Hitler Youth Personal Account: Rudolf Hanig--Photographic Album (1936-38)


Figure 1.--This is the photographic album compiled by a Hitler Youth boy, we think about 1936-38 before the War. Unfortunately we do not know the boy's name.

We believe that the name of this HJ boy is Rudolf Hanig, although we are not positive. We believe that he was from central Germany. While we are not positive about his name, he has left us a record of HJ experiences in a photographic album he prepared. It is not a complete record of his HJ experiences, but rather focuses on the trips that he and his HJ unit took. The photographs are largely undated, but look to us to have been taken before World War II, about 1936-38. The album contains 56 original photoographs. We assume he took them and thus is not in many of the photograhs. The quality of the photographs suggest that he is an older teenager and a rather talented photographer. The albumn shows that HJ got the opportunity to take many different trips as well as biking and skiing trips. We note visits to: Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Kiel, Laboe, Turingen, Timmendorf, and other places. Most of the photograph have interesting captions in old German script. For some reason the album wound up in Italy some time after the War. Given that he was an older HJ boy, he almost certainly would have been involved in the War. We have no information on his War experiences.

HJ Boy

We do not know the name of this Hitler Youth boy. We believe that he was from central Germany. We know that he and his fellow HJ Troop members lived some distance from the Sea (meaning northern Grmany. So the boys probably came from central Germany. While we are not positive, we believe his name was Rudolf Hanig and the Troop may have been from Thüringen. This is a guess we are making from one of the album pages showing a self portrait. While we are not sure about the boy's name, he has left us a record of HJ experiences in a photographic album he left us. We assume he took them and thus is not in many of the photograhs. The quality of the photographs suggest that he is an older teenager and a rather talented photographer. The phtographs he has put together are a valuable historical document because they are not propaganda images like so msany HJ images, but the experience of one boy and his Troop mates.

HJ Experiences

The album is not a complete record of his HJ experiences. We don't see much in the way of local events or marches. Nor do we see much in the way of daily meetings and lining up for inspections. These local activities must have bbe a large part of the HJ experiene. Rather focuses on the trips that he and his HJ unit took. The albumn suggests that HJ got the opportunity to take many different trips as well as several bikeing and skiing trips. We note visits to: Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Kiel, Laboe, Turingen, Timmendorf, and other places. One can see from these photographs many of the boys would have greatly enjoyed their HJ experience. ll these trips must have been very exciting. Boys from working class families at the time would have had very little opportunity to travel or organized activities. Most of the photograph have interesting captions in old German script.

Chronology

The photographs are undated, but look to us to have been taken before World War II, about 1936-38. We think that some of the phoographs might have been taken as early as 1936 because we see an Olympic flag in one photograph. The uniforms suggest that they were not taken earlier. And there is no indication of war time activities so we would assume that they were taken before 1939. The album contains 56 original photoographs. For some reason the album wound up in Italy some time after the War. Given that he was an older HJ boy, he almost certainly would have been involved in the War. We have no information on his War experiences.

HJ Troop

We believe that many if not most of the images in this album reflect the activities of a single HJ Troop, probably on from Thüringen. We see them having a Troop meeting. The Troop is not, however, identified. Any we do not have clseups where we can identify the unit from the uniform badges. We can identify the same boys in some of the photographs, but other phitographs seem to show other boys of different ages, so we are not entirely sure. Another interesting question is how typical this Troop was. This was an extremely active troop, traveling from the Baltic Sea all the way south to the Austrian border. We wnder if this was very common. We believe that the HJ provided opportunities for travel ad activities that were not cmmn for working-class boys before the NAZI take over. But the travel here is beyond what we had thought was common. A German reader writes, "A general remark about the HJ photographs. From one aspect they are great and well done. (You noted this somewhere.) However, I don't believe that the boys were just a typical HJ group going "große Fahrten" during summer vacation in Germany. The HJ certainly financed visiting events of the Nazi party (may be with Hitler), e.g., to Nürnberg or Berlin. They needed the "claquers" and children are always good for this. I believe that it was an extraordinary group, winner of competitions, stars of a public relation affair, or simply sons of Nazi leaders. Who still knows? The HBU pages are interesting and usefully document German sites before the war and the boys who visited them." HBU does not believe that this was any kind of show case group. I think if this was the csae the photographs would have had a more formal character. But our readers asks a useful question and we think it is likely that many HJ units were not as active as this one.

Individuals

One curious aspect of this album is the rarity of individual photographs and the total absence of chummy group photos. Most personal HJ snapshots show pictures of the boy or his close friends standing together for photographs. The photographs in this album are almost like photographs a journalist would have taken depicting a HJ troop's activities. Part of this seems to be that the boy was a gifted photographer and didn't want a bunch of trite snapshots. But it does seem to be a bit strange that he didn't take a few photographs of his chums standing together. There may be a few self photographs. One is the only stifly posed snapshot in the album. The only other individual photograph is an older HJ boy identified only. The young man with glasses is identified only as "Der Schnelle" (the fast one). Why? I have no idea. It's possible that members of the troop had nicknames.

Gender

The Hitler Youth had both a boy's and a girl's division. The girls' division was the Bunde Deutscher Mädel (BDM). While they were in the same orgnization, they were strictly separated. The boys' program had a very different program than the girs' program. Note that in the album here you do not see any girls at all.

Youth Leading Youth

A element of the HJ was youth leadership. The boys were tught that they were creating a new German and they regardless of their social backgrounfs would provide the leadership of the New Order in Germany. Note that no where in these images do you see adults involved. This is quite different than Scouting where although it provides leadership experiences, adult Scout masters play a major role. Given the number of photographs in the album, one might think that there would be some photographs of adult leaders if there were any. But as best we can tell there were not any, even n the excursions and trips.

HJ Uniforms

The album provides us a lot of information on HJ uniforms and how they were worn. We think the boys photographed in this album were mostly from a single troop in Thüringen. This is not a propagada production. Thus it is a realistic look at how ordinary HJ boys wore their uniforms. The most notable observation is that these boys almost never wore caps. I don't know how common ths was, but almost nne of the boys photographded here were wearing their caps. Another observation is that theu almost always are wearing their proper uniform. In the 50 or so photographs we almost never see boys earing non-uniform garments. The one exception is a boy during the Berlin trip who is wearing white shorts instead of the black HJ shorts. Another exception is that a few boys wear Lederhosen, but that eems to have been allowed in the HJ. Another observation is that the primary difference in how the boys dressed is wher or not they wore their blue shirt-jacket. This seems to have been optional as in several photographs we see some boys with their regular brown shirts while hers have put n their dark-shirt jackets.

Comments

A Swiss reader writes, "It is unfortunate that you provide so much space and detail to an organization that was anything but helpful to the youth of Germany and its society. Having had to go through the problems that Hitler with all his organizations created, I do not feel that there should be given so much coverage and fiscussion of such a negative aspect of German youth. The many pictures of those well fed, well dressed, blue eyed and blond boys on their "wonderful" trips. This was a carefully selected group of kids of parents who were in lockstep with Hitler who in turn, through many of these parents, spread misery, fear and death amongst so many in Germany and throughout Europe. These pictures make everything look sooo harmless, while the opposite was the case." Well, remember that HBC is a history site and that history is not not pretty. Studying history means looking at the bad as well as good. Remember that the Soviets used to sanitize histort, at last from their point of view. You could go into librarirs and find articles and images cut out of newspapers and magazines. Our reader is quite right about the impact of the HJ, but to HBC that simply explains why it is importat to study the HJ--it had an impact. It was as he says a negative one, but it is arguably the most effective youth group in history. I think we need to know just how the NAZIs poisoned an entire generation f youth in a modern, educated country. It is not a pleasant story, but it is an important one. One point we note here is that is was not just the parents of these boys that committed terrible crimes. If as we believe that these photographs were taken in 1936-38, these boys wouls have been involved in the War and serving in the military, SS, SA, and other NAZIs orgnizations. Another point here is not all the boys had blond hair and blue eyes--a little wrikle often over looked. Indeed Hitler did not have blond hair and blue eyes. One wonders how these boys must have thought in a sociery that idealized Nordic trait. Our Swiss reader here is concerned that the images here are seductively attractive, idealizing the HJ and the terribly destructive impact it had on German youth. We do not disagree and a partial palitive is to look at how the NAZIs treated childen which did not come up to the their standards. Too often people think that the NAZIs only targeted the Jews. In fact the Jews were only one of the targets. Another target was German children. Here readers may want to look at the NAZI eugenics program. I rather agree with our Swiss reader that this should be born in mind when viewing the images here.

A British reader writes, "I have found this photographic account of great interest. Basically a youth group touring Germany in the 1930's. It shows also the strength of the movement in that the boys wore the uniform and appear proud to carry the flag. Touring without an adult was something that existed only as fantasy in children's literature at the time in Britain. On second thought, it was something only the very few got the opportunity to do. I recall my teacher telling me about the Scout troop he was a member of in the 1930's. He talked about how he spent the summers then. He and his friends left home on Friday evening and cycled into the countryside and spent the weekend camping. He and his friends were from wealthy families because they had bikes. Their parents trusted then to behave sensible on their time away from home. They would have been in their early teens then. They cycled to Scout camp sites in the Lancashire, Yorkshire area of Britain. They might have gone as Scouts and worn their uniforms. I recall him saying they were school friends and were scouts. Certainly character building. Unfortunately for the German youth group there was a sinister purpose to developing self reliance."

Another British reader writes, "The Swiss reader made a point that I thought about too. We only see them enjoying a visit to something specific. There does not appear to be anything written about what they talked about. The photographer focus's on the things they saw. He does not like modern youth bands photograph with mobile phones the anti social behaviour they do. A sound recording record of their leisure time would have been good but this was not available then. Did these boys see themselves in something other than a youth movement is a question that will never be abled to be answered. The Album keeper aooears to have survived the war but is most likely now to have died." Yes it would be fascinating to have information on what they talked about and the ideas they expressed. HBU view photigrphs as little historical documents, but they are only part of the story. And as our Swiss reader points out, they can be misleading. There are are accounts writter by HJ boys and girls after the War. But these can be misleaing as well. A good example is Günter Grass ' latest book (Peeling the Onion), an obviously contrived account of his youth, designed to explain how this litrary giant had hidden his service in the Waffen SS.. Our view is that the reader has to take any single piece of information as only part of the story.

Another British reader writes, "I think it salutory to think how normal all this looked. It proves that you don't need to grow horns out of your head to commit evil. These kids really did look like boy scouts. It should also be noted that the Hitler youth was far from a minority group come the mid 30s and a refusal to join was viewed with great suspicion by the authorities. [Note: A German law in late 1936 made in mandatory for boys to join the HJ at age 10 years.] We will never know how many of those boys were true believers,what their war records were and whether or not they survived it. I imagine many didn't as the draft swept nearly all German male teens by the end. I find this album disturbing but for different reasons."






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Created: 11:21 PM 9/20/2007
Last updates: 2:42 AM 9/25/2007