I was born in 1949 (12.31 of that year), and I need for y’all to know something about me, okay?
First of all, I love my adoptive ('adopted"? Who adopted who?) country, America.
My German mother met my American soldier Dad shortly after the war ended, they had a wonderful relationship with each other that produced me 5 years later.
Because “Big Bill” (I’m “Little Bill”) was bi-lingual, he got to stay in Karlsruhe ( Kassiski Barracks? - I don’t remember) and became an interrogator.
But that isn’t why I am writing this.
My mother was a child of the Hitler years, and it has bothered me for so long that if I had been born earlier, would I have been a part of the “Youth”?
I’m afraid I’m going to have to answer “yes” to that - even though I might not know why? I would have gotten caught up in that, and wouldn’t have known what I should have done.
This is why I am so torn: I don’t know if I’m American or German, and I feel like neither country wants me.
Thank you for reading this and PLEASE know that I love y’all and my adoptive country - I am a Viet Nam Vet, and damn proud of it!!!.
We love you too and thanks for your service. You are forgiven. Go forth and woulda, coulda, shoulda (especially about stuff that happened before you were born) no more.
Quasi, the kids in Hitler Youth were there because their parents told them it was the thing to do. They did not know about the death camps and such, and likely would have been as repulsed by it as anybody else. But it doesn’t matter. You were not part of the Hitler Youth. You’re an American, and a veteran.
FWIW I have also asked myself that question, as most other younger Germans are bound to have. I have no reason to assume that, raised in that generation, I would not have conformed.
My father, who is German, was a little too young (born 1936) for the Hitler Youth, but his older brother was in it. The family story always comes out as “he didn’t have a choice,” and as a young teenager he was surely as easy to brainwash as anyone else that age. I tend to believe that people who were children during the war should generally be exempted from the “What did you do in the war?” line of questioning.
Ah, Quasi. You really need to let this go. Those kids were not responsible for what they were taught. None of us are. And you were not even born yet. Don’t waste regret on what might have been. You are a better American than many, maybe better than most.
What if I was born in Germany in the 1930s? Would I have been in the Hitler Youth?
Don’t lose any sleep over this, man. We like to think we’re special snowflakes but in reality we’d likely have done whatever the cultural norm was regardless of where we were born.
Quasi, what happened in WW2 isn’t the sum total of your heritage. Your heritage includes Germany’s growth into a modern, self-aware nation. Germany today rejects Hitler - that’s part of your heritage too.
By December 1936, HJ membership stood at just over five million. That same month, HJ membership became mandatory for Aryans, under the Gesetz über die Hitlerjugend law. This legal obligation was re-affirmed in 1939 with the Jugenddienstpflicht and HJ membership was required even when it was opposed by the member’s parents.
So, Quasi, had you been a child in Nazi Germany, like my grandfather, you would have had ZERO choice in being in the Hitler Youth.
Despite who the Pope is now, and what he believes in, good and bad, I think that his being in HJ had zero influence on him, and, as was pointed out, pretty much mandatory.
(Really, I’m surprised an issue was made of it at all when it came to light. I’m positive that had Hitler never existed, the Pope would be exactly the same person he is now, his time in WWII Germany didn’t turn him into someone against homosexuality, nor did it turn him into someone who has a heart for interfaith dialog. It also had zero influence on his love of classical piano and cats.
Again, don’t worry about it, Quasi. You’re unique, you’re you, and we love you no matter when you would have been born. (And hey, I just found out in your OP you share a birthday (but not year) with my sister (who is currently dating a fellow who lived in Germany until a few years ago)! Cool!)
Quasi,
One of my professors was in Hitler Youth, and very enthusiastic about it at the time. Funny thing is that he is Jewish. His parents decided to leave Germany for England after he denounced his grandmother for burying her metal pots and pans in her garden.
You bear no blame in what happened, at least not more than the rest of us. Humans can be unspeakably cruel.
We’re all products of our time and place to some extent, Quasimodem. There’s no telling how or what we might have done in different circumstances and no sense in feeling guilty for how we might have behaved if we’d been there.
Probably not. I certainly wouldn’t have been. If it were so easy to avoid more people would have said, “Wait a minute!” (Well, Ein minuten, bitte, but you understand.)
I hear you man. My mom was in the Hitler Youth. Her dad was in the SA. I was bummed when I heard about it.
It’s difficult when everyone can be proud of their heritage, Irish, Italian, Mexican, African-American, Native American, Polish, whatever. And here I sit with Germany. There was a European comic who joked about talking with a modern day German. “…And all the time, the back of your mind is going ‘Nazi-Nazi-Nazi-Nazi-Nazi…’”
Gee, thanks Adolf.
On the plus side, I’m also half-Latvian. I’d be proud of that, if I knew what the hell they were about. Any book I read about their history makes my eyes glaze over. These pompous Latvian doofuses really cannot write for shit. Plus one book claimed that Latvians turned back Batu Khan, and saved Europe from the Mongols. Oh, Bee Ess! Batu found out that his dad had died, and turned back with his hordes so that he wouldn’t lose out to his brothers in dividing up his dead dad’s loot.
On top of all that, my dad’s side of the family fought for the Nazis too. They were really fighting the Russians, but it still counts as fighting on the wrong side.
Oh well, look at it this way Quasi. How many Americans today are descended from full fledged members of the Klan? Probably a lot.
