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Old 02-21-2014, 09:57 AM
 
Location: Minnysoda
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soma more info on women and youth in the German Forces during WW2

Women's roles in the World Wars - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In 1944-45 more than 500,000 women were volunteer uniformed auxiliaries in the German armed forces (Wehrmacht). About the same number served in civil aerial defense, 400,000 volunteered as nurses, and many more replaced drafted men in the wartime economy.[ In the Luftwaffe they served in combat roles helping to operate the anti—aircraft systems that shot down Allied bombers. By 1945, German women were holding 85% of the billets as clericals, accountants, interpreters, laboratory workers, and administrative workers, together with half of the clerical and junior administrative posts in high-level field headquarters.
Germany had a very large and well organized nursing service, with four main organizations, one for Catholics, one for Protestants, the secular DRK (Red Cross) and the "Brown Nurses," for committed Nazi women. Military nursing was primarily handled by the DRK, which came under partial Nazi control. Frontline medical services were provided by male medics and doctors. Red Cross nurses served widely within the military medical services, staffing the hospitals that perforce were close to the front lines and at risk of bombing attacks. Two dozen were awarded the iron Cross for heroism under fire.[] The brief historiography focuses on the dilemmas of Brown Nurses forced to look the other way while their incapacitated patients were murdered.
Hundreds of women auxiliaries (Aufseherin) served for the SS in the camps, the majority of which were at RavensbrĂĽck. In Germany women also worked, and were told by Hitler to produce more pure Aryan children to fight in future wars.[SIZE=2][51][/SIZE]
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Old 02-23-2014, 08:30 PM
 
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I have to laugh when I hear WW2 veterans say that they beat the Germans. The guys they fought on the western front were Hitler's youth. The average age of the German soldier on the western front was 19 years old which means there were a lot of 15 and 16 year olds. But they fought like men right to the end of the war.
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Old 02-24-2014, 01:10 AM
 
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Originally Posted by nickerman View Post
I have to laugh when I hear WW2 veterans say that they beat the Germans. The guys they fought on the western front were Hitler's youth. The average age of the German soldier on the western front was 19 years old which means there were a lot of 15 and 16 year olds. But they fought like men right to the end of the war.
And they still struggled !
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Old 02-24-2014, 09:58 AM
 
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Originally Posted by nicesinging1 View Post
Hello, everyone. I have been studying WWII extensively but this is a topic that is new to me and needs your insights on. Based on reading, Hitler Youth accepted its members who are as young as 12-years-old and its membership peaked at 8 million in 1940. The child soldiers were used as the last line of defense and were reportedly among the fiercest fighters. My questions are three-fold.

1. I am fully aware that the Red Army was hell-bent on revenge arriving in Germany after what happened in Soviet Union. But given the fact that Hitler Youth is a little teenage soldiers, were they given mercy by the Red Army? Or did the Red Army fight and treat them like other adult Whermacht soldiers? For all Hitler Youth taken prisoner, were they let go after WWII because they were children?

2. What is Hitler Youth's contribution to the Whermacht? How much casualties did it suffer out of its 8 million membership?

3. Did Hitler Youth accept boys only and hold no female members?

Thanks in advance for insights.
1. The Red Army made no distinctions to the age of the German soldiers. Their line of thinking was that they invaded and they will pay.

2. Many Hitler Youths were inducted into the Waffen SS and they formed a new division called the 12th SS Panzer Division-HJ. And they fought ferociously on the western front with no regard to casualties in Caen, the Falaise Gap and ion the Battle of the Bulge. They started out with 20500 personnel and by wars end had maybe 10000 left when they surrendered in Austria.

Al fighting elements of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS were male.
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Old 02-26-2014, 11:50 AM
 
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Hitler Youth...I wanted to learn a little more about them and saw this. In Hitler's view he wanted:

'A violently active, dominating, brutal youth, that is what I am after. Youth must be indifferent to pain...I will have no intellectual training. Knowledge is ruin to my young men'. He wanted them to be 'swift as the greyhound, tough as leather and hard as Krupp steel'.

And in another area:

The Hitler Youth leader, Baldur Schirach, took a position in the instance when in reaction to Reinhard Heydrich's klling by Czech resistance he charged that the British had encouraged resistance and advocated reprisals to their cultural centers for the attack.
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Old 02-27-2014, 09:38 AM
 
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Originally Posted by nickerman View Post
I have to laugh when I hear WW2 veterans say that they beat the Germans. The guys they fought on the western front were Hitler's youth. The average age of the German soldier on the western front was 19 years old which means there were a lot of 15 and 16 year olds. But they fought like men right to the end of the war.
Source? I know that the average age of the 12th SS Panzer HJ Division was 19 when they were engaged at Caen and Falaise and decimated, but as far as I know there is no collated "average age" of a German soldier on the western front, though many have tried to guess. For the most part, for every teen and younger boy, there was an older man, generally 45+ that was pushed into service as well. If anything the average age, was probably closer to 30 through much of the western front. What is absolutely true though is that the Germans were desperate and routinely through young boys into combat over the last year or so of the war. There are even confirmed accounts of American soldiers finding armed and uniformed 8 year olds in Aachen.

What isn't mentioned in these accounts talking about age though is the ferocity with which the younger German soldiers fought. These were boys raised in the Hitler youth and many of them had been separated from their families and living in HJ camps and training for years. They were, for the most part, completely fanatical, at least the ones who were 16 and 17. The 12th SS Panzer fought insanely well in Normandy and beyond the limits where "regular" soldiers would have most likely surrendered. The boys fought to the last man, thought nothing of attacking tanks head on, etc. They were absolutely fanatical. I will give you that they were not anywhere near the capabilities of earlier German units that had invaded France and the Soviet Union, but on the defensive, they fought like devils. At the end of the day, does it matter that the person firing the MG42 from the house is 16, 26 or 56?
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Old 02-27-2014, 10:07 AM
 
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What is absolutely true though is that the Germans were desperate and routinely through young boys into combat over the last year or so of the war. There are even confirmed accounts of American soldiers finding armed and uniformed 8 year olds in Aachen.
hmmm....perhaps they were in the 'Werewolves'???? In that group, they were young Nazis who carried out armed resistance against the 'occupiers' as the war was being lost. Lt Genl Wenck was the commander. This was the group that killed the mayor of Aachen for Allied collaboration.

And as to resistance organziations it was interesting to know that the Hitler Youth did have enemies to deal with inside their own country. They were the 'Edelweisspiraten' (Edelweiss Pirates) who were working-class youths. So as the HY beat up and fought the Allies the 'Pirates' beat up on them during patrols, wrote anti-Hitler graffiti and sang anti-Nazi songs. There was also another group called the 'Swing Jugend', middle class kids who liked 'swing' and jazz. They liked to sing songs like 'We'll hang our washing out on the Siegfired Line'....;-)...In any case for both groups, when the Gestapo caught up with them it was 'curtains'.
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Old 02-27-2014, 09:21 PM
 
Location: Chesapeake Bay
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Originally Posted by travric View Post
hmmm....perhaps they were in the 'Werewolves'???? In that group, they were young Nazis who carried out armed resistance against the 'occupiers' as the war was being lost. Lt Genl Wenck was the commander. This was the group that killed the mayor of Aachen for Allied collaboration.

And as to resistance organziations it was interesting to know that the Hitler Youth did have enemies to deal with inside their own country. They were the 'Edelweisspiraten' (Edelweiss Pirates) who were working-class youths. So as the HY beat up and fought the Allies the 'Pirates' beat up on them during patrols, wrote anti-Hitler graffiti and sang anti-Nazi songs. There was also another group called the 'Swing Jugend', middle class kids who liked 'swing' and jazz. They liked to sing songs like 'We'll hang our washing out on the Siegfired Line'....;-)...In any case for both groups, when the Gestapo caught up with them it was 'curtains'.
In conjunction with these you might look up Sophie Scholl and her association with the group White Rose. A small group in Munich. The Gestapo caught up with them as well (1943) and executed them. But she became famous in her resistance to the Nazi regime.
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Old 02-28-2014, 06:33 AM
 
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A
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In conjunction with these you might look up Sophie Scholl and her association with the group White Rose. A small group in Munich. The Gestapo caught up with them as well (1943) and executed them. But she became famous in her resistance to the Nazi regime
Yes and perhaps you may know this but there's a fine film out 'Sophie Scholl The Final Days' which lays out the whole situation during those terrible days in Germany. I thought it was a great film showing the courage and bravery of those who stood up to Hitler and his criminal regime. The trial with a fanatical Freisler up there haranguing the defendants is a powerful example of how the Nazis dealt with those who resisted.

And while we're on film, the Hitler Youth appear in 'The Triumph of the Will' with their leader Schirach. Riefenstahl gives them a bit of minutes in that film.
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