Obama’s Sept. 8 speech to schoolchildren
President Obama told a student reporter last month that he would be making an address to schoolchildren on September 8:
ServiceWire has the announcement and broadcast schedule for the speech.
The Daily Paul picked up the story last week and linked to teachers’ manuals pegged to Obama’s address, which have now been linked on Drudge.
The documents have a heavy activist bent:
During the Speech:
• As the President speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note-taking graphic organizer such as a Cluster Web, or students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children can draw pictures and write as appropriate. As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following:
What is the President trying to tell me?
What is the President asking me to do?
What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?
• Students can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?
• Students can record any questions they have while he is speaking and then discuss them after the speech. Younger children may need to dictate their questions.
After the Speech:
• Teachers could ask students to share the ideas they recorded, exchange sticky notes or stick notes on a butcher paper poster in the classroom to discuss main ideas from the speech, i.e. citizenship, personal responsibility, civic duty.
• Students could discuss their responses to the following questions:What do you think the President wants us to do?
Does the speech make you want to do anything?
Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?
Schools have used students as little lobbyists on everything from illegal immigration to gay marriage to anti-war activism.
And most recently: Census collection.
Will Obama be able to resist issuing a call to youth arms to marshal help in passing his legislative agenda?
The thing is: He won’t need to make the call explicit.
Obama zealot teachers like this one across the country will do all the extra-curricular bullying and haranguing for him. Remember:
Partial transcript:
Harris:We want to talk about the presidential election. I want to ask you, who are you pulling for? Raise your hand.
Student: Obama.
Harris: You pullin for Obama. Who you pullin for?
Student: Obama.
Harris:Any of you pullin for John McCain? That’s fine, say him as well.
Student: Obama.
Student: Obama.
[Cathy, the daughter of an American soldier answers McCain.]
Harris:John, oh lord, John McCain.
Oh Jesus, John McCain.
Ok, now I wanna axe you somethin.
Why are you pullin for John McCain? It’s ok, but why are you pullin for John McCain?
Cathy: I thinks it’s because my parents are going for him too.
Harris: Ok, your parents are going for him. Why are you pullin for Ba-RACK. Barack.
Student: I just want a black president sometimes.
Ok, you want a black president.
Student: The reason why I want Barack Obama is because he’s making good changes in the good country and stuff like that.
Harris: So, he’s making good changes for our country. Now can you tell me just a little bit more, like what type of changes?
Like not having big fights between Iraq and having soldiers killed.
So in other words, Barack is going to end that war in Iraq. What do you all know about that war in Iraq?
[Harris addresses Kathy] Talk, cause yo daddy in the military. Talk. It’s a senseless war! And by the way, Cathy, the person that you’re picking for president said that our troops could stay in Iraq for another hundred years if they need to!
[Camera pans to Cathy, in near tears.]
Harris: So that means that your daddy could stay in the military for another hundred years!
Reason number 999,999,965 to take control of your own children’s education.
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Kim Il Sung will be proud. I assume you get extra credit for wearing a blue t-shirt to school that day.
If I had children in school I would write my childrens’ principals and instruct them that I do not want my children participating. Further if they will not guarantee that in writing, I would keep my children home on September 8.
P.S. I am certain the President will tell the students how blessed they are to live in freedom in a country where their rights are protected by the Constituion and how our system stands a shining beacon to the rest of the world.
/sarc
Maybe the manual could suggest students ask, “Why is the president and his corrupt friends sticking me – and my children – with a $11 trillion debt so he can pay off his cronies?
The Obama Youth Corps has to start somewhere.
The Nuremburg Rallies will be televised and in Closed Circuit TV. Study guide and the proper way to brainwash students booklets will be available at taxpayer expense. All praise and glory to Der Führer.
Riding the yellow prison bus to schools of indoctrination…
Keep them home, have a tea party around the flag pole(if the still allow those patriotic symbols).
I won’t have much to say if someone can show me the same thing when Bush was President.
Yes, just saw the links Misscheryl posted over at the “science czar” thread and forwarded it to a family member. I read the letter from Arne Duncan to school principals, but can’t bring myself to look at the linked “Classroom Activities” the secretary suggests.
I am so grateful that my children are done with that phase of their educations (and they were homeschooled anyway); now all they have to deal with are the all-too-often-liberal professors. At least they are well armed, both intellectually and spiritually.
This is particularly disturing.
Maybe September 8 can be Keep Your Child at Home Day.
Looks to me like my kids will be watching…a movie in the teaters since I will be keeping them home on that day.
What better way for a Marxist to celebratecLabor Day than with a mass indoctrination. Maybe the teachers will go over their personal copies of “50 Ways To Show Honor and Loyalty to Der Führer”.
My two sons are ready with their questions. I did not even have to prompt them.
1. Why is President Obama trying to take our right to Free Speech away?
2. Why does President Obama want to force us to use Government run healthcare when Congress and the White House doesn’t have to?
This might be off topic, but my 10 year old came home yesterday and informed us that they were taken on a field trip to Fernbank Science Center and given Sex Education without notifying the parents of the trip let alone the subject matter of the trip. My son cam home speaking of “Wet Dreams” and they were shown female and male models and discussed the female and male body parts. The boys went yesterday and the girls will be going next week. I wish they would have contacted us so we could be ready for the questions. Plus, he told us the kids on the bus home were abuzz about the Sex Ed. The kids on the bus include 4 year olds in the Pre-K program on up 10 year olds in the 5th.
I do not mind the instruction but it would of been nice to have a heads up since we do have younger kids in our household. Let alone a field trip off school property without parnets knowledge.
Yep, have the children participate and organize and draw up action plans and feel like they are doing something. All the while they are participating in a futile excercise to make them feel good.
I never thought I would see the day when this country would have its own version of the Young Pioneers.
whenever zero speaks there is a lie in the making, so what is zero trying to tell the student, a lie.
Time to make another poster: Obama as Joe Camel, with “Socialism” underneath it.
Questions!
Are the public schools required to show this?
Can a school board decide not to show this in their district?
Can we as tax payers (property taxes) fight this before it is shown?
Good luck to anyone who tries that; in Massachusetts there was a rather well publicized case where parents objected to the “public school”
teachingindoctrinating first and second graders about the normalcy of homosexuality.The judge essentially told the parents that they had no right to object to anything that the schools taught, that once the kids walked through that schoolhouse door the parents’ rights ended.
Funny how it doesn’t work that way when anyone wants to even mention alternate views about evolution – and I’m not going to get into a debate on that particular subject; it is only cited as but one example of the double standard that exists when it comes to parents’ rights to oversee their children’s educations.
It seems this bho and team are trying to see the parents have no influence on their kids. The government should and will have it all. I am reading 1984 and this is happening in the book about what the kids did to their parents. This has got to be stopped for our Republic to survive.
L
Obama Youth Brigade…brought to you by SEIU and ACORN.
That is why it is imperative to remove children from government run schools which is basically another aspect of socialism. The STATE has NO business educating children ala the Constitution. Private and homeschools are the only way to go. It is not a question of are we able to remove our children but rather how will we accomplish it. Even single parents and those on limited income do it. There is really no excuse.
You should check the statutes regarding schools taking children off of school property with out the parents’ consent; I find it quite surprising, given the litigious society that we live in, that any school would do so without all the proper release forms – what if one of the kids had gotten sick, or was in an accident?
Way back when I was in school, we had to have signed consent forms filled out by our parent(s) or we weren’t allowed to go on the field trip. And when my kids were still school aged and wanted to go on any kind of field trip with the youth group from our church, there were permission slips galore to fill out.
Seems kind of fishy that your son’s school would take the students off campus without having their butts covered legally.
Oh Lord. Why does the image of the Pied Piper of Hamlin come to mind?
The school children here have a blanket field trip form that is signed at the beginning of the year, and is good for all the field trips throughout the school year.
Didn’t think they would use it for nefarious reasons. Silly me.
Then the teachers would be teaching to empty classrooms.
And next election that judge would be gone.
Cough cough, my kid is getting sick. Probably be worse by the 8th.
Get them while they are young, propaganda is easier when they know nothing.
Atlanta Media Guy & Wayfaring Stranger: My daughter was in the VA public schools when they started their sex-ed program. I reviewed the materials and ‘opted’ her out because they were going to teach with no moral background to them. I had to front-up with the principal to sign the papers ‘opting’ her out and he stated that the school would have to find activities for her to do during the sex-ed classes. I told him that was his job and I also asked why I had to ‘opt-out’ while those who acquiesced with the program didn’t have to ‘opt-in.’ Couldn’t get him to anser that one.
Later, we took our duaghter out of public school and put her in our church school when they showed a PG-13 movie to her fifth grade class without notifying us. Again, I confronted the principal and was told the school was considered ‘parentis in loco’ (is that right, Chap?) which meant they were the ‘parents in place’ while kids were in the school.
I’ve got to believe that anybody who has the money and available private schools in their area yet still keep their kids in public schools would agree with this administrations policies already. I suppose there are some nonpolitical/agenda driven school districts out there but I bet few.
nail49 said:
Wow, even church school, eh? .. Gotta stay after ‘em’ all the time.
Ah! We had to get permission for each and every field trip. How things have changed – and not for the better IMHO.
Afterwards, there will be a coloring contest.
. . . Obama youth? Seems like I’ve heard of a similar group 65 or 70 years ago. Naaaaaaa, it couldn’t happen in this country.
How soon before I pledge is changed to All Hail or Dear Leader?
U.S. Department of Education - started under the Carter Administration. What has it accomplished? Nothing but more federal control wresting it from the local communities.
U.S. Department of Energy - started under the Carter Administration. Stated goal was to reduce dependence on foreign oil and make energy more efficient among other things. Failed in every endeavor but created one big bureaucracy.
I say abolish both of them along with the Internal Revenue Service.
This is why my kids will never see the inside of an american public school.
EVER.
Sadly, that requires enough parents to have the willingness to be active participants in their children’s education. Having homeschooled mine, I can’t tell you how it broke my heart year after year hearing other parents rejoicing at the end of the summer that school would soon be in session so they didn’t have the kids at home – and not all who express such sentiment work outside the home.
Yes, there are lots of parents who take an active interest in their children’s education, but reading some comments here and elsewhere, it’s apparent that the school system(s) must be monitored. Take nothing for granted.
BTW it doesn’t have to take a lot of money to homeschool; I know the statutes vary from state to state as to the qualifications for homeschooling, but there are ways to do so no matter what the circumstances if one has the will to do it.
We did it back when the first question people asked was Is that legal?
At least now the general population has had more exposure to the concept.
Judging from the second video, I guess the North Carolina public schools accept ebonics as a substitute for English.
Why would you aks such a thing?
I have never been more happy to shell out $448/month for Catholic school tuition than I am today.
NOW my frickin blood is BOILING!!!!!!!
STAY TF AWAY FROM MY KID!!!
I think it will be a sick day.
JS Ragman–at least it works for getting a teaching certificate.
Didn’t Milton Freeman say that US badly needed the voucher system that Carter vetoed. Now we know why. Big Brother Obama telling kids how mean their “teabagging” parents are. Just ax them.
Come into to my parlor said the spider to the fly–it is just in the nature of the predator so no, he can not resist.
In Honor of the President’s address I shall feed the lawn and consider it my Service to America Creaky Old Men Corp
And good for you sonofdy –THEY ARE OUR’S BAMBI!
—
Happy Ramadan to all (bang bang)
And the following week???
They will ALL be checking the validity of this ‘report’ behind the bushes, boys and girls together.
What, they don’t think 10 year olds are curious?
Obama & gov’t, STAY AWAY from the kids.
I am declaring September 8 as “National Swine Flu Avoidance Day.”
Why?………..wait for it……
“Because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
I wonder when lgm will appear to impart his vast wisdom to us on this momentus event involving the Dear Leader?
Sort of, except this time it’s the rat leading the kids out of town.
I won’t kid you, homeschooling is hard work – especially doing it on a shoestring budget as we did. But the rewards are many.
Thank goodness you picked this up Michelle! I’ve already talked to the Super of my children’s school.
The stupidity keeps on coming from BHO.
Let me guess, the opening music will be the Horst Wessel Song and the closing will be Let Morning Shine.
Why would the president want to tell me anything?
What if the President asks me to do something I don’t want to do?
What other ideas and actions are there besides the ones the President is challenging me to think about?
Could he be hiding an ulterior reason for asking me to do a specific job?
How much will I be paid for this job and how much vacation time will I get?
How much money do I have to donate the the DNC in order to get this job?
Will I be forced to join a union?
After the Speech:
• Teachers could ask students to ignore everything they just heard and go back to their normal routine because indoctrinating little school children is what they used to do in the USSR – alas, it’s not around anymore.
Next teachers should discuss the Declaration of Independence.
• Students could discuss their responses to the following questions:
What do you think the Declaration of Independence inspired people to do?
Does the Declaration of Independence make you proud to be a US citizen?
Does the First Amendment of the Constitution allow us to say that President Obama is a stinking radical socialist?
I denounce Danceswithdachshunds! You have been flagged! Get your shovel and head to the train station. Don’t forget warm clothes.
Don’t forget The International playing softly in the background as he addresses the kids.
He could’t do this on Labor Day and had to settle for Tuesday.
One of the best promos for Homeschooling I’ve seen in a long time.
I wonder if parents will be able to opt-out ?
Savvy parents will send their kids to school wearing “Palintologist” t-shirts, or “Palin 2012″.
Will the Chicago Wolf Woman be on the broadcast also?
Too bad. We don’t allow Marxists to approach our children.
Though I may end up standing naked, flagged and denounced I will remain standing for liberty.
Remember this: They always come for the children … first!
Gladz: Actually I either misstated or you misread. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when the public school showed the PG-13 movie. Shortly thereafter my daughter was in our church school from which she graduated.
BTW, how is your husband, Abner?
Communists always treat their youth as the next generation to carry the red flag. Nothing like signing up future commies and planting all sorts of “socialist” views in their heads. Won’t it be great when these little “Obama Youth” turn you in to the authorities when they don’t even have the brain power to spell their own names. The kids are the key to socialism/communism. Once they kill off all the “racists” No one will question the socialist future because everyone is brainwashed and subjucated by the system.
I agree. My son is already in college so I cannot take him out for the day but I suggest that all “Tea Party” members with younger childern take that advice.
Sept. 9? Remember from the campaign we already have the kids singing the Obamanthem.
It would be fitting considering the path down which ZERO aims to drag us.
I’d guess this 9/8 presentation is tied into his attempt to re-write history.
Make 9/11 a National Day of Service/Earth Day.
3000+ people killed by radical Muslims? Down the memory hole. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia..
Well, of course they have to indoctrinate other people’s children, since they abort their own.
Funny… since this story came out, I’ve been watching the wording on the Teacher’s Guide on the Dept of Eds website (you can see it here in MS Word) and it has been changed several times… getting a little milder each time.
For example, an original draft asked how students can help Obama achieve his goals. That is now gone. There are other similar examples.
But, wait a minute. Isn’t he already addressing people he considers shoolchildren, us?
I have the great pleasure of having a senior in high school who is both conservative and a devout Christian.
Am I the ONLY one who is sending his kid to school that day with an audio recorder and instructions to observe his teachers and fellow students, and then report back to me? Really? Nobody thinks a little spying is in order?
I agree with Wethal. This is part of the effort to make us forget 9/11/2001. I would get a t-shirt with the slogan 9/11 Never Forget, and have my kid wear that to school. Fight these revisions of our nation’s history.
This is just plain creepy. Its kind of like that description of pornography… I’m not sure how to define it, BUT I KNOW IT WHEN I SEE IT.
Sounds like the Youth Alliance of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party is being reborn in America.
The group name “Youth Alliance of the National Socialist American Worker’s Party” actually sounds reasonable to a Democrat, until they find out where all those words come from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Youth
Then they go crazy.
Speaking of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, in the earliest depiction of that event he is wearing a jocker’s attire.
1. 52% voted for him to bring about “change”
2. He now wants his pay but there is some resistance among the populace.
3. He will take the children.
I read about this, and the first thing that comes to mind is that disturbing video from the 2008 campaign — the one with the glassy-eyed children being egged on by their parents to sing “The Dear Leader” song. You remember:
“Obama’s gonna lead ‘em…”
Liberals always want to co-opt the children at an early age, so that they can grow up into “The New Soviet Man” or its modern-day equivalent. Same song, different verse…
Yeah. But I’ll bet the Obamabots have already downloaded the original version and plan to use it.
The updates are there so The B.O. can say his address and action plan are tepid. Parents will be given the updated document and the children will be
indoctrinatedre-educatedinstructed using the original.nail49, Mr. K is terrific (has to be to put up with moi)! I’ll let him know you asked about him.
Oh, and thanks for clearing things up. I sure want to believe there are scholastic refuges out there.
What Obama really needs are a few of these
thetoysurgeon, you are absolutely right.
In Sweden, the Minister of Education (later the Prime Minister) said he wanted the children out of the homes as soon as possible and into gov’t run day care. His plan included raising taxes so high that both parents have to work. (Sound familiar?) This forces the parents to send their kids to gov’t run daycare. This is due to the fact that the taxes are spent on opening gov’t run daycare centers! How nice.
Socialism has always feared the family. If the parents are allowed to teach their children, early, without input from the gov’t, they will be be taught the truth about the evils of socialism.
This is why they go after the empty brains of the children. To fill them up with socialist beliefs and slogans.
He’s aleady got one, and is working on more.
I can taste the bile…
You are correct. To a socialist, Government IS the family.
BroBama may want to downplay 9/11 to appease his mohammedan family and friends and the likes of Bill Maher and Ward Churchill. That is somewhat like the demand curve for Ice Water in Hell.
But be careful: The Obama Youth are watching. Enemies of He Who Has Come will be reported.
Took our kids out of public school 10 years and never for one minute regretted it. They actually teach the 3 Rs at our school!
If your kids are still in public school and you aren’t happy with it, take them out NOW!~
I think this is a perfect time for parents to express their dislike by having a Keep Your Child At Home day on Sept. 8. My children would not attend classes that day, nor would they attend on any other day when topics that are offensive to me and our family values are presented as wholesome and right (like abortion or gay marriage).
Ain’t happening. I am their mother and it is MY RIGHT as a parent to decide what they’ll be exposed to and when. Liberals can keep their damn noses out of our business. They forget that in nature there are few things more ferocious than a mother protecting her children.
Usually seniors skip in March, April, or May…do it in September.
Socialism also fears independent thinkers, hence their hatred of private schools and homeschooling. Can’t indoctrinate the kiddies if you can’t get them into your
brainwashing campsschools.Hitler Youth
Young Pioneers
Obama’s Posse
Nope. Not gonna happen.
ECS
Remember they haven’t come this far without a grand plan and unfortunately at this time in the game they are a few steps ahead of us. So what are we going to do about it?
When they find out you kept your children from school you’ll be on the list!
I watched “Idiocracy” the other night and the resemblence to this poor sick country was frightening.
I can tell you right now, I’ll be at the school with my child on that day unless I keep her home altogether.
Today was the first day back for teachers in my district. We always have a back to school meeting and this was mentioned by our principal. I will be keeping a very CLOSE eye on this situation next Tuesday in our building. I will NOT have this propaganda playing in my classroom on Tuesday.
I’m just curious how this woman got a teaching credential. As a holder of a teaching credential with a Master’s degree, I can assure you, she is neither on the same intellectual plane as I am, nor is she nearly as articulate and clear as she needs to be in order to educate elementary school children.
What’s that? Oh…she teaches in North Carolina. Well, I think our good friend Mike Adams has shown us just how wonderful the state-run higher education is in that state. Now we get a sense of how deep the roots actually go.
Now it’s clear.
That’s ok – the kids still left in the classroom to hear the message from Dear Leader will be more than enough to help him “fundamentally change our country.”
One in a long series of sad days for America.
On the whole, those enrolling in schools of education have the lowest SAT scores and many have to retake teachers exams several times in order to pass. The good teachers end up leaving and the bad ones gain tenure.
WTF?????????????????????
http://www.getschooled.com/
Sorry forgot to include this…. http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6678944.html?rssid=190
“I wanna axe you somethin” and, “yo daddy” speak volumes about this so-called educator. Just where do they find such ignorant and poorly educated people? Oh, that’s right, in our leftist universities and colleges after they “learn’t their lessons” in our public school system. Sad.
America and its shameless fascists show up Chavez again. Look kids, here comes puppet Boreack!
Gee, the Propaganda and Indoctrination Czars must have teamed up with the Obama Youth Czar!
Soon the Most Powerful Civil Army Corps Czar will be issuing arm bands!
Good analysis here
only if it’s UN blue…
the entire student population should have a sick-out on that day!!! Don’t participate in his little community organizing effort…show him he is powerless to indoctrinate the little ones…then let the adults stand outside with “HANDS OFF MY CHILD” posters….
THE INDOCTRINATION BEGINS!
Prelude to War
1933 – 1938
On the night of January 30, 1933, Nazis in Berlin celebrated the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany by conducting massive torchlight parades. Hitler Youth units were among those in the columns passing under the watchful gaze of Hitler and Paul von Hindenburg, the elderly president of Germany.
Within two months, Hitler acquired dictatorial powers resulting from the Enabling Act passed by the Nazi controlled Reichstag. Hitler’s acquisition of power meant the Hitler Youth and all other Nazi organizations now had the official power of the State on their side. The period of Nazi Gleichschaltung (forced coordination) immediately began in which all German institutions and organizations were either Nazified or disbanded. Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach now sought to eliminate all 400 of the other competing youth organizations, large and small, throughout Germany.
On April 3, 1933, Schirach sent fifty Hitler Youths storming into the Berlin offices of the Reichs Committee of German Youth Associations, an organization representing nearly six million German children involved a huge array of youth programs. Staff members inside the building were told to continue working and were simply informed they were now under the authority of the Hitler Youth. Thus the majority of Germany’s youth organizations had instantly been placed under Schirach’s control.
Many leaders among the conservative and nationalist youth groups willingly joined ranks with the Hitler Youth. Others, such as the Communist and Jewish youth organizations were quickly disbanded. Various Protestant groups were pressured by the Nazis to join and soon yielded. Offices of the Socialist Workers’ Youth were also raided. Other groups were prevented from holding any gatherings by order of the police and Nazi storm troopers under the pretext of being a “public nuisance.” Within months, most of the competing political and religious youth organizations in Germany vanished.
The only major holdout was the Catholic Youth Organization due in part to the international clout of the Church and an agreement (Concordat) that had been signed between the Vatican and Hitler’s government protecting Catholic institutions in Germany. In Catholic sections of Germany, high ranking Nazis could still be found at Sunday mass along with groups of Hitler Youth in uniform and Hitler Youths serving at the altar wearing their uniforms beneath altar boy robes.
On June 17, 1933, Hitler promoted Schirach to Jugendführer des Deutschen Reiches (Youth Leader of Germany) answerable only to Hitler, with all youth activities in Germany now placed under Schirach’s command. In July, Schirach dissolved the old Reichs Committee of German Youth Associations since it no longer served any purpose.
Reorganization
Schirach soon introduced a new structure to the Hitler Youth based on age. Little boys aged 6 to 10 were allowed to hang around the older boys and participate informally. Boys 10 to 14 belonged to the Jungvolk, then from 14 to 18 were in the actual HJ, the commonly used abbreviation for Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth). Each boy was given a performance booklet recording his progress in athletics and Nazi indoctrination throughout all of his years in the HJ.
Girls 10 to 14 joined the Jungmädel and from 14 to 18 belonged to the BDM, the commonly used abbreviation for Bund Deutcher Mädel (League of German Girls). The girls wore a schoolgirl-style uniform with skirts and blouses along with army-style hiking boots.
However, the Hitler Youth organization was primarily male oriented and would remain so throughout the duration of the Third Reich, although the HJ and BDM did share common traits including a very heavy emphasis on competition.
Just about every task, now matter how big or small, was turned into an individual, team, or unit competition. This included boys and girls sports, the quality of singing during propaganda marches, and Winter Aid collections. Boys and girls were kept constantly busy. The Nazis capitalized on the natural enthusiasm of young people, their craving for action and desire for peer approval, hoping, ultimately, each young person would come to regard his or her HJ or BDM unit as a home away from home, or perhaps as their real home.
Activities for boys included games of hide and seek called ‘Trapper and Indian,’ and war games in which the boys formed platoons, put on red or blue arm bands, then were supposed to hunt down the ‘enemy’ and rip off the other color arm bands. This often resulted in fist fights and outright brawls between platoons. Younger, weaker boys got pummeled while platoon leaders stood by or even encouraged the fighting. Ripped shirts, along with scrapes and bruises were common during these field exercises which were intended to toughen them up.
Leadership Schools
By the end of 1933, the Hitler Youth organization had absorbed twenty German youth leagues and totalled over 3.5 million members, an enormous increase from a year earlier, before Hitler’s acquisition of power, when it had numbered just 107, 956. But this rapid increase also brought big problems, namely the lack of trained, politically reliable local youth leaders. New members absorbed from non-Nazi youth groups brought along non-Nazi sentiments and also struggled to adjust to the strict regimentation and tighter discipline of the Hitler Youth.
To resolve this problem, Reichsführer (leadership) schools were established throughout Germany offering three week cram courses on Nazi racial principles and German history along with practical leadership training, rigorous physical activity and rifle shooting. By August 1934, Schirach reported that over 12,000 Hitler Youth leaders and 24,000 Jungvolk leaders had completed these courses.
The Year of Training
Schirach labeled 1934 as “The Year of Training,” and proclaimed during a speech, “…Whoever marches in the Hitler Youth is not a number among millions but the soldier of an idea. The individual member’s value to the whole is determined by the degree to which he is permeated by the idea. The best Hitler Youth, irrespective of rank and office, is he who completely surrenders himself to the National Socialist world view.”
Vocational training was also emphasized as Schirach and Nazi labor leader Robert Ley initiated the annual National Vocational Competition for Hitler Youth in which teens learning various trades were judged and rewarded, with the winners in each catagory getting to meet Hitler.
In September, Hitler Youth made a notable appearance at the annual Nuremberg rally, an event well-documented in the propaganda film Triumph of the Will by Leni Riefenstahl. A ten minute sequence shows Hitler’s emotional appearance before the enthralled assembly inside the sports stadium amid frequent shouts of “Heil.” In his speech he told them, “Regardless of whatever we create and do, we shall pass away, but in you, Germany will live on…And I know it cannot be otherwise because you are flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood, and your young minds are filled with the same will that dominates us…And when the great columns of our movement march victoriously through Germany today I know that you will join these columns. And we know that Germany is before us, within us, and behind us.”
In October, amid the slogan “Blood and Soil,” the Reich’s Land Service was introduced, offering young city dwellers the opportunity to experience life on German farms. All HJ and BDM members were expected to participate, helping to bring in the harvest, while learning the value of hard labor and the simple life.
Junior Gestapo Agents
An ominous new development within the HJ was the appearance of HJ-Streifendienst (Patrol Force) units functioning as internal political police, maintaining order at meetings, ferreting out disloyal members, and denouncing anyone who criticized Hitler or Nazism including, in a few cases, their own parents.
One case involved a teenaged HJ member named Walter Hess who turned in his father for calling Hitler a crazed Nazi maniac. His father was then hauled off to Dachau under Schutzhaft (protective custody). For setting such an example, Hess was promoted to a higher rank within the HJ.
HJ-Streifendienst members also secretly infiltrated remnants of the old German Youth Movement and provided tips to the Gestapo which led to the arrest of several leaders of these now-clandestine youth groups.
During the 1934 Blood Purge, the top leadership of the SA was systematically murdered on Hitler’s orders. The Nazis also used the occasion to settle old scores with a variety of political foes. Several former rival youth leaders were executed including Catholic Youth leader Adalbert Probst who was “shot while trying to escape.”
The close working relationship between the HJ-Streifendienst and the Gestapo aroused the attention of SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler. Members of the HJ-Streifendienst were targeted for recruitment into the SS and proved to be very valuable recruits. Many entered directly into SS officer training schools. Others joined the SS Totenkopfverbände, the Death’s Head Brigades that operated Dachau and other concentration camps, and later operated the extermination centers in occupied Poland.
Bronze Over Brains
By 1935, about 60 percent of Germany’s young people belonged to the Hitler Youth. Schirach declared it “The Year of Physical Training” and introduced the second major annual HJ event — the Sports Competition. Medals were awarded to youths who performed rigorous athletic drills and met strict physical fitness standards. Every summer, a day would now be set aside as the “Day of the State Youth” for these events.
Physical fitness, according to Hitler, was much more important for his young people than memorizing “dead facts” in the classroom. In his book Mein Kampf, he stated that “…a less well-educated, but physically healthy individual with a sound, firm character, full of determination and willpower, is more valuable to the Volkish community than an intellectual weakling.”
School schedules were adjusted to allow for at least one hour of of physical training in the morning and one hour each evening. Prior to this, only two hours per week had been set aside. Hitler also encouraged young boys to take up boxing to heighten their agressiveness.
Hitler believed tough physical training would instill confidence and that “…this self-confidence must be instilled from childhood into every German. His entire education and training must be designed to convince him of his absolute superiority over others.” He viewed education as a means of raising nationalist enthusiasm in German boys while teaching them to be ready to sacrifice themselves for the Fatherland. Special assemblies were often held in school halls featuring themes of heroism and readiness to die for “the cause.”
The Nazi Classroom
A portrait of Hitler hung in every classroom. Particular emphasis was paid to the subject of history, which was rewritten to emphasize Nazi themes of racial struggle and German pride. “It is the task of the racial state,” Hitler declared, “to ensure that at long last world history will be written and that within its context the racial question will be elevated to the dominant position…so that a generation will emerge capable of facing the final and decisive decisions on this globe…”
Hitler’s struggle for power from 1918 to 1933 was emphasized, glorifying events such as the Beer Hall Putsch and offering hero-worship of Nazi figures such as Horst Wessel (a Berlin SA leader killed by Communists) along with Nazi mythology concerning Hitler’s liberation of Germany from the international Jewish/Bolshevik world conspiracy.
Racial indoctrination in the classroom included teaching young children how to spot a Jew by describing the physical traits which Nazis believed were associated with inferior peoples. In some classrooms, where Jews were still present, a Jewish child would be brought to the front of the class as an example. The teacher would then use a pointer, highlighting certain facial characteristics.
Hitler Youth songs also contained anti-Semitic lyrics including one song that said: “Yes, when the Jewish blood splashes from the knives, things will go twice as well.”
In addition to the traditional German school system, the Nazis established three types of elite schools for the training of the young Nazis: the Adolf Hitler Schools run by the Hitler Youth organization; the Napolas (National Political Institutes of Education) and the Ordensburgen (Order Castles) both run by the Nazi Party.
There were eventually ten Adolf Hitler Schools which took boys at age 12 from the Jungvolk and provided six years of intensive, highly disciplined leadership training under Spartan-like conditions. Top rated graduates of these school were eligible for the exclusive Ordensburgen for another three years of training after which they would be ready to assume high level positions in the Nazi Party. It was from these Ordensburgen, steeped in Teutonic mythology, that Hitler hoped would emerge a “violently active, dominating, brutal youth…indifferent to pain, without weakness and tenderness.”
Lowered Educational Standards
Throughout Germany, the entire teaching profession all the way up to university level had been purged of Jewish professors and anyone deemed politically unreliable regardless of their proven teaching abilities or achievements, including Nobel Prize recipients. Teachers who remained in the college classroom lived under the constant fear they might be denounced by one of their students and wind up in a concentration camp. This insecurity resulted in academic timidity which further lowered educational standards.
National Socialist teachers of questionable ability stepped into grammar school and high school classrooms to form young minds, strictly abiding by the Party motto, “The supreme task of the schools is the education of youth for the service of Volk and State in the National Socialist spirit.” They taught Nazi propaganda which was then recited back by their students as unshakable points of view with no room for disagreement or discussion.
Over the years, the Hitler Youth organization would gradually supplant the traditional elementary and secondary school system and become the main force educating German youth. And the quality of that education would get worse. Students emerging from the elite Adolf Hitler Schools were in superb physical condition and thoroughly drilled in Nazi ideology, but lacked basic skills in math and science. Biology, for example, had been completely corrupted to advance Nazi racial doctrine.
Under Hitler, a school system that had once been considered among the finest in the world, became substandard almost overnight. Nazi scientists, educated before Hitler, would later complain they were partially hindered in developing new super weapons by the recruitment of young graduates from the elite Nazi schools.
In 1936, all of the Catholic parochial and Protestant denominational schools were abolished. Church holy days which had usually meant a day off from school were now ignored and classroom prayers were banned. Celebrations of Christmas and Easter were discouraged, replaced by pre-Christian Yule or Solstice celebrations. The Nazis later forced teachers to renounce any affiliation with professional church organizations.
Year of the Jungvolk
Schirach’s goal in 1936 was to enroll the entire population of ten-year-olds throughout Germany into the Hitler Youth as a present for Hitler on his 47th birthday. Called “The Year of the Jungvolk,” enormous pressure was put on young children to join. In school, they were pressured by Nazi-affiliated teachers. At home and at play, they were aggressively pursued by individual Hitler Youths and through neighborhood propaganda marches, meetings for parents, and special childrens’ sing-a-longs.
On April 20, Hitler’s birthday, a ceremony was held inside the ancient Marienburg Castle of the Teutonic Order. Amid the glow of torchlights, solemn beating of drums and fanfare of trumpets, ten-year-old boys entered the Jungvolk by swearing the following oath: “In the presence of this blood banner which represents our Führer, I swear to devote all my energies and my strength to the saviour of our country, Adolf Hitler. I am willing and ready to give up my life for him, so help me God.” This was followed by the singing of the Hitler Youth anthem, the Fahnenlied (Banner Song) written by Schirach.
After first joining the organization, the boys spent a few months on probation while undergoing training by older HJ members. A test was then given in which they had to recite all the verses of the Horst Wessel Song and answer basic questions concerning Nazi ideology and the history of the Party. They also had to prove physical fitness by running 60 meters in twelve seconds, and take part in a cross country hike lasting a day and a half.
A Mutprobe (courage test) was then given such as jumping from a first or second story ledge into a large canvass held by older HJ. After passing all of the tests, each boy was entitled to wear the brown shirt bearing the Jungvolk insignia with a leather shoulder strap and the coveted Hitler Youth dagger bearing the inscription Blut und Ehre (Blood and Honor).
Mandatory Participation
On December 1, 1936, Hitler decreed “The Law concerning the Hitler Youth” which mandated that all young Germans (excluding Jews) would “be educated physically, intellectually and morally in the spirit of National Socialism” though the Hitler Youth from the age of ten onward. This law also effectively ended the Catholic Youth Organization which had managed to hold for three years amid continual Nazi harrassment.
Parents who prevented their children from joining the Hitler Youth were subject to heavy prison sentences. Membership thus grew to nearly six million. As a result, the organization sprouted into a giant bureaucracy in Berlin and began to acquire the dreariness of a big governmental institution in marked contrast to the dynamic organization it had been in the 1920s and early ’30s when members battled daily to bring Hitler to power. The compulsory nature of weekly HJ meetings for everyone led to a gradual decline in morale and discipline.
To add more excitement, a new phase began for the Hitler Youth with increased emphasis on para-military training in direct association with the Wehrmacht (Army) Luftwaffe (Air Force) and Navy. In 1937, a Hitler Youth rifle school was also established. About 1.5 million boys were trained in rifle shooting and military field exercises over the next few years with over 50,000 boys earning a marksmanship medal that required near perfect shooting at a distance of 50 meters (164 feet).
Special Hitler Youth para-military formations for boys eventually included: the Flieger-HJ in which aviation enthusiasts built gliders, participated in annual glider flying competitions, visited Luftwaffe facilities and went for rides in fighters and bombers; the Motor-HJ for boys 16 and older in which they acquired their driver’s license and learned to ride motorcycles; and the Marine-HJ in which they obtained sailing certificates, learned river navigation, and participated in naval exercises aboard German training ships.
Hitler’s Plan
In 1938, Hitler expanded Germany’s borders by absorbing neighboring Austria and the Sudetenland (western portion of Czechoslovakia) with their large populations of ethnic Germans. As a result, Hitler Youth membership swelled to 8.7 million.
In September, the last peacetime Nuremberg rally took place. It had the theme Grossdeutschland (Greater Germany) and was the largest one ever held, with nearly 700,000 members of various Nazi Party organizations participating during the week-long festivities.
On Saturday, September 10, over 80,000 Hitler Youths marched into the city stadium and performed military-style parade maneuvers which they had been practicing for an entire year, ending with a grand finale in which they spelled out the name ‘Adolf Hitler’ in the grandstand. After a tumultuous welcome, Hitler gave a speech in which he spoke candidly about his own youth and painful adolescence and then ended by telling them, “You, my youth, are our nation’s most precious guarantee for a great future, and you are destined to be the leaders of a glorious new order under the supremacy of National Socialism. Never forget that one day you will rule the world!”
In November, Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) occurred in which Nazi storm troopers, the SS and Hitler Youths attacked Jews throughout the Reich. Police stood by and crowds watched as Jews were beaten while their shops and synagogues had their windows smashed and contents wrecked. Special pleasure was taken in the desecration of sacred religious scrolls. Over 25,000 Jewish men between the ages of 18 and 65 were hauled off to concentration camps.
Local Hitler Youths participated in the violence voluntarily but had not been officially instructed to do so. Schirach, on hearing of the extent of their participation, called a meeting of all high level group leaders and expressly forbade further participation in such “criminal actions.”
But the violence was just beginning. Germany was on the path toward achieving Hitler’s two main goals which he had stated years earlier in Mein Kampf — the forced acquisition of living space to the east of Germany (resulting in World War II) and destruction of ‘international Jewry’ (resulting in the Holocaust).
Many Hitler Youths now regarded Hitler as their Führer-god and even recited prayers to him such as: “Führer, my Führer, give me by God. Protect and preserve my life for long. You saved Germany in time of need. I thank you for my daily bread. Be with me for a long time, do not leave me, Führer, my Führer, my faith, my light, Hail to my Führer!”
Hitler, in a somewhat cynical mood in 1938, expressed his attitude toward them. “This youth learns nothing but to think German and to act German. When these boys enter our organization at the age of ten, it is often the first time in their lives that they get to breathe and feel fresh air; then four years later they come from the Jungvolk into the Hitler Youth, and we keep them there for another four years, and then we definitely don’t put them back into the hands of the originators of our old classes and status barriers; rather we take them straight into the Party or into the Labor Front, the SA, or the SS, the NSKK [motorized corps] and so on. And if they are there for another two years or a year and a half and still haven’t become complete National Socialists, then they go into the Labor Service and are polished for another six or seven months, all with a symbol, the German spade. And any class consciousness or pride of status that may be left here and there is taken over by the Wehrmacht for further treatment for two years, and when they come back after two, three, or four years, we take them straight into the SA, SS, and so on again, so that they shall in no case suffer a relapse, and they will never be free again as long as they live.”
By 1939, about 82 percent (7.3 million) of eligible youths within the Reich belonged to the Hitler Youth, making it the largest youth organization in the world. A new law was issued on March 25, 1939, conscripting any remaining holdouts into the organization amid warnings to parents that their children would be taken from them and placed in orphanages unless they enrolled.
I’m calling my daughter’s school tomorrow to warn them that I will keep her out of school if they show his speech, er brainwashing session. If they show it, and she is in school, she has my permission to walk out of class.