HITLER YOUTH

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 85, 11 April 1945, Page 4

HITLER YOUTH

CONTRAST IN TYPES PROPAGANDA IN FAIRY TALES WITH BRITISH ARMY, April 9. We have just been making the acquaintance of two German youths, writes H. A. Standish, to the Sydney Morning Herald. Between them they demonstrate the strength and weakness of the foundation on which any future democratic Germany will have to be built. Hans, the first, has been polite and helpful to us in every way while we have been in his village. He will be 16 soon. He speaks correct and useful, if limited, English, learned in his high school in Rheine in the last four years. He told me the boys had the choice of learning English or mathematics, and many chose English. In the sixth form they could study French as well. Hans wanted to be a postmaster like his father, so English would be useful to him. I asked him if he was a member of the Hitler Youth Movement. "Yes," he said. "Everyone had to be. From the age of 10 you belong to the Jungvolk. Then at 14 you join the Hitler Jungend. Both organisations are under a Bannfuhrer. Ours is now gone somewhere ahead of your armies." I asked Hans what they had done in the Hitler Jugend. He said: "In winter we had political talks and sang songs. In summer we went camping and playing soldiers. So.ne weeks ago our Bannfuhrer told us we should go to the battle. No boy from this village has gone, but some of the boys from my form at school are in the army. Perhaps they are prisoners." "Did they tell you to sabotage and fight as guerillas if the Allies came?" Hans was asked. "Yes, but we would not do that," he said. "The British Army is too strong. Germany has lost the war." "Incredibly Sensible" It all sounded very reasonable and sensible. It was incredibly sensible, remembering that Hans was only about five when the Nazis seized power. He had been given all that magnificent youth propaganda. It started with beautifully illustrated fairy-tale books for tiny-tots, containing just one little drop of poison—a suggestion that fathers and mothers were old-fashioned and a little silly. Later came calls to glorious comradeship under the Nazi banner, with the privilege of serving the Fuehrer by fighting. As the youth developed came the propaganda of healthy bodies to provide the Reich with its generation of healthy young Nazis. It was all done under cover of activities which might have been devised by General Baden-Powell. Yet here was this normal young German, of average intelligence, grown up under these influences and emerging still reasonable and philosophical. Then there is the second youth. His name is Hans, too. He too speaks English. But he hates every minute of our presence and makes no secret of it. This Hans does what he is told when he is given an order in a whipcrack tone of voice. An officer asked him what he thought of Hitler. He replied: "I am a German. Should I ask you what you think of your King?" We have christened him Hans the Werewolf. We know exactly where we stand. If he could put a bomb under our beds or poison in our soup he would do it. We can take precautions against Hans the Werewolf. None of us would dream of taking precautions against Helpful Hans.