Hitler Youth International Activities: Axis Allies--German-Italian Youth Activities

Figure 1.--Here we see some kind of Hitler Youth-Balilla activity some wher in Italy, robanly in 1941 or 1942. The signs "Accantonamento Germania". That means German billeting, presumably quaters for the vistiting German boys. Notice oe of the German boys is wearing an HJ armband.

NAZI Germany's principal ally was Italy and after the Anchluss, the two countries shared a common border. Thus here exchanges were feasible and could be conducted at reasonable cost. We know that there were some such exchanges. We are not sure, however, about the extent of the contacts between the Hitler Youth and the Italian Balilla. We note HJ and Baliall leaders attending a celebrtion together, but have no details on an actual meting together. We have no information at this time as to the extent to which joint activities were planned. We also note photographs of HJ and Balilla boys. We are unsure to what extent there were actual joint activities conducted by the two groups. Many of the images of HJ boys with foreign boys are with Balilla boys. "The Italian fascist youth and the BDM didn't have very much in common. [Ruediger] Another observer writes, "The BDM vistors were pretty shocked when they saw that the Italian girls were being trained to shoot rifles and drive trucks, and prior to their going to Italy, they were warned not too closely associate with the Italian youth." [Crawford] We have very little informaion oin organized German-Italian youth group events. The photographic record, however, clearly shows that they did take place.

Sources

Crawford, Chris. E-mail message, June 7-8, 2005.