Hitler Youth of Germany and the Red Guards in China - Essay Example

In the world history, especially in the itarian countries, there are many examples of teen involvement into certain types of government-supervised groups aimed at being a basic element of controlling the society. Most famous of those are the Hitler Youth of Germany and th Red Guards in China. What were the motives of young people entering such organizations and how did it affect their lives The Hitler Youth (German: Hitler-Jugend, abbreviated HJ) was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded in 1922 as the Jungsturm Adolf Hitler, one year after the Sturmabteilung (SA) Stormtroopers. The group was based in Munich, Bavaria, and served as a recruiting ground for new Stormtroopers of the SA. The group was disbanded in 1923 following the abortive Beer Hall Putsch but was re-established in 1926, a year after the Nazi Party had been reorganized. The second Hitler Youth began in 1926 with an emphasis on national youth recruitment into the Nazi Party. Kurt Gruber, a law student and admirer of Hitler from Plauen in Saxony, home to many blue-collar workers, initiated the reconstruction of the League. Then in 1933, Baldur von Schirach served as the first Reichsjugendfuhrer (Reich Youth Leader) and devoted a great deal of time, finances, and manpower into the expansion of the Hitler Youth. By 1930, the group had over 25,000 members with the Bund Deutscher Madel (BDM) (League of German girls), for girls aged from fourteen to eighteen). The Deutsches Jungvolk was another Hitler Youth group, intended for still younger children, both boys and girls (Sohn-Rethel 23-24). In the People's Republic of China, the Red Guards were civilians who were the frontline implementers of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1960s-1970s). Most Red Guards were youngsters in their mid-teens summoned by Chairman Mao Zedong to protect the forward progression of the Chinese Communist Party against "evil forces" such as imperialism and corruption, including those within the Communist Party who were identified as deviationists. Red Guards could be found in all aspects of Chinese society from the Foreign Ministry down to supervision of siblings. The Red Guards sat in the Foreign Ministry supervising officials while briefly seizing power from Chen Yi to conduct foreign affairs. Many Red Guards used their freedom to carry out personal vendettas. The original membership of the Hitler Youth was confined to Munich, and in 1923, the organization had just over one thousand members. In 1925, when the Nazi Party had been refounded, its membership grew to over 5,000. Five years later, the national Hitler Youth membership was at 25,000, at the end of 1932 (a few weeks before the Nazis came to power) it was at 107,956, and at the end of 1933, the Hitler Youth held a membership of 2,300,000. This rise for a large part came from the members of several other youth organizations the HJ had (more or less forcefully) been merged with, including the rather big one of the "evangelische Jugend" (600,000 members at the time), the YO of the Evangelical Church in Germany. In December of 1936, Hitler Youth membership stood at just over 5 million. That same month, the Hitler Youth became obligatory and membership was required by law (Gesetz uber die Hitlerjugend). This obligation was affirmed in 1939 with the Jugenddienstpflicht. Membership could be enforced even against the will of the parents. From that point, most of Germany's teenagers were incorporated into the Hitler Youth, and by 1940, the total membership reached eight million. Later war figures are difficult to calculate, since massive conscription efforts and a general call-up of boys as young as ten years old meant that virtually every young male in Germany was, in some way, connected to the Hitler Youth. The Hitler Youth had the basic motivation of training future "Aryan supermen" and future soldiers who would serve the Third Reich faithfully. Physical and military training took precedence over academic and scientific education in Hitler Youth organizations. Youths in HJ camps learned to use weapons, built up their physical strength, learned war strategies, and were indoctrinated in anti-Semitism. After outlawing the Boy Scouts in all the lands Germany controlled, the Hitler Youth appropriated many of the Scouts' activities, though changed in content and intention. A limited amount of cruelty of the older boys toward the younger was tolerated and even encouraged, since it was believed this would weed out the unfit and harden the rest (Peukert 132). Members of the Hitler Youth wore paramilitary uniforms very similar to those of the Nazi Party, and the ranks and insignia of the Hitler Youth were similar to the ranks and insignia of the Sturmabteilung. As for the situation in China, at the outset the goal of the Cultural Revolution was to displace capitalists from state power and prevent the restoration of capitalism as was felt to have occurred in the Soviet Union. Mao believed that by keeping political struggle inside the confines of the Communist Party, the full power of the exploited would not come to bear on the question of capitalism versus socialism. Hence, Mao sanctioned the Red Guards to operate outside the party. Some of their chants made famous by the media such as "don't love father, don't love mother, just love the country", however, seem to hint at the possible chaos that would ensue, but the Red Guard at the time were far too brainwashed by enthusiasm to see the illogic, they were "following in the name of Mao" (Chan 56-57). As time went on, the Red Guards crystallized into "rebels" and "loyalists." Loyalists started out with the theory that those of good class background were good Red Guards. Loyalist Red Guard organizations often started with leaders whose parents were officials in the Communist Party, especially those aligned with Liu Shaoqi or Deng Xiaoping or were more respectful of Khrushchev and the Soviet Union. Loyalist Red Guards wanted to convert the movement into one criticizing peers and those of bad class background as determined by the class struggle prior to 1949. Precedent was on the side of the loyalists. In contrast, the rebels put up posters criticizing deans of colleges and authority figures generally and the city and party officials who protected them. Rebels put the emphasis on people with power who might be new bourgeoisie, not those whose family members had been landlords or capitalists before 1949. Rebel organizations accepted members from "bad class backgrounds" and had the sanction of Jiang Qing to do so. After two years, the Red Guards' ideological differences developed further. The "rebels" split into pro-Jiang Qing and anti-Jiang Qing factions, including those who considered Mao a "red capitalist." The organization techniques in these two groups were rather different. The Hitler Youth was organized into corps under adult leaders, and the general membership comprised of boys aged fourteen to eighteen. After 1938, the Hitler Youth was a compulsory organization, mandatory for all young German men. The group was also seen as a recruiting ground for several Nazi Party paramilitary groups, with the Schutzstaffel (the SS) taking the most interest in the Hitler Youth. Members of the HJ were particularly proud to be bestowed with the single Sig Rune (victory symbol) by the SS. The SS utilized two Sig Runes as their mark, and this gesture served to symbolically link the two groups. The Hitler Youth was organized into local cells on a community level. Such cells had weekly meetings where various Nazi doctrines were taught by adult Hitler Youth leaders. Regional Hitler Youth leaders typically organized rallies and field exercises in which several dozen Hitler Youth cells would participate. The largest Hitler Youth gathering usually occurred once a year at Nuremburg, where Hitler Youth members from all over Germany would converge for the annual Nazi Party rally (Wheeler-Bennett 111, 117). The Hitler Youth also maintained training academies comparable to preparatory schools. Such academies were considered breeding grounds for future Nazi Party leaders, and only the most radical and devoted Hitler Youth members could expect to attend. Several corps of the Hitler Youth also existed to train members who wished to become officers in the Wehrmacht. Such groups were usually devoted strictly to officer training in the particular field to which a Hitler Youth hoped to become an officer. The Marine Hitler Youth was the largest such corps and served as a water rescue auxiliary to the Kriegsmarine. The Red Guards of China were usually formed into squads which supervised a certain neighborhood looking for cases of "anti-communist propaganda" and such. There was no real ranking in the Red Guards, so their organizational structure looks rather rudimentary compared with the Hitler Youths. Many young Chinese were enthusiastic about the prospect of "being politically influential at such young age." With Little Red Books in their hands, squads of Red Guards formed and began to go from house to house looking for potential elements of corruption, which sometimes included teachers, relatives, and then their own families. The accusations against their victims were becoming more and more ridiculous as well. Someone might be punished for not owning an "extra set" of the Chairman's publications. These punishments could be exceptionally cruel. Some victims were forced to chew on shattered glass, while others were forced to strip naked and march through town. The number of people who perished during the period was estimated by some to be in the millions. There were cases where particular members would start by targeting their parents (Pavlik Morozov-style) in order to demonstrate uncompromising fairness and absolute obedience to Mao. Then others were required to measure up or even surpass these efforts, resulting in a vicious cycle of competition (Yang 88). Authoritarian pro-capitalist Chinese critics of Mao say that Mao was aware of the increasing ideological differentiation and the petty struggles occurring in the air of the "si da," the four big freedoms, so he should have shut down the Red Guards and the entire Cultural Revolution earlier. Participant-observers at the time said it was clear to them that certain Red Guard factions intentionally created a poor image of the Cultural Revolution in order to undermine Mao and the fight against capitalists in state power. Mao himself commented that Red Guards had dispersed their targets too much, with resulting anarchist tendencies. After the Cultural Revolution, the number two target of the Cultural Revolution Deng Xiaoping did return to power and according to many inside and outside China, restored capitalism (Chang 109). One year after the beginning of WWII, Artur Axmann replaced Schirach as Reichsjugendfuhrer and took over leadership of the Hitler Youth. Axmann began to reform the group into an auxiliary force which could perform war duties. The Hitler Youth became active in German fire brigades and assisted with recovery efforts to German cities affected from Allied bombing. The Hitler Youth also assisted in such organizations as the Reich Postal Service, Reichsbahn, fire services, and Reich radio service, and served among anti-aircraft defense crews. By 1943, Nazi leaders began turning the Hitler Youth into a military reserve to draw manpower which had been depleted due to tremendous military losses. In 1943, the 12.SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend, under the command of SS-Brigadefuhrer Fritz Witt, was formed. The Division was a fully equipped Waffen-SS panzer division with the majority of the enlisted cadre being drawn from Hitler Youth boys between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. The division was thrown into action during the Battle of Normandy against the British and Canadian forces to the north of Caen. During the following months, the division earned itself a reputation for ferocity and fanatacism. When Witt was killed by allied naval gunfire, SS-Brigadefuhrer Kurt Meyer took over command and became the youngest divisional commander at age 33 (Sohn-Rethel 302). As German casualties mounted with the combination of Operation Bagration and the Lvov-Sandomierz Operation in the east, and Operation Cobra in the west, members of the HJ were recruited at ever younger ages. By 1945, the Volkssturm was commonly drafting Hitler Youth members into its ranks as young as 12 years old. During the Battle of Berlin, Axmann's Hitler Youth formed a major part of the last line of German defense. Although city commander General Helmuth Weidling ordered Axmann to disband the Hitler Youth combat formations, the confusion meant that this was not carried out. The Hitler Youth was disbanded by Allied authorities as an integral part of the Nazi Party. Some members of the Hitler Youth were accused of war crimes; however, as the organization was staffed with children, no serious efforts were made to prosecute these claims. While the entire Hitler Youth was never declared a criminal organization, the Hitler Youth adult leadership corps was deemed to have committed crimes against peace in corrupting the young minds of Germany. Many top HJ leaders were put on trial by Allied authorities, with Baldur von Schirach sentenced to twenty years in prison. In China, by 1969 the Red Guard factions were dismantled entirely; Mao feared that the chaos they caused and could still cause might harm the very foundation of the Chinese Communist Party. Following Mao's death and the Gang of Four's demise in 1976, the Cultural Revolution officially ended (Yang 267). During the late-1970s and early-1980s, numerous ex-Red Guards who were identified as having committed serious crimes against humanity during the revolution were finally tried and sentenced to prison; some were even executed. However, the physical and psychological scars they inflicted on their victims may never heal. Those ex-Red Guards who escaped punishment are not rejoicing either, as most have missed their chance for education; they are now left helplessly at the bottom of the food-chain despite mainland China's booming economy. In retrospect, the ex-Red Guards who were celebrated so early in their lives are now collectively referred to as the Lost Generation. References: Chan, Anita. Children of Mao: Personality Development and Political Activism in the Red Guard Generation. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1985. Chang, Che Po. From Idealism to Pragmatism: The Change of Political Thinking among the Red Guard Generation in China. University of California, Santa Barbara, 1991. Peukert, Detlev. Inside Nazi Germany : conformity, opposition and racism in everyday life. London, 1987 Sohn-Rethel, Alfred. Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism. London, 1978 Wheeler-Bennett, John. The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics 1918-1945. Macmillan: London, 1964. Yang, Guobin. China's Red Guard Generation: The Ritual Process of Identity Transformation. New York University, 2000. . Read More