Figure 1.--This poster exhorts Dutch youth to "be brave" or to "be valiant" and to "become a stormer". Guido

The NSB was a higly organized and fully uniformed party. Participation expanded in 1941 as it still looked like the Germans could not be stopped and would win the War. The youth organization was the Nationale Jeugdstorm--NJ (Youth Branch) which was greatly expanded after the German occupation. Membership in the NJ has swelled to 18,000 members by the fall of 1942. This was the high mark of the NJ. Stalingrad fell to the Russians in January 1943 and as the year progressed many Dutch began to realize that the Germans were not winning the War. Many began to realisticically that their country would be liberatred. HBC wondered about just which Dutch children joined the NJ. A Dutch reader informs is that, "Children who joined the JDS usually did so at the instigation of their parents who usually had right-wing political orientations. The children usually did not even understand what it was all about. Of course, they were ignored and snubbed by the rest, but real fights were rare." The fact that fights were rare presumably reflected the fact that it could be dangers for the parents. HBC is not sure how the NJ members were treated by the other boys after liberation.