The Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend) was the youth organization of the Nazi Party in Germany.   From 1936 until 1945, it was the sole official boys’ youth organization in Germany.  It was composed of male youths aged 14 to 18.  By December 1936, membership had reached over five million and a law declared the Hitler Youth to be the only legally permitted youth organization in Germany.

Even before membership was made mandatory in 1939, German youth faced strong pressure to join. Students who held out were frequently assigned essays with titles such as “Why am I not in the Hitler Youth?” They were also the subject of frequent taunts from teachers and fellow students. A number of employers refused to offer apprenticeships to anyone who was not a member of the Hitler Youth. Hitler spoke of the regime’s ability to make Nazis out of these German youth, exclaiming in 1938:

“These boys and girls enter our organizations with their ten years of age, and often for the first time get a little fresh air; after four years of the Young Folk they go on to the Hitler Youth, where we have them for another four years…And even if they are still not complete National Socialists, they go to Labor Service and are smoothed out there for another six, seven months…And whatever class consciousness or social status might still be left…the Wehrmacht will take care of that.”

Despite rare instances of disaffection, overall, the Hitler Youth constituted the single most successful of all the mass movements in the Third Reich.  With the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945, the organization ceased to exist.