HJ patrol service
The HJ patrol service was a special formation of the Hitler Youth (HJ) whose task was to maintain internal discipline in the HJ and to fight other youth groups. Despite close cooperation with the police authorities , the HJ patrol service was not allowed to take any police measures of its own, but with the enactment of the “Law on the Hitler Youth” in 1936 and the enactment of compulsory youth service in 1939, it was given ever more extensive powers. From 1938 it served as a junior organization for the SS , in particular for the SS disposable troops , the SS death's head associations and the SS Junker schools .
history
The establishment of a uniform HJ patrol service was ordered on July 21, 1934 by the Reich Youth Leadership . Even before that, individual units designated as patrol duty had been established locally in the Hitler Youth, which were primarily intended to ensure internal discipline in the Hitler Youth. Experienced members of the Hitler Youth between the ages of 16 and 18 who were firmly established in the National Socialist ideology were to be seconded to patrol duty. In autumn 1935, Baldur von Schirach ordered that the Hitler Youth patrol service had to act in "strictest agreement" with the security service (SD) when monitoring opposing youth associations, especially the Bundestag youth .
Despite this decree, the comprehensive regulations for the HJ patrol service of March 1936 again restricted the powers of the HJ patrol service to HJ members. At the beginning of 1937 - after the passing of the "Law on the Hitler Youth" in December 1936 and the associated confirmation of the Hitler Youth as a state youth - they were extended to the "entire German youth". The surveillance of “Bund groups”, which had been practiced for a long time, was only explicitly mentioned in the guidelines of June 1, 1938 as the task of the HJ patrol service.
In 1938 von Schirach and Heinrich Himmler , Reichsführer SS , agreed on close cooperation between the Hitler Youth and the SS and the expansion of the Hitler Youth patrol service to become a youth organization for the SS:
"Since the HJ patrol duty has to carry out similar tasks as the SS for the entire movement, it is set up as a special formation to secure the offspring for the general SS, but if possible, the offspring for the SS troops, skulls and junker schools from this formation should also be set up be taken. ... The responsible SS leaders and SS doctors are called in for the admission examination for patrol duty, which is carried out according to the principles of racial selection of the SS ... "
A little later, Himmler ordered the use of the HJ patrol service at the security police.
On August 31, 1939, the establishment of an independent BDM patrol service was ordered, which was to take over the tasks of the HJ patrol service in the BDM and thus compensate for the loss of personnel in the HJ patrol service that was to be expected due to the outbreak of the Second World War .
After the outbreak of war, HJ fire brigade troops were set up in the HJ patrol service to support the fire brigades , which had been weakened by conscription. Around 700,000 boys were trained in them between 1939 and 1943. The actual political tasks thus faded into the background. That is why the HJ patrol service was replaced with a "Reich Order of the Reich Youth Leadership" on August 26, 1943 by the surveillance offices of the Hitler Youth and the Hitler Youth patrols, which were supposed to consist of adult Hitler Youth leaders trained by the Security Police or SD. The HJ patrol service continued to exist as a pure junior organization of the SS divisions.
The HJ patrol service was banned and dissolved as part of the Hitler Youth on October 10, 1945 with the Control Council Act No. 2 , and its relatives were to be indicted as the main culprits or accused as part of the denazification after examination .
tasks
The HJ patrol service took on various tasks during its existence, but the core area was always the control of the children and adolescents belonging to the Hitler Youth for system-compliant behavior. This group of people increased significantly between 1934 and 1939, initially through the growth of the Hitler Youth through membership, then in 1936 through the declaration of state youth and in 1939 through the introduction of compulsory youth service. With this latest development, the HJ patrol service was able to extend its control to all children and young people between 10 and 18 years of age, including the small group of people who evaded youth service.
In a 1937 report, the tasks were summarized as follows:
"The HJ patrol service monitors the appearance of all German youth who are united in the HJ according to the State Youth Act with regard to general behavior, uniform, visits to bars, control of the HJ homes for cleanliness and order, supervision of youth wandering and youth hostels, stewards - and guard duty at major events, camp police, transport escort, search for missing persons, investigation and investigation into service offenses and criminal acts. His area of responsibility also includes advice and help for the wandering youth, station service, protection of young people from criminal elements, fight against juvenile delinquency, protection of national wealth from damage caused by Hitler Youth travel groups, etc. "
The task of "monitoring youth wandering and youth hostels" was primarily used to intimidate and persecute other youth associations and illegal youth groups, even before this was expressly a task of the HJ patrol service in 1938. For this purpose, all young people at popular hiking destinations were regularly checked by the Hitler Youth patrol service at popular hiking destinations, including badges of forbidden organizations, guitars, song books and tent equipment were confiscated. Since the HJ patrol service repeatedly asserted police powers and in some cases also made arrests, state organs protested repeatedly against the use of the HJ patrol service and the indiscriminate control of all young people. Therefore, from 1936 onwards, larger actions by the Hitler Youth were regularly accompanied by members of the Gestapo .
The groups particularly persecuted by the HJ patrol service in the years up to 1939 included the Nerother Wandervogel and various Jungschaft groups, but also all the other groups, some of which were only assigned to the Bundish youth through external characteristics. In the war years, the so-called "wild cliques" such as the Edelweiss pirates , the Leipzig packs or the swing youth were persecuted with particular severity.
structure
In the 1938 agreement between von Schirach and Himmler on cooperation between the Hitler Youth and the SS, the target strength of the Hitler Youth patrol service was also specified. After that, there had to be a following of the HJ patrol service in every Hitler Youth spell , i.e. around 150 boys. From this, a target strength of 100,000 to 120,000 patrol service members can be derived, which increased again during the Second World War through the establishment of the HJ fire brigade troops.
Organizationally, the units of the HJ patrol service were directly attached to the personnel offices of the HJ areas , so they were outside the normal command structure of the HJ ban. The personnel offices also ensured that there was close interaction with the security police, the Gestapo and the SD.
literature
- Matthias von Hellfeld : Bündische Jugend and Hitlerjugend. On the history of adaptation and resistance 1933–1939 . Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1987. ISBN 3-8046-8683-4 .
- Arno Klönne : Youth in the Third Reich. The Hitler Youth and their opponents . Piper, Munich 1995. ISBN 3-492-12045-8 .
- Werner Klose : Generation in lockstep. A documentary report. Stalling, Oldenburg 1964.
- Armin Nolzen : The patrol service of the Hitler Youth (HJ) and the “surveillance of the youth”, 1934–1945. Research problems and questions . In: Average Offender. Contributions to the history of National Socialism . Vol. 16 . Association - Black cracks - Rote Straße, Berlin 2000. ISBN 3-922611-84-2 . Pp. 13-51.