Hitler Youth: Specific Activities--Field Trips

Figure 1.-- Here we see a group of HJ boys on a Baltic Sea excurion. The ship is the Herzog Friedrich out of Schieswig. The caps suggest the snapshot was taken about 1933-35. At this stage the boys would have joined the HJ voluntarily and not rquired to join. Notice the leveling experience of the HJ. It is impossible to tell which of these boys cane ffom affluent and solid middle-class families and hich came from working-class families. Excursions like this would not have beem availavke to most working-class boys before the NZIs seized power.

There is an important sociological factor here observable with the HJ and the tripss they organized. Germany in 1933 was a still class-based society. Many German boys, especially working-class boys had no opportunity for vacations and trips. The HJ was a leveling experience. Their family background made little difference and there were trips and activities that would have been normally open to working-class boys. we see boys on biking trips and boating excusions. These were things that woukld have been beyond the means of many working-class boys. This is important because a substantial segment of the German working class suported Socialist even Communist parties. Some of the adults may have changed over time, but it is likely that most just learned go keep their mouths shut. Their children are a different matter. There political allegiances were not fixed. And the HJ was just the beginning of the NAZIs gaining their support. Educational and job opportunities were also opened that before the NAZIs woulkd not have been available to working-class boys. Seeing the impages of HJ activities with the boys dressed alike, it is not possible to tell what their social-class backgrounds were. This was all part of the leveling of class barriers during the Third Reich.