Beginnings to 1923

April 20, 1889 - Adolf Hitler was born in Austria.
November 9, 1918 - The Weimar Republic was proclaimed in Germany.
November 11, 1918 - World War I ended with Germany defeated.
June 28, 1919 - Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles.
September 1919 - Hitler joined the German Workers' Party.
April 1, 1920 - Hitler renamed the German Workers' Party as the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazi Party.
March 1922 - Hitler proclaimed the first Nazi Party youth group.
November 8, 1923 - Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch ended in failure. Hitler was then sent to prison.

Road to Power 1923-1933

December 20, 1924 - Hitler was released from prison and began rebuilding the Nazi Party.
Fall 1925 - Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" was first published.
July 1926 - The Hitler Youth was formally established with Kurt Gruber as its leader.
August 19/20, 1927 - Gruber led 300 Hitler Youths in a march at the Nuremberg rally, earning a tribute from Hitler.
April 1929 - The Hitler Youth was declared the only official youth group of the Nazi Party.
July 1930 - The Bund Deutscher Mädel, the League of German Girls, was founded.
October 30, 1931 - Baldur von Schirach was appointed Nazi youth leader.
April 13, 1932 - The SA and the Hitler Youth were temporarily banned by the German Weimar government.
January 30, 1933 - Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany.

Prelude to War 1933-1939

February 27, 1933 - The Reichstag building burned.
March 23, 1933 - The Enabling Act granted Hitler dictatorial powers.
April 1, 1933 - Nazis boycotted Jewish shops.
May 10, 1933 - Nazis and college students burned books.
June 1933 - Schirach was named youth leader of the German Reich.
August 2, 1934 - Hitler became Führer.
October 7, 1934 - The Reich Land Service was introduced, sending city youths to work on farms.
September 15, 1935 - The Nuremberg Laws against Jews were proclaimed.
March 7, 1936 - German troops reoccupied the demilitarized Rhineland.
December 1936 - The Hitler Youth Law made membership compulsory for youths aged 10 to 18.
March 13, 1938 - Hitler annexed Austria.
November 9, 1938 - Nazis attacked Jews in the "Night of Broken Glass."
March 1939 - Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia.
March 25, 1939 - A new tougher law concerning compulsory Hitler Youth membership conscripted all German boys aged 10 into the Hitler Youth.

Hitler's Boy Soldiers 1939-1945

September 1, 1939 - Germany invaded Poland, beginning World War II.
October 7, 1939 - Nazis began forcing Polish farmers off their land.
April 9, 1940 - Germany invaded Denmark and Norway.
May 10, 1940 - Germany invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
June 14, 1940 - Paris occupied by Nazis.
August 1940 - Artur Axmann succeeded Schirach as Hitler Youth leader.
Fall 1940 - The National Youth Directorate required target practice and terrain maneuvers for boys 10 and older.
June 22, 1941 - Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
January 20, 1942 - Wannsee Conference during which Nazis formalized plans for the "Final Solution of the Jewish Problem."
March 13, 1942 - Hitler ordered new military training camps to provide three weeks of mandatory training for all boys aged 16 to 18.
January 26, 1943 - Anti-aircraft batteries were officially manned solely by Hitler Youth boys.
January 31, 1943 - The German Sixth Army surrendered at Stalingrad.
May 1943 - The last German strongholds in North Africa fell to the Allies.
June 24, 1943 - The 12th SS-Panzer Division Hitler-Jugend was created.
June 6, 1944 - D-Day: Allies landed at Normandy in northern France. The Hitler-Jugend tank division was sent to the Normandy Front.
July 20, 1944 - Assassination attempt on Hitler fails.
September 25, 1944 - Hitler created the Volkssturm (People's Storm) to defend Germany to the end.
February 1945 - The Werewolf project began training children in sabotage.
April 20, 1945 - On his 56th birthday, Hitler pinned medals on Hitler Youth boys outside his bunker in Berlin.
April 30, 1945 - Hitler committed suicide.
May 7, 1945 - Germany surrendered unconditionally.
May 8, 1945 - The Hitler-Jugend tank division surrendered to U.S. 7th Army.
October 1, 1946 - At the Nuremberg Trials, Schirach was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for crimes against humanity.

Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth for Boys aged 14 to 18)
Smallest to Biggest Units

• Kameradschaft was the smallest unit with 10 to 15 boys.
• Schar consisted of 3 Kameradschaften totaling 50-60.
• Gefolgschaft consisted of 3 Scharen totaling 150-190. Each Gefolgschaft, roughly the size of a military company, had its own flag and was the primary unit each Hitler Youth boy identified himself with.
• Unterbann consisted of 4 Gefolgschaften totaling 600-800.
• There were 223 Banne with each Bann consisting of 5 Unterbanne totaling about 3,000.
• An Oberbann consisted of 5 Banne totaling 15,000.
• The 223 Banne were divided into 42 Gebiete with each Gebiet totaling about 75,000.
• The 42 Gebeite were divided into 6 Obergebiete with each Obergebiete totaling about 375,000 boys.

BDM - Bund Deutscher Madchen (League of German Girls 14 to 18)
Smallest to Biggest Units

• Mädelschaft was the smallest unit with 10 to 15 girls.
• Mädelschar consisted of 3 or 4 Maedelschaften totaling 50-60.
• Mädelgruppe consisted of 3 or 4 Maedelscharen totaling 150-190.
• Mädelring consisted of 4 to 6 Gefolgschaften totaling 600-800.
• Untergau consisted of 5 Maedelring totaling 3,000.
• Gau consisted of 5 Untergaue totaling 15,000.
• Obergau consisted of 5 Gaue totaling 75,000.
• Gauverband consisted of 5 Obergaue totaling 375,000.

Jungvolk Oath (taken by ten-year-old boys on first entering the Hitler Youth)

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

Pledge of Allegiance

"I promise to do my duty in love and loyalty to the Führer and our flag."

Hitler Youth 'Prayers' (modeled after the Lord's Prayer)

"Adolf Hitler, you are our great Führer. Thy name makes the enemy tremble. Thy Third Reich comes, thy will alone is law upon the earth. Let us hear daily thy voice and order us by thy leadership, for we will obey to the end and even with our lives. We praise thee! Heil Hitler!"

"Führer, my Führer, give me by God. Protect and preserve my life for long. You saved Germany in time of need. I thank you for my daily bread. Be with me for a long time, do not leave me, Führer, my Führer, my faith, my light, Hail to my Führer!"

Mottos for Boys

"Live Faithfully, Fight Bravely, and Die Laughing!"

"We were born to die for Germany!"

"You are nothing--your Volk is everything!"

Motto for Girls

"Be Faithful, Be Pure, Be German!"

Sayings of Hitler Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach

"We do not need intellectual leaders who create new ideas, because the superimposing leader of all desires of youth is Adolf Hitler."

"Your name, my Führer, is the happiness of youth, your name, my Führer, is for us everlasting life."

"He who serves Adolf Hitler, the Führer, serves Germany, and whoever serves Germany, serves God."

Quotes of Adolf Hitler

"I begin with the young. We older ones are used up. We are rotten to the marrow. We are cowardly and sentimental. We are bearing the burden of a humiliating past, and have in our blood the dull recollection of serfdom and servility. But my magnificent youngsters! Are there any finer ones in the world? Look at these young men and boys! What material! With them, I can make a new world. This is the heroic stage of youth. Out of it will come the creative man, the man-god."

"When an opponent declares, 'I will not come over to your side,' I say calmly, 'Your child belongs to us already...What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing but this new community'."

"...Knowledge would spoil my young people. I prefer that they learn only what they pick up by following their own play instinct. But they must learn self-control. I will have them master the fear of death through the most difficult trials. That is the heroic stage of youth. Out of it will grow the stage of the free man, a human being who is the measure and center of the world."

"The German youth must be slender and supple, fast as a greyhound, tough as leather, and hard as Krupp steel. He must learn to do without, to endure criticism and injustice, to be reliable, discreet, decent, and loyal."

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