Figure 1.--These Hitler Youth boys are pictured at a picnic during a visit to England in 1937.

Although not well known, there were links between Boy Scouts in Britain and the Hitler Youth movement. A researcher found a file amongst Home Office papers at the Public Record Office. In the summer of 1937 M15 received intelligence that the Hitler Youth had "at various times" tried to woo the Boy Scout movement in England. The Hitler Youth had fought with German Scouts and then in 1933 the NAZIs forecably incorporated Scouts in the Hitler Youth movement. The NAZIs prohibited Scouting. But efforts made to convince the world that Germany could be accomodated. The NAZIs while not allowing Scouting in Germany, encouraged the Hitler Youth to contact British Scouts. The boys involved in these exchanges were soon to be involved in the live and death struggle of World War II.

NAZI Invitation

Boy Scouts from Tamworth in Staffordshire were invited to pack up their camping equipment and spend a chummy fortnight with members of a Hitler Youth group in Hamburg, North Germany. Curiously, for such an ambitious touring holiday, neither of the Scout Association magazines had any press coverage on the 1937 Tamworth Troop. The local weekly paper, The Tamworth Herald covered the trip with the headline "Peace and Friendship Tour - Local Scouts in Germany". The article described the visit of the Tamworth Scouts to Hamburg Germany.

Hitler Youth Training Camp

English Scout veterans of the Hitler Youth had vivid memories of their visit to the Hitler Youth training camp at Cuxhaven.

English Visit

Tamworth Scouts also remember hosting German boys. The security services were becoming increasingly concerned that the NAZIs may have been using the exchange to help install future spies in Britain, after all, they came on their bicycles and that would allow them independent travel.

Information

Information on the contacts between the English Scouts and Hitler Yooth are very difficult to obtain. The Hitler Youth in Hamburg destroyed all their records when the allied forces were approaching. The only way to find German veterans was to ask the Tamworth Boy Scouts for any names and addresses they remembered.

Personal Memories

One of the German Hitler Youth members was Martin Guenther. Martin's nephew told a British journalist that Martin had been sent to the Russian Front in 1943 and killed in action. But he knew immediately about the exchanges with the Englis Scouts and wanted to show his Uncle's mementoes. The family remembered his enthusiasm for the wonderful friendships he'd made in Tamworth and the sites he'd seen: a tour of the Bourneville Chocolate Factory, an invitation to tea with a Lord, visits to Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and Stratford. After he died his sister cherished his photograph album from the "Peace and Friendship Tour".

Uniforms

One of the contributers to the program mentioned the impression that the German boys' uniforms had. The British boys in their long, baggy, khaki shorts were envious of the German boys' well tailored black cord shorts and regalia. They admired the group and joined in with the Nazi campfire songs. So much for Lord Baden-Powel's assertion, when responding to critiscism of the visit and the effect that it may have, that he was of the opinion that no British boys would never fall for Nazi propaganda. This is not a critiscism of B-P. He was a man of proven honour and integrity. But many were taken in by Hitler on both sides of the Channel and it is easy with hindsight to be wise.

Sources

More information about pre-war links with the Hitler Youth are avialble in:

Philip Baker has written 3 volumes on the subject: 1) Youth Led by Youth: Some Aspects of the Hitlerjugend, Vilmor Publications, ISBN: 0951469401; Youth Led by Youth: More Aspects of the Hitlerjugend Vilmor Publications, ISBN: 095146941X; and Youth Led by Youth: Further Aspects of the Hitlerjugend, Vilmor Publications, ISBN: 095146942.