly interesting.
"The discipline in all classes was exemplary; most of the periods were devoted to lectures; there were no textbooks.
"The history teacher was a young man in uniform who taught with vigor and enthusiasm. He had a booming voice loud enough for a lecture hall. His boys were learning about Nazi heroes. On that particular day they were worshipping Albert Lee Schlageter, who had been executed by the French during their occupation of the Ruhr shortly after World War I. The major part of the lesson was devoted to the phase of Schlageter's career which endeared him to present-day Nazis: his bravery before the firing squad."
[Page 68]
"I had one more class to visit. I thought of skipping it at the time, but am glad now that I didn't. This geography class, more than any of the others, made me realize what was going on in Nazi schools.
"The class was in progress when I slipped in. The teacher was talking about Germany's deserved place in world affairs. He ascribed her recent swift rise to the Fuehrer's doctrine of race purity. Not every country could boast of a pure race. Czechoslovakia, for instance, was nothing but a few remnants of a race formerly under German rule, mixed with Slavs, Jews, and Gali-
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cians. The Poles were no race. But there were other countries that were fast going downhill because of racial sins. He asked his boys to name some.
They mentioned Russia, England, France. The teacher was not satisfied.
'Well, which country has always called itself the "melting pot" of all other nations? Jungens, that you must know.'
Then came the chorus, 'Amerika.'
"I began to jot down notes as fast as I could; this was getting
close to home.
"The teacher launched into a devastating diatribe that made short shrift of the United States, that country which had joined the last war just to make money. He worked himself into an emotional fervor.
[Page 69]
He explained how during the centuries there had been many men and women who could not get along in Europe. Most of them were criminals and crooks, reprobates and renegades.' They were the undesirables. Whenever they tangled with the law in Germany, or any other European country, they got a boat and went to the United States. There they married each other. And now the children—well, any German boy with intelligence could see what the result would be. These children, in turn, mingled with Jews and Negroes. The citizens of the United States were sinking lower and lower.
"But he wasn't through.
'There are many other weaknesses as a result of this lack of racial purity,' he continued. 'Their government is corrupt. They have a low type of government, a democracy. What is a democracy?'
I wrote down a few of the answers:
'A democracy is a government by rich Jews.'
'A democracy is a form of government in which people waste much time.'
'A democracy is a government in which there is no real leadership.'
'A democracy is a government that will be defeated by the Fuehrer.'
[Page 77]
"He, (George Abels, official of the Nazi Health Office,) assured me that the death of those unfortunates (feeble-minded children) who could not contribute to the race was a fine death, painless,
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almost beautiful. He knew of cases where feeble-minded children who had received the proper instruction had asked to die for Hitler. They knew they could not die for him as soldiers, so they asked to die for him in the Hitler Kammer.
"'The Hitler chamber?' I asked.
He explained that the Hitler chamber was a little white hospital chamber where underprivileged weaklings went to sleep. He asked if I would like to see one. I assured him I would.
"He pressed a button and asked an attendant to get him some information. He continued talking to me, expressing the conviction that soon nobody would even raise an eyebrow if they heard that a feeble-minded child, or a weary old man had found rest. He assured me that the feeble-minded children in Nazi Germany were all over seven years old. The meaning of this did not strike me till I realized that it had been approximately seven years since the Erbgesundheitsgesetz, the law controlling marriages, went into effect.
" 'What about the children over seven years of age?' I asked.
He assured me, pacing the floor, that the Party gave them a chance. They were kept alive until they were ten. By that time they knew if the boys would ever become useful or not. Those with intelligence enough to become street cleaners or perform simple tasks, were sterilized to prevent offspring, and put to work. They could never join the army, of course."
[Page 85J
"To change the subject I asked what girls' school he advised me to visit. The schooling girls received in the Grundschulen, the elementary schools, was alike all over Germany, he informed me. There were many of the schools; every large city had several, and each village at least one. But if I must visit one, the school at Berlin Schmargenderf, for example, was as good as any.
"I spent several days in that low stucco building, next to the Schmargenderf City Hall. The teachers were elderly, but devout Nazis. Most of the day was devoted to domestic science, eugenics, and physical education. There were other classes, however; Deutsch, or Deutschkunde (German), where the girls learned to read and write and where they became acquainted with true Nazi literature; the three G-s—Geographie, Geschichte, Gesang (geography, history, singing)—the first two of which taught them about the superiority of the Nordic race, while the singing class was devoted to memorizing of Nazi songs, chiefly dealing with self-sacrifice, blood and death. But these classes were not scheduled every day. Arithmetic was a subsidiary class
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of domestic science, which, in turn, was an extended double period, often dovetailing with eugenics. [Page 86] These classes included instruction in every phase of housework and cooking, as well as care of children and sick people. Detailed sex instruction was part of this course. Rassenkunde, the study of races, exposed the faults of all nonAryan races. Beschaeftigungsiehre was a sort of practical course in shopping, marketing, judging of food, keeping records in the kitchen, making use of spare time.
[Page 87]
"The classes in that Schmargendaerf girls' school were hushed and tense affairs, with remarkable discipline. Every one of them emphasized Nordic culture, and women's place as the cradle of future soldiers, wherever the opportunity offered itself. Every subject seemed to be slanted to make the girls realize that they were the prospective mothers of Germany.
"During one 'German' class I listened to a teacher read a new Nazi fairy story to her youngsters, age 8. I borrowed it from her later, and copied it. She told me she had clipped it out of a copy of Ewiges Deutschland, the NSV publication. She did not recall if it was the February or March 1939 number.
[Page 106]
"In march-step the boys tramped out of the school (in the western part of Berlin) into a small fenced-off garden back of the school. There they broke rank and stationed themselves beside tomato plants a few inches high.
"I concluded this was a class in applied science, a project. The teacher was apparently using modern methods by taking the class to the garden, letting them see plants and experience at first hand how osmesia, photosynthesis, and geotropism worked.
"I heard nothing of the kind. The Nazi teacher gave a fiery dissertation on the Holiness of German Soil, Heiliger Grund und Beden!
He pointed to the ground. With blazing eyes and clarion tones he explained that Germany had lost much holy soil through the diabolical Treaty of Versailles; her enemies had robbed her; Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, England—all had criminally appropriated holy German soil. So tense was he that I could write without attracting any attention.
'There is today one man who can recover this holy German soil. We mention his name with deepest reverence. His name?'
'Unser Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, Sieg Heil!' echoed the chorus.
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[Page 107]
'And the Fuehrer will recover all this holy German soil—yes, and more, much more, tenfold more. We will revenge ourselves properly for the insults perpetrated by our second-rate enemies.
'And you—you and I—we must have only one thought. That thought is a holy thought; it is the determination, the hope, to become good soldiers for Adolf Hitler. And if we are good soldiers, if we give our all for the Fuehrer, then some day we shall reap a reward, the highest reward possible. We shall acquire a crown of glory. To us will be granted the privilege of lying in this holy German soil as Hitler's conquering soldiers.' "
[Page 108]
"During the day I spent at the Westend school I talked with a tall, dark youngster, with big peasant hands and bushy eyebrows. I asked him about the reading material the Party recommended for boys of his age. He excused himself and hurried out into the cloakroom. He returned with his knapsack from which he pulled a book carefully wrapped in brown paper.
" 'This is a wonderful book,' he said. 'Everything I need for reading is here.'
"It was my introduction to the official Hitler Youth Year Book, a ponderous volume of five hundred pages, large in format, published by the Zontralverlag der NSDAP, Munich. It was divided into sixty-one units. The contents ranged from glorious accounts of Party activities to panegyrics on the new army. It appealed to the spirit of conquest by recalling pages of German history. It stirred up the hope for adventure with stories of Germany's lost African colonies, and explained what fields would be thrown open once Germany had recaptured them. It discussed the importance of sport in the new regime. It gave intimate glimpses of what Nazis in other countries were doing and hoping to do, and what persecutions they had to endure for the sake of their holy faith in the Fuehrer.
[Page 112]
"One of the boys brought me another book, called Heil Unserem Fuehrer, published by Enszlin and Laiblins, Reutlingen, written by Frialrich Wolfgang Lindenberg, officially recommended by the Party. More than 985,000 copies had been distributed, I was told. Hitler has personally inspected and passed this book as a true and commendable biography of himself, for the German boys of ten to fourteen. It uses the device of a young Bannefuehrer, leader of a youth detachment, telling his boys the
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story of Hitler's life as they sit around an open campfire after attending the funeral of a young comrade who lost his life fighting for Hitler.
[Page 119]
"There were other occasions on which I experienced at firsthand the power the Party exerts over young German boys. One stands out because the setting was the top of a venerable old mountain in Central Germany, the Brecken; part of Goethe's Faust plays there.
"It was the night of 20 June, Sennenwende, Festival of the sun. My Ministry letter had again proved effective; I was guest of an official who accompanied the Jungbann that was being rewarded for having done especially good work. It had the highest status in an ideology examination given all over Germany.
The reward was the permission to celebrate the Sun Festival on the hallowed mountain top.
"We had driven up the Brecken by car. The boys arrived early in the evening by special army trucks. Usually they walked when they visited historic spots, walks of a hundred miles not being unusual; but time has been pressing.
"The ceremonies began after the sun set, and lasted until midnight. A huge bonfire of pine logs, reminiscent of pagan celebrations, was set ablaze about ten o'clock. The boys squatted in a circle around the fire. [Page 120] For more than an hour they sat there listening to Nazi Jungvolk leaders urging them to dedicate their lives to a man who was the savior of all, Adolf Hitler.
"Occasionally the boys were ordered to rise. They danced about the fire as if they were preparing for a ritual. As they danced, they sang; the songs sounded like medieval battle hymns, songs the youngsters of the Children's Crusade might have shouted.
"After the songs came more addresses, more glowing eulogies of Hitler, Goering, Himmler, and Goebbels.
"Then came the final song. The melody sounded familiar. I realized the boys had adopted and adapted thé tune of Friedericus Rex, the defiant old military march of Frederick the Great."
"I wrote down the words:
Adolf Hitler is our savior, our hero.
He is the noblest being in the whole wide world. For Hitler we live,
For Hitler we die,
Our Hitler is our Lord Who rules a brave new world.
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"It rhymes in German. They sang it in unison, they repeated it in harmony. Its stirring tones'went far out into the night; its blasphemous words were carried away by the summer breeze.
[Page 121]
"As I sat there on the blunt peak and gazed out over the quiet semidark German countryside, I could see other fires on other hills. I was informed that all over Germany, in old castles, in historic spots, groups of young human beings were that night attending similar ceremonies.
"It was midnight. The fire was low-glowing blood red. The breeze was cool.
The group leader, a shadowy silhouette against the distant stars, arose. His voice was high, shrill, as if he were inspired. I scribbled his words by the light of that fire.
'Boys,' he shouted, 'this is the holy hour of the Sonnenwende. To the boys of Hitler this hour has only one meaning. At this hour when the earth is closest to the sun, when it is consecrating itself to the sun, we have only one thought. We must be close to our sun. Our sun is Adolf Hitler. We too, consecrate our lives to the sun, Adolf Hitler. Boys, arise!'
They did, raised their right hands in holy fervor.
While drums rolled with deep rumbling thunder, young German boys, not yet in their teens, repeated after their leader:
'I consecrate my life to Hitler; I am ready to sacrifice my life for Hitler; I am ready to die for Hitler, the savior, the Fuehrer.'
"Silence followed the oath.
Under the summer sky the hearts of young males were bursting with hero-worship such as the world has not seen before.
Then a fanfare. The fire was dead. Silently the troop crept off to bed, leaving the mountain top to the night.
[Page 128] '
"Not long after that my Ministry letter allowed me to sit in the rear of a girls' school in Frankfurt on the Main. It, too, had rough benches and closed windows. The teacher was intense and pale with earnestness. The teacher was delivering a lecture on the German meaning of 'Moral.' It was a class in eugenics, compulsory for all girls.
"I had ample time to jot down notes. According to the teacher there was no such thing as a problem of morals in Hitler's Germany. [Page 129] The Fuehrer wanted every woman, every girl to bear children—soldiers. She herself was willing to have a child, even though she was not married. The State would rear and educate it.
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" 'All of us women can now enjoy the rich emotional and spiritual experiences of having a baby by a healthy young man without the restricting ties of the old-fashioned institutions of marriage' were her words.
"Hitler and his school authorities urge BDM girls to have babies. But they do not permit the girls to be educated in the same schools with the boys. Girls do not require the same sort of education that is essentia] for boys. The schools for boys teach military science, military geography, military ideology, Hitler worship; those for the girls prepare the proper mental set in the future mates of Hitler's soldiers.
"One of Minister Rust's officials, a Herr Geheimrat Becker, discussed the problem of coeducation with me. He knew something about American schools. It was his contention that the system of trying to put women on the same plane with men, even in matters of the mind, was a waste of time. He admitted there were women who could think as well as men—in their field. But the German schools had one aim: every course, every class had to contribute in some way to Hitler's ideology. He pointed out that the boys who learned about chemistry of war, who studied trajectory angles, and who became acquainted with the mechanics of flying should not be bothered with the presence of girls in their classes. Girls had a definite purpose. In moments of recreation boys needed girls. But we in America put girls in the wrong places at the wrong time.
[Page 145]
"German boys from fourteen to eighteen belong to the Hitler Youth. They are Hitler's secondary army—ready to die for him, but ready to fight first. And they consider themselves well equipped, mentally and physically.
"On their ideological foundation, laid when they were Pimpfs and Jungvolk, the Hitler Youth erect a superstructure of knowledge useful to soldiers. Deutschkunde, including a study of Germanic culture, Party history, military geography; natural science, chemistry; mathematics; and foreign language. There is, naturally, further education in Hitler doctrines.
"The Hitler Jugend, H.J. as it is known, has its own system of ranks and promotions. It maintains its own leadership schools and camps. The uniforms resemble those of the regular Storm Troopers.
"That the Hitler Youth have gone through a formative process since 1933 becomes evident from a tabulation of their annual slogans:
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1933 One Reich, One Nation, One Fuehrer
1934 Fight Waste
[Page 146]
1935 Health is Power
1936 Beauty of Labor
1937 We Must Build Hostels
1938 Every Youth a Flyer
1939 Hitler Youth on the March
1940 'Wir Fahren Gegen Engeland' ['The March Against England']
1941 'England Began the War—Germany Will Win It'—the slogan used by all German radio stations as a sign-off line.
"The outstanding characteristic of the H J. is their conviction that they are the most powerful youth organization in the world. To outsiders they seem impatient to prove it.
"They realize their own importance, for has not the Fuehrer, in a speech addressed to his boys in the Lustgarten, Berlin, 1929, told them 'Youth its own State'?
"Dr. Joseph Goebbels has given them another slogan. In "H.J. Marschiert" he informs German boys: 'The older generation says, "He who has the Youth, has the Future." We say, "He who has the Future, has the Youth." That is why Youth follows Hitler and his ideology which is the embodiment of the dreams and hopes of Youth. Don't let the older generation influence you. We will win. For Youth Is Always Right!'
[Page 149]
"I recall a typical H.J. evening in a straw thatched luxury hostel in northern Germany. It was at the General Ludendorf Jugend Heim in Demmin, quiet Mecklenburg, twenty-five miles from the Baltic Sea. The architect had used the panelling and thatched roof style of the grand old Mecklenburg homes that adorn the countryside; the rooms were rustic, with square beams and heavy carved furniture. But everything was extremely comfortable and practical.
"I took copious notes that cool spring evening, while the boys sat around plotting their march to Swinemuende and the Island of Usedom for the next day."
"Some were oiling their sturdy boots, others were writing letters. As they worked they sang Hitler songs. One was repeated several times that night. I had heard it on numerous other
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occasions. It can be found on page 27 of the official Hitler Youth Song Book:
[Page 150]
The world belongs to leaders,
They alone command the world.
And we are marching, marching,
No one can stop our flag unfurled.
The old must perish,
The weak must decay,
We are young storm troopers, yeah.
Up, Up, march, march,
Our Swastika is our torch,
For the world belongs to leaders.
"Later there was much talk about the beauty of consecrating lives to Hitler, and about the challenge of future conquests. The boys all anticipated glorious adventures before they were much older. They would see not only Germany—but France, England, Poland, Russia; even Africa, Asia and America. They would go to these countries as Hitler's soldiers, or they would fly there.
"They already knew how to glide; several had begun their instructions in flying. They knew much about parachutes, dive bombing, and squad formation of planes.
"I asked the boys if they thought they could fly to America. They did not consider it impossible. Germany had the best planes in the world. They blamed America for helping to humiliate Germany in the World War.
"I had to probe a little. It was as if they did not wish to hurt my feelings too much by talking about 'Amerika'; as if they felt a little sorry for me and my country.
[Page 151]
"I asked them if their teachers told them that some day Germany and the United States would be enemies. They were quick in the answer. The United States was already an enemy of Germany.
[Page 153]
"They (Hitler Jugend) outlined a course of study for me. First on the program was Leibesuebung, physical education, which they had every day. Party history, military geography, and Nazi music alternated. Wissenschaft included zoology and botany, especially the study of food plants. In chemistry they learned about explosives and chemicals that were useful in antiair raids. They also had mathematics and a foreign language.
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This had been changed several times. At first they had learned Italian, then English, then French, then English again. They thought they were learning English now because they might all have to go to England soon.
"One of the boys was especially interested in geography. He said during the present semester they were studying about the Grenzland, the borders of Germany, and the countries that were potential enemies of Nazi Germany. He was getting credit for the present march because it would take him to Germany's borders. The H.J. Border Office, at Schieffenufer 5, had arranged that for him before he left Berlin.
"Another boy preferred mathematics, especially geometry, which gave him information about trajectory angles and angles used in bombing cities.
"But school was not as important as their Hitler Youth activities—they all agreed on that.
"I inquired if any of them hoped to attend the special Hitler Leadership Schools. They did, of course. [Page 154] Their most ardent wish was to enter the Akademie at Brunswick, which enrolled only the most promising Youth leaders of the Reich. But the boys did not know if they could fulfill the rigid entrance requirements.
"What these were I knew. Before a boy can enroll at Brunswick, he must have the following record:
1. Six months abroad.
2. Fourteen months of actual duty as leader of his own
troop.
3. One year as a student in a local leadership school
(these schools were located in 150 German cities).
4. Eight weeks at the advanced leadership school at Potsdam.
5. Three weeks of factory work.
6. A final examination based on Party ideology, military
information, and physical fitness.
[Page 155]
"But I had succeeded in gathering some figures that even the boys did not have. I surprised them with the same notes I am using now:
The H.J. marines had an annual enrollment of 78,000.
The H.J. flyers had enough gliders and planes and teachers provided by the N S Flying Corps to teach 135,000 boys to fly each year.
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The motorized units of the H.J. enrolled 295,000 boys each year. The Party provided them with 5,000 motorcycles annually, and with 1,300 repair shops.
During an average twelve months the H.J. conducted, 3,540 official outdoor camps, attended by 565,000 boys. [Page 156]
In one year 6,000 German boys participated in sports events organized by the Hitler Youth Office.
The Party supplied the H.J. with 10,000 revolvers a year, and with all the rifles they needed for rifle matches in which 30,000 of the Hitler Youth's best shots participated; the H.J. had its own firearms school at Obermatzfeld, Thuringia, with Dr. Stellrecht as director.
The Hitler Youth Foreign Office annually sent 6,000 boys to foreign countries, and brought 250,000 foreign boys to Germany to let them realize how well organized Germany was. These boys came from Italy, Japan, Yugoslavia, France, Belgium, Hungary, Sweden, Finland, Portugal, Egypt, Holland, England, Poland, Syria.
Hitler Youth organizations existed in fifty-two foreign countries, including the United States.
[Page 158]
"Here are some of the units Rust wishes emphasized in the class for the Hitler Youth of fifteen:
"Rise of German industry through the efforts of Krupp, Bor-sig, Siemens, Halske; strong contract offered by Jewish concerns working with borrowed capital; growth of the proletariat; failure of the pre-Hitler regime to cope with the problems; liberalism destroys the German laboring man; the German worker under Jewish influence; influence of Marx; class hatred; Bismarck's attempt to kill Marxism; curse of the parliamentary system; division of the world by capitalist nations; lack of living space for the Germans; formation of Jewish concerns in Germany; influence of the Jews on the theater, the book business; bravery of the German soldier during the First World War; refutation of the war-guilt theory; the Treaty of Versailles and its evils; its effect on Germany; arrival of more Jews; arrival of Hitler and his program; destruction of the Treaty of Versailles; Germany's freedom; Hitler working toward world peace.
[Page 161]
"The Party has established special Kolonial Schulen where H.J. boys are minutely instructed in what they must know to become successful colonizers in Africa. One school near Halle
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was built like a white man's hut in Africa. The boys were informed about tropic garb, tropic medicine and diseases, the African languages, topography, and climate. It was in this school that L learned that the United States was the worst colonizer in the world; it could not even govern the Philippine Islands properly."
"In each of these classes the boys were in full Hitler Youth uniforms. There was no dawdling, no horseplay, and no problem of discipline. Everybody seemed tense and eager, as if working against time. The instructors reminded their classes that they were doing work for the Fuehrer and the Fatherland; their contributions were essential to make Germany the self-sufficient ruler of the world.
"At Hamburg I saw an example of Rassenkunde (racial hygiene) teaching. It was in an old three-room brick building dating back to Bismarck days. Most teachers in Germany do not use textbooks. But this middle-aged teacher, with a big Hitler button in his lapel, used one.
"In serious tones he warned his boys against sexual relations with girls who were not of pure aryan descent. [Page 162] To have intercourse with healthy Aryan girls was sanctioned by the Party. But everything else was a waste of Germanic energy.
"He condemned the racial sins of various countries. France had weakened her nation by mingling with black colonial troops; Russia had been contaminated with the yellow race; Czechoslovakia had committed adultery with Zigeuner-gipsies, England with the Jews.
"He held up his illustrated teaching material, and launched into a discussion of America's racial sins. This tool was a paper-covered pamphlet of 64 pages, called The Jews in the U.S.A.' (Die Juden in USA, Zentralverlag der NSDAP, Berlin). I bought it in Hamburg that same day and have it now.
"The volume is a collection of 'more than 100' candid camera snapshots of prominent Americans. The cover shows Mayor La-Guardia stuffing a sausage into his mouth, apparently at some picnic. The same picture from a different angle appears on page 3. The text under it reads: 'The Mayor of New York is worried about his bodily welfare. He is right. Why not eat what the unemployed of New York can't afford to buy anyway?'
[Page 164]
But that class work does not claim all the attention of the H.J., I realized, especially when I watched some of their. Gelaendesport (military maneuvers) on the level plains around Magdeburg.
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[Page 165] They were on a larger scale than the games of the Jungvolk, usually lasting about ten days, during which the boys were excused from all school work. The leaders were older Storm Troopers who knew all the tricks of military games. The boys carried rifles and a special type of hand grenade that made a martial noise without actually spreading death.
"The last group I accompanied separated soon after they reached Magdeburg. The two opposing forces did not meet again for almost a week.
"During the days that followed, the boys became so tense that they resembled soldiers in front-line trenches. Often they went prowling around the countryside all night in an effort to discover the location of the opposing force and to take prisoners.
"I remember in particular; one of the prisoners who was brought into headquarters, temporarily set up in a small village. .His hands were tied behind him so firmly that the wrists were swollen. He was gagged with strips of adhesive tape. His eyes were pasted shut. He was kicked along and called foul names.
"I ventured to suggest that perhaps the boy was suffering. The leader who consided me an intruder anyway, asked with an oath if I thought this was an old ladies' 'Kaffee Klatsch.' This was a war game. His boys might as well get accustomed to seeing other human beings suffer. They would see plenty of that in the coming struggles which Germany would soon wage. Some day, he hoped, he could get his hands on a real prisoner, a Frenchman, an Englishman, or a Russian. [Page 166]
" 'I don't expect the other side to grant my boys mercy when they get captured,' he said. 'The idea is not to get caught.'
"Both sides carried the official H.J. maps, printed by the H.J. map office, the Reichskartenwerk. They were in four colors, giving a plastic impression, and revealed every elevation, creek, and clump of trees. I was told by the leaders that they could get special marching maps of almost every country in the world.
"This game in this particular instance lasted six days. By that time one side was completely captured.
"I called the local H J office, and was told to be at the Heidelberg Castle grounds by 11:30 that night. Near midnight I walked a short distance under the budding trees and entered the Schlossgarten, after proper identification. The garden was filled with boys, aged fourteen, I crossed a moat and passed through a massive medieval gate into the interior court. [Page 167] High walls, decorated with the remains of Renaissance carvings, were thrown into relief by hundreds of torches in the hands of the boys ready for the initiation ceremony.
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"I pressed into a recessed doorway and waited. Soon I heard a trumpet from one of the towers. Quickly the three hundred candidates, chosen leaders from the ranks of Jungvolk, formed squads. A trumpet played the first notes of the Deutschland Lied. The boys sang it with precision, and followed with the Horst Wessel song. The torches in their left hands dripped hot embers on bare flesh, but, as far as I could see, nobody flinched.
"Another fanfare burst into the night. Four men in uniform ascended a platform over to the left. The first gave a short speech of welcome, reminding the boys of the sacredness of the occasion. His successor informed the boys that the horizon was dark; there were clouds of danger over Germany, but the Fuehrer and his boys were ready for action.
"The main speaker was very emphatic and loud. He told his listeners that they might soon be called upon to defend the Fatherland.
" 'You may all have to die for Hitler before you are twenty,' he shouted. 'But is that not a wonderful privilege? What greater and more glorious mission can a German boy have than to die for the savior of Germany? And now raise your right hands and repeat after me the oath that will indeed make you Hitler's soldiers, ready to lay down your lives for him.'
[Page 169]
"The Nazi mother dedicates her son to Hitler before he is born. When the child is six years old, he takes the first oath to give up his life for the Fuehrer; he repeats it when he is ten, and again when he is fourteen.
"A similar oath is expected of him when he begins his compulsory labor year. His education for death is nearly completed as he finally enters the army, the profession that not only prepares him to die, but to kill, with the following words:
" 'I swear by God this holy oath, that I will unconditionally obey the Fuehrer of the German Reich and the German people. Adolf Hitler, Commander in Chief of the Army; as a brave soldier I will forever defend this oath at the cost of my own life' [Quoted from the Soldier in the New Reich, published by Otto Eisner, Berlin, S-42, p.26].
"During his labor year, and after he has joined the army, the young Nazi may get temporary permission to attend a university, a Technische Hochschule (Engineering College), or a Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Science. The policies, methods, and administration of these institutions are controlled by the Party
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through its Minister of Education. [Page 170] The activities of the students are supervised and guided by the NSDStB, the National Socialistic German Student Bund.
"This league is perfectly organized. Its general headquarters are in Berlin, Friedrich-Wilhelmstrasse 22. There are branch offices at every college and university in the Reich. The Bund has a vast corps of officers; its spies gather information about instructors and students in every class.
[Page 171]
"Nazi universities are completely under the dominance of the Party. To give students and faculty more time for Party activities, the NSDStB has decidedly shortened the length of the semesters.
"Students attending the winter semester need not complete their registration until 15 November and may leave school 15 February. Summer semester students must enroll by 15 April and may leave by 15 June. There are thus less than twenty weeks of actual class instruction in the school year. If any member of the faculty has special Party duties, he may still further curtail this period by suspending his classes for a whole week at a time.
"Before the Party dominated the institutions of higher learning, there were more than thirty weeks of school in the average German university. -"Soon after 1933 the Politische Hochschule, with headquarters in the Schinkel Haus, south of Unter den Linden, became the most important college at the University of Berlin. Second in importance is the College of Physical Education, main office at Luisenstrasse 56. Most university students enroll for at least one course in each of these. Professors can be called upon at any time to devote time to courses at the College of Political Science. The School for Physical Education has its own special staff.
[Page 172]
"A glance at a recent University of Berlin catalogue reveals where the emphasis in learning has been placed by the Nazi regime. The physical Education department, of course, devotes all its 150 courses to physical culture.
"Courses 1-76 at the University are called Science of Religion. According to Dr. Leonhard Rost, of the theological staff, whom I met frequently during my four years as post-graduate student at the University of Berlin, twenty-three of these courses prove the evil influence of the Hebrews on religion; eight are devoted to church architecture and have nothing to do with religion as such;
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nine, labeled 'Philosophy of Religion' prove that the faith of a nation in its leader is the best possible religion; eleven discuss the history of religion, a 'lamentable history indeed.' Rost did not know what was going on in the others, but assured me that no old-fangled theology was being taught anywhere in Nazi Germany.
[Page 175]
"On the right shore of the Neckar River, across from Heidelberg University, is the Heiligenberg, the Holy Hill. Its summit is crowned with the ruins of ancient St. Stephen's monastery, and the basilica of St. Michael. During pre-Hitler centuries, pondering students reached the top by the Philosophen Weg (Philosophers' Path). This is now used by Nazis to reach a Nazi shrine. The Party revealed its penchant for appropriating the tops of historic hills by building near the ruins the National Feierstaette (Festive Place) for Nazi outdoor dramatic productions and national plays. Heidelberg students, no longer interested in arguing quietly about the eternal verities, are permitted to use this magnificent theater for their Party activities.
"One spring evening I sat among a thousand students and Party members, who only partly filled the gigantic bowl. Across the river I saw the lights of Heidelberg twinkle in the dark. Powerful spotlights made the huge stage stand out against the backdrop of beach and oak trees.
"The Party was sponsoring a ceremony to honor Heidelberg students who had been especially active in the Nazi Student Bund. Several hundred of them were sitting on the stage in full uniform.'' '
"The chief speaker for the evening was the Reichsjugendfueh-rer Baldur von Schirach. In a rather high voice, the pudgy youth leader praised the students for devoting so much of their time to the affairs of the Partly.
[Page 176]
"He declared that the most important phase of German university life in the Third Reich was the program of the NSDStB. He extolled various activities of the Bund. He reminded the boys of the service they had rendered during the Jewish purge. Dramatically he pointed across the river to the old university town of Heidelberg, where several burnt-out synagogues were mute witnesses of the efficiency of Heidelberg Students. These skeleton buildings would remain there for centuries, as inspiration for future students; as warning to enemies of the State.
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"Even as old Heidelberg Castle was evidence that old Germany had been too weak to resist the invading Frenchmen who destroyed it, so the black remains of the synagogues would be a perpetual monument reminding the coming generations of the strength of New Germany.
"He reminded the students that there were still countries who squandered their time and energy with books and wasteful discussions about abstract topics of philosophy and metaphysics. Those days were over. New Germany was a land of action. The other countries were sound asleep.
"But he was in favor of letting them sleep. The more soundly they slumbered, the better opportunity for the men of the Third Reich to prepare for more action. The day would come when students of Heidelberg would take their places side by side with legions of other students to conquer the world for the ideology of Nazism.
"The honor students marched past him and received a medal or a certificate of promotion. Everybody roared the Horst Wessel Lied.
[Page 181]
"One of the most popular lecturers in the entire Politische Hochschule was Dr. Karl Boemer (Dr. rer. pol. et Dr. phil., Dozent at the College of Political Science. [Page 182] Head of the Press Office of the Department of Foreign Politics of the NSDAP, office hours at Party Headquarters, Lennestrasse 8).
"Week after week he analyzed the weaknesses and malignant intentions of the press in various countries. I recall a typical lecture, directed against the American press.
"According to Boemer, the American press is the most foul, the most crooked, the most Jew-drenched press in the whole world. It is published by criminals, written by liars, and read by morons. Its methods are cheaply sensational, and its policies are dictated by crooked advertisers; its make-up is puerile.
"In purple language Boemer ridiculed the system of headlines as used by the American press, belittled the format of newspapers, and scorned the wealth of advertising material. He prophesied that sooner or later the American press would precipitate America into another war with Germany—a war which Germany would win.
"As a contrast he designated the Nazi press and propaganda machine as the best-managed and the most centralized in the . world. He informed his students that the American press is the
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clearest evidence that a democracy with its alleged freedom is not fit to exist on the same globe with an ideology like that of Hitler." I have personally read the foregoing statements and find them true and correct.
[signed] GREGOR ZIEMER - Gregor Ziemer
Subscribed and sworn to before me this 4 day of October 1945.
[signed] S. BARRY SHENK S. BARRY SHENK, Notary Public N.Y. Co. Clk's No. 196, Reg No. 954-S-6 Commission expires March 30, 1946.