Howard Paul Becker - German Youth: Bond or Free

In 12 Volumes

GERMAN YOUTH:
BOND OR FREE

by
HOWARD BECKER

First published in 1946 by
Routledge, Trench, Trubner and Co., Ltd

Reprinted in 1998 by
Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Transferred to Digital Printing 2007

1946 Howard Becker

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library

German Youth: Bond or Free
ISBN 0-415-17667-0
The Sociology of Youth and Adolescence: 12 Volumes
ISBN 0-415-17828-2
The International Library of Sociology: 274 Volumes
ISBN 0-415-17838-X

Publisher's Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint
but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

CHAP.

First published 1946

To
MY WIFE AND CHILDREN

THIS BOOK IS PRODUCED IN
COMPLETE CONFORMITY WITH
THE AUTHORIZED STANDARDS

Everybody and his brother, to judge by the public prints, is now hard at work making schemes for the solution of What to Do with Grermany? Some of these schemes are solidly based on thorough knowledge of the motley jumble called Germany and of its kaleidoscopic changes in past and present, Certain others, however, rest only on a billowy foundation of good intentions, and might well be ignored if it were not for their superficial plausibility. Indeed, they will be ignored in the pages to follow, but only because searching examination and demolition of these jerry-built proposals would take far more room than can possibly be allotted here. Moreover, there seems little point in prying on the wrecking bar unless an alternative scheme is to be erected on the ground thereby cleared. Such a formula, programme, or what you will, is a pressing necessity, no doubt of that, but although those of us who feel the need are neither fools nor angelsor perhaps for that very reason it seems wise to choose a new site and look it over with care before even drawing the first lines of what might be hoped to constitute a plan for a trustworthy structure.

This little book is informed by such an exploratory purpose, and that only. The eventual structure will be the work of many hands. My task is simply to sketch a rough map and make a few borings in one corner of the ground. Leaving the metaphor: One aspect of German society that seems of strategic importance is the younger generation. Offhand, nobody would contest this statement, but in order to make its remoter bearings more obvious I wish to quote a few passages from a summary expressing my convictions as they stood six years ago. This rsum was entitled Hitler Does it with Mirrors, or The Rise and Perversion of the German Youth Movement, and here it is:

Soon after the time we discover that there is no Santa Claus, we should be discovering that there is no magic in social and political life. Unfortunately, a great many grown-ups never learn that it's done with mirrors; they think that such a thing as present-day Germany, for example, has been conjured up overnight by the mystical hocus-pocus of a mighty magician named Adolf Hitler. Well, let us go behind the footlights and see, focusing our eyes on one trick in the repertory billed as The Creation of the Hitler Youth

Over a quarter of a century ago, a young German student and a few of his friends became what I shall call the Roamers (literal translation would give a false impression). They started a fellowship, romantic and idealistic in character, that because of its passionate championing of the simple life and self-expression set aflame the minds and hearts of adolescent Germany. Soon Karl Fischer's movement had members in every nook and corner of Germany, tramping through the woods with their guitars twanging, singing peasant songs, wearing loose, simple costume, and sending a fresh breath of naturalism through the stuffy middle-class manners of the day.

But then came marching songs of another kind. The first World War revealed the true character of the Free German Youth and affiliated groups, for in spite of previous protests against the Germany of Kaiser Wilhelm, he had only to proclaim that the Fatherland was in danger to bring the whole Youth Movement thronging to the colours. In the terrible batde of Langemarck thousands of these youngsters marched singing into a hail of lead and iron from which only a handful returned alive. The life blood of the old Youth Movement was spilled in Flanders fields.

When the tragically misshapen and malnourished German Republic was born, there began a new phase in Youth Movement activities. Previously aloof from politics, German youth now rushed or were dragged into the camps of the various parties. Soon the Communists set up youth divisions, as did all the other parties, including the National Socialists. Whoever wins the youth wins Germany was the slogan, and the slogan-makers were right. Caught up in the swirl of conflicting ideologies, those who were still faithful to the old Youth Movement fought a brave but losing battle. The devotees of a youth culture, to be led by youth in the interests of youth, which was slowly to regenerate the materialistic adult world, were shouldered aside in the political stampede. Only a few insignificant hundreds, remnants of the true Youth Movement, were to be found wandering like lost children among the trampling millions of the politically regimented.

One of the youth divisions of the political parties was the National Socialist Youth, organized in 1924. Despised by the heirs of the old Free German Youth as politically subservient, and jeered at by the Communists and other left-wingers as reactionary, the Hitler Youth, in its beginnings, would probably have been voted as least likely to succeed. But under the maniacally shrewd control of a man skilled in doing it with mirrors, the Hitler Youth grew at a tremendous rate, and in 1933 Baldur von Schirach, Hitler's close friend and supreme leader of the Nazi youth, seized the leadership of all young Germans. Eventually (by 1936) all groups but the Hitler Youth were officially disbanded. The octopus had begun to work in real earnest.