Eternal War On The Hitler Youth Germany

“ETERNAL
WAR ON
THE

HITLER

YOUTH”

THE EDELWEISS PIRATES
1938-1945

PUBLISHER S INTRODUCTION

I discovered this interesting bit of history on a web site
called Outlaw History and Theory

(www.charm.net/~claustro/outlaw/), which examines the
practice of illegality among the exploited classes from an
anarchist perspective. What drew me to this article was not
any sort of knee-jerk liberal antifascism, that gets all warm
inside at any talk of resistance to fascism no matter what the
source, but rather the description of resistance by youth
largely from the exploited classes attacking the domination
under which they lived with audacity even when it took the
form of a genocidal totalitarian police state of the most
extreme form. The actions these youth took were direct action,
and in the case of the Edelweiss Pirates, seem to have been
largely autonomous. The Meuten were apparently connected
with communist groups, and I wish the article had gone into
differences between the practice of the Pirates and the Meuten,
since this could have been a fruitful area for practical analysis,
but of course an article like this is just a beginning.

To be clear, I am not interested in antifascism by itself.
Without a clear revolutionary perspective, the struggle against
fascism all too easily degenerates into the struggle for liberal
values and the democratic state. Thus, I agree with Alfredo
Bonanno's statement: "I have never liked fascists, nor
consequently fascism as a project. For other reasons (but which

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when carefully examined turn out to be the same), I have never
liked democratic, liberal, republican, Gaullist, labour, marxist,
communist, socialist or any other of those projects. Against them
I have always opposed not so much my being anarchist as my
being different, and therefore anarchist." I publish this article in
that spirit, desiring and working for a struggle against all
states, regardless of their political form like that of the
Edelweiss Pirates against the Nazi state in Germany between
1938 and 1945.

-Wolfi Landstreicher

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THE EDELWEISS PIRATES

"ETERNAL WAR ON THE HITLER YOUTH"
1938-1945

Within months of coming to power in Germany in 1933 the
Nazis had effectively smashed what was perceived to be one of
the best organized working classes in the world. The
Communist and Socialist parties and their trade unions,
militias and social organizations had been banned: the activists
had been executed, imprisoned, exiled or had gone
underground. Working class districts were sealed off and
subjected to terror raids and house to house searches.

The Nazi programme of creating a National Community and
silencing opposition through the use of terror was to intensify
over the next twelve years.

Involvement in the Hitler Youth and National Socialist
education policies were intended to ensure that the young
became active (or at least passive supporters) of the Nazi state.
Behind the propaganda of the 'National Community' the reality,
especially in working class areas, was very different. The more
the state and the Hitler Youth intruded into the lives of the
young, the more clearly visible acts of non-conformity and
resistance became.

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Thousands of young people declined to take part in the
activities of the Hitler Youth and instead formed groups and
gangs hostile to the Nazis.

From 1938, until the destruction of the Nazi state, the
authorities (especially the Hitler Youth, the police and the
Gestapo) became increasingly concerned about the attitudes
and activities of 'gangs' of working class youths who were
collectively known as 'Edelweiss Pirates'.

The activities of these groups encompassed a whole range of
resistance to the regime (absenteeism from work and school,
graffiti, illegal leaflets, arguing with authority figures,
industrial sabotage and physical violence).

One Edelweiss slogan was "Eternal war on the Hitler Youth".
Attacking Hitler Youth hiking and camping groups in the
countryside end Hitler Youth patrols and Nazi dignitaries in
the towns and cities was a favored activity of Edelweiss Pirate
groups.

The activities of many young people were so problematic for
the Nazis that the Reich youth leadership were driven to
declare "The formation of cliques, i.e. groupings of young
people outside the Hitler Youth, was on the increase a few
years before the war, and has particularly increased during the
war, to such a degree that a serious risk of the political, moral
and criminal breakdown of youth must be said to exist." (1942)

It is important to remember that there activities were not
taking place under a 'liberal' regime but in the years just before
and during the Nazi's total war on 'Bolshevism' and the West
and after almost a decade of National Socialist education and
propaganda in the schools. The gang members were from the

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On the 25th October 1944 the situation was so serious that the
national leader of the SS (Heinrich Himmler) issued an
ordinance for the 'combating of youth cliques' at the end of a
long series of actions aimed at defeating the youth and protest
movements.

Apart from 'ringleaders' the Nazis did not execute large
numbers of German youths involved in or sympathetic to the
Pirates in the way they executed Jews and Poles. This was
partly because they didn't know who all of the Pirates were
(despite the massive surveillance and repression machinery
and volumes of files held by the authorities on known Pirates)
and partly because the Pirates were potential workers in
armament factories and future soldiers. National Socialist
ideological concepts such as the 'healthy stock of German
youth' is likely to have also have played a part in the state's
response.

Involvement in the Pirates and the Meuten meant that many
members moved from non-conformity through to open protest
and political resistance against the Nazi state. The history of
everyday life in Nazi Germany is often forgotten against the
backdrop of the Second World War and successful Nazi
propaganda of a nation united behind Nazi ideology. The fact
that there was defiance and resistance by thousands should
not be forgotten, and the activities of the Edelweiss Pirates and
the Meuten, should be of inspiration to anti-fascists
everywhere.

generation on which the Nazi system had operated
unhindered.

Although most Pirates had no explicit political doctrine, their
everyday experience of encounters with National Socialist
authority and regimented work and leisure led them into
conflict with the Nazis and into anti-Nazi activity.

The group members were almost exclusively working class
being mainly unskilled or semi-skilled workers and most
members were aged between 14 and 18 years (most males
over 18 were conscripted into the army) and had grown up
and been educated in schools and homes under National
Socialist rule.

The gangs usually consisted of about a dozen young men and
(some) women who belonged together because they lived or
worked in the same area. The Pirates relied on informal
structures of communication for support and "developed a
remarkable knack for rewriting the hit songs inserting new
lines". The songs often expressed a thirst for freedom and calls
to fight the Nazis.

The different groups and their structures arose spontaneously
and their understanding of the problems they were facing was
formed by the day to day realties of Nazi society. Gang activity
revolved around meeting up, socializing, and confronting the
regime in different ways.

In the working class districts such as Leipzig, youth gangs
emerged in the former red strongholds that, while broadly
similar to the Edelweiss Pirates, had a more politicized class
identity and drew on the communist and socialist traditions of

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their neighborhoods. These gangs were known as 'Meuten'
(literally 'Packs').

Gestapo reports on the Leipzig Meuten estimated their
numbers at 1500 between 1937 and 1939. The Meuten,
probably because of their clearer political position, were
subject to more detailed state attention and suffered more
massive and ruthless repression than some of the other youth
groups.

Reports of brawls with members of the Hitler Youth (especially
the disciplinary patrols), of assaults on uniformed personnel, of
jeers and insults on Nazi dignitaries, are widespread and
documents from the time give a flavor of what was going on.

"I therefore request that the police ensure that this riff-raff is
dealt with once and for all. The HJ [Hitler Youth] are taking
their lives in their hands when they go out on the streets". (SA
Unit report 1941).

"For the past month none of the Leaders of 25/39 Troop has
been able to proceed along the Hellweg or Hoffestrasse
(southern part) without being subject to abuse from these
people. The Leaders are hence unable to visit the parents of
Youth members who live in these streets. The Youth
themselves, however, are being incited by the so called
bundisch (youth movement) youth. They are either failing to
turn up for duty or seeking to disrupt it." (Hitler Youth report
to the Gestapo 1942).

"It has recently been established that members of the armed
forces are to be found among them (the youth gangs), and they
exploit their membership of the Wehrmacht to display a
particularly arrogant demeanor. There is a suspicion that it is

these youths who have been inscribing the walls of the
pedestrian subway... with the slogans 'Down with Hitler', 'The
OKW (military high command) is lying', 'medals for murder'
and 'Down with Nazi brutality' etc. However often these
inscriptions are removed, within a few days new ones appear
on the walls again." (National Socialist Party Branch report to
the Gestapo 1943).

It appears that the authority's response to the Pirates was
confused at the start, some seeing them as "delinquents who
would grow out of it". However as confrontations and incidents
(and Hitler Youth casualties) increased, the authorities took
the situation more seriously and repression of the Pirate
groups escalated.

Against the sophisticated terror of the Nazi state the only
advantage that the gangs had were their numbers and their
ability to retreat into "normal" life. Despite this thousands of
Pirates were rounded up in repressive measures which for
some ended in the youth concentration camps or public
execution.

For example, on the 7 December 1942 the Gestapo bloke up
twenty-eight (28) groups with a total of some 130 members.
However, the activities of the Pirates continued (and in some
cases escalated).

The Cologne Pirates had joined an underground group which
sheltered army deserters, concentration camp prisoners and
forced laborers. They made armed raids on military depots and
took part in partisan fighting. The chief of the Cologne Gestapo
fell victim to the Pirates in the autumn of 1944. In November
1944 the Nazi's publicly hanged members of the Cologne
Edelweiss Pirates.

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