When resistance within Germany during the 1930s or even during the Second World War is discussed,
events that come to mind are, for example, the attempt by Georg Elser to assassinate Hitler in
1939. The most famous act of resistance must undoubtedly be the July 20 Plot.
Claus von Stauffenberg, together with an extensive network of other conspirators,
attempted to assassinate Hitler in the Wolf’s Lair, his field headquarters.
Both attempts failed. In fact, all attempts on Hitler’s life failed,
and there were quite a few. Yet a topic that is a bit snowed under when discussing resistance within
Germany is resistance among youth movements. One of the few movements that actively resisted the
ever-increasing totalitarian grip of Hitler and his Nazi party were the Edelweiß pirates.
They were a loosely organised bunch of teenagers in different large cities that managed to
establish their own subculture during one of the most oppressive regimes the world has ever seen.
-intro-
The Edelweiß Pirates
Youth resistance within Germany against the Naziregime took on many different
forms. Some individual forms of civil disobedience simply were to work slowly,
protest against compulsory military service, refusing to join the Hitlerjugend or to deny
bringing the Hitler salute. There were groups, albeit few,
that operated in a bit more organised manner. The Edelweiß Pirates were several groups of
youths, often students, opposing the ruling national socialists. They thanked their name
to their signature, a metal badge featuring the Edelweiß, a European mountain flower. It
was their symbol of freedom. In essence, they were multiple loosely organised dissident youth gangs.
By the end of the 1930s, their resistance against the regime started to get more severe and risky,
engaging in sabotage activities, and even murder. Now, in order to understand organised youth
resistance against the Nazi regime, it is important to understand the context -in terms
of youth parties- they were operating in. One of Hitler’s favourite instruments to indoctrinate the
youth was the Hitlerjugend, the youth wing of his party. Among its activities was sporting,
marching, attending events and artistic activities, although everything had to
be agreed on by the Nazi party. The underlying thought of the Hitlerjugend was that its members
were prepared to carry on the National Socialist ideal for future generations. A strong emphasis
on German folk culture, music, and military matters dominated the Hitlerjugend’s
activities. After December 1936 membership to the Hitlerjugend became compulsory for all Aryan boys.
Yet disregarding the totalitarian nature of Germany as the 1930s progressed,
the loosely organised group of (mostly working-class) youths, the Edelweiß Pirates,
rejected ties with all organisations supported by the Nazi Party. They shunned
the increasing militarism of the Hitlerjugend, the totalitarian character of Hitler’s Germany
and the constant drilling of its population. They would occasionally get in fights with the
Hitlerjugend, but that’s about it. In turn, they became a symbol of rebellion against the regime.
Mainly they rebelled culturally. For example, they listened to American (jazz) music which
was forbidden, and they let their hair grow, in contrast to the sharply cut Hitlerjugend members.
They distinguished themselves by wearing characteristic clothing - frequently ski shirts,
hiking boots, scarfs and short lederhosen. Really, the Edelweiß Pirates can be compared to the Teddy
Boys, or Teds, the British subculture that began in the early 1950s, of young men wearing
dandy clothing. With the significant difference between these recalcitrant youth cultures being
that one of them emerged in Nazi Germany, one of the most repressive regimes ever. In contrast to
the strict separation between boys and girls - girls had their separate youth wing, namely the
Bund Deutscher Mädel - the Edelweiß pirates had mixed weekend trips and expeditions in nature.
They sported different names in different cities. In Köln, they were known as the Navajos,
in Düsseldorf as Fahrtenjungs, and in Leipzig as Ruhrpiraten or Meuten,
the latter translating to as much as ‘packs’ or ‘mobs’. In total it is estimated
that several thousands of youths considered themselves to be part of one of these gangs.
Initially, the Nazi party and SS considered their rebellion to be frivolous,
describing them as morally degenerate and criminal. Still, as time progressed,
they started to crack down on the youths. Membership of the Hitlerjugend became
compulsory in December 1936. When in March 1939 the government issued the Jugenddienstpflicht,
or Youth Service Duty, all German youths were conscripted in the Hitlerjugend. If
parents, or teenagers, objected, they were subjected to investigation by the Gestapo.
Yet even though these youths resisted the ever-so growing totalitarian nature of Hitler’s regime,
many sources describe them as apolitical. Basically,
they rejected any form of coercion into youth groups or armies,
but most of the time, there wasn’t any fundamental political and ideological criticism.
Edelweiß Pirates during the War
At least, there was no ideological criticism until the Gestapo started
to interfere when some teenagers objected to joining the Hitlerjugend. Records of Gestapo
interrogations show that some arrested Edelweiß Pirates proclaimed the following:
"Our banding together occurred primarily because the HJ was dominated by a certain compulsion
to which we did not want to submit, because we wanted "to go on trips as free boys."
This was echoed in almost identical wording by another boy who stated:
"We were opposed to the HJ principally because we did not want to serve with it,
did not want to come under its compulsion, and we wanted to spend our leisure time going on trips
as free boys and to do and act as we pleased." Possibly the best statement of the motives for
joining the Edelweiß Pirates comes from a boy who declared on October 25, 1942: "The HJ is
responsible for it. Almost every order I received was accompanied by threats such as arrests.”
As the war progressed the actions of certain Edelweiß pirate groups grew bolder and more
provocative. For example, there are many accounts of pirates shielding army deserters, joining bands
of resistance fighters towards the end of the war, or started sabotaging railways and warehouses.
By mid-1943 the Nazi district leader of Grafenberg, a town in Bavaria, asked the
Gestapo to put a stop to the harmful activities of the Pirates. He described how during air raids and
blackouts bands of youths would congregate in the local park, affecting the morale among soldiers
and civilians. They painted defeatist slurs such as “Down with Hitler” and “The High Command Lies!”
all over town. In Duisburg, another gang, calling themselves the Kittelbach Pirates, was known to
go out on the street with brass knuckles and beat up Hitlerjugend members. There were neighbourhoods
where “members of the Hitlerjugend no longer dared to wear their Nazi insignia in public,”
according to a contemporary report. Other Gestapo reports reveal that
as the war progressed, they were unable to deal with these gangs of contrarian youths.
In part because the senior leadership of the Hitlerjugend kept getting drafted to the front,
so local Hitlerjugend departments were led by inexperienced youths unable to stand up against
the rebellious nature of Edelweiß Pirate gangs. Another report talks about the Navajos in Köln I
mentioned at the beginning. In March 1940 a raid by local authorities led to the arrest
of nearly 600 rebellious teenagers. They were subsequently locked up in reform institutions,
yet by the fall of 1942 it became clear the organisation still existed underground.
One night these Navajos, together with two other youth gangs, plastered Köln with their gang names.
Later, they joined a local Edelweiß Pirate gang which occupied itself with harassing
HItlerjugend members at home and breaking into ammunition depots for acts of sabotage.
Historian Daniel Horn, in a study on the matter, writes that: “As a final testimonial
to the amazing effectiveness of the youth opposition, Himmler proclaimed the task of
bringing the gangs under control as being "important to the war effort.”
Ordering immediate and stern measures, the SS chief gave additional far-reaching credit to
the youth opposition when he warned that "every omission or delay strengthens the activities
of the cliques and undermines the trust of the population in the regime." Himmler was correct.
The forcefulness and strength of the wild gangs was undermining the HJ's entire system of youth
control. Through their violence and creation of visible and increasingly popular organizational
alternatives for disgruntled youngsters, the cliques posed a virtually insoluble threat to the
HJ. Given its inability to cope with the problem in a positive fashion, it is unlikely that the HJ
and the Nazi system of totalitarian youth control could be maintained on a permanent basis without
simultaneously converting a large part of German youngsters into sullen and resentful prisoners.”
One of the darkest moments of youth resistance was in November 1944. The Ehrenfeld Gruppe,
named after a city district in Köln, formed active resistance in Nazi Germany. 23-year-old Hans
Steinbrück, who escaped from a concentration camp, led the Ehrenfeld Gruppe. Many of its members
had been part of local Edelweiß Pirates gangs. Initially, their actions consisted of stealing
food and committing small-time robberies to sell items on the black market. Over time their actions
grew more dangerous. When during a routine check police discovered stolen weapons and contraband,
they set up a manhunt to catch Steinbrück. Feeling the police close in, together with an army
deserter and several loyalists, Steinbrück went on somewhat of a spree, which he referred to as a
“Nazi hunt”. The rogue group shot multiple police officers and other Nazis over the next few days.
He was eventually arrested and executed without a trial. In the aftermath, 63 members of the group
were arrested, of whom 12 were executed. Some of the youngest members executed were only 16 years
old with most of them being in their twenties. Because the groups were loosely organised,
I am unable to give a clear account of what happened after the war ended. Some members
supported the Americans and British, others rejoined the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands,
but it appears most groups simply disbanded. Which seems very likely - one of the core tenets
of the Edelweiß Pirates was that they despised politics and coercion in any way, shape or form.
After the War
Now interestingly enough, according to historian Stephen Fritz, following the end of the Second
World War, a group of loyal former Hitler Jugend members co-opted the name of the Edelweiß Pirates
to carry out subversive operations in Allied-occupied Germany. So under the same
name the group consisted of quite literally the opposite of what it consisted of during the war.
By March 1946, during a counter-intelligence operation and subsequent raid by the Allied
powers, 80 former German officers were arrested. The Allied soldiers discovered
a list with over 400 names on it, which these new Edelweiß Pirates wanted to assassinate.
Among these people was Wilhelm Hoegner, the prime minister of Bavaria. There were weapons,
ammunition and even anti-tank rockets found in hidden stockpiles in the woods.
According to intelligence reports from the Nuremberg Trials, approximately
7000 people belonged to groups loosely associated with this terrorist cell.
The main objectives of many of these cells were to blow up bridges and rail lines, attack freight
trains, harass German women who fraternised with Americans and sabotage war crime trials.
Yet it appeared that by arresting these officers the core of this Nazi cell was taken
off the streets. There were various threats against Military Government officials, but
thanks to an increase in patrols and intelligence officers dedicated to investigating post-war Nazi
resistance, any real activities decreased as 1946 progressed. In fall that year there was a series
of bomb attacks against denazification courts in the Stuttgart area. Still, following action
by the occupying government most terrorist attacks by the Edelweiß pirates subsided.
The actions of these post-war Edelweiß pirates had nothing to do with the previous eponymous loosely
organised rebellious teenage gangs. Yet they were part of a large Operation, namely Werwolf,
a plan for post-war resistance by ideologically diehard Nazis. It is hotly debated whether
Werwolf was successful or if it is mainly remembered because of its propaganda value,
however. What is for sure is that Werwolf deserves a video on its own, examining the effectiveness of
post-war resistance against the Allied powers. Thank you for watching this video. If there’s
a topic or event you’d like to know more about, let me know your thoughts in a comment.
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