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The Edelweiss Pirates and WWII - HiGu > .
Hitlerjugend ..
The Edelweiss Pirates (Edelweißpiraten, (
listen)) were a loosely organized group of youth in Nazi Germany. They emerged in western Germany out of the German Youth Movement of the late 1930s in response to the strict regimentation of the Hitler Youth. Similar in many ways to the Leipzig Meuten, they consisted of young people, mainly between the ages of 14 and 17, who had evaded the Hitler Youth by leaving school (which was allowed at 14) and were also young enough to avoid military conscription, which was only compulsory from the age of 17 onward. The roots and background of the Edelweiss Pirates movement were detailed in the 2004 film Edelweiss Pirates, directed by Niko von Glasow.
The origins of the Edelweißpiraten can be traced to the period immediately prior to World War II, as the state-controlled Hitler Youth was mobilized to indoctrinate young people, at the expense of the leisure activities previously offered to them. This tension was exacerbated once the war began and youth leaders were conscripted. In contrast, the Edelweißpiraten offered young people considerable freedom to express themselves and to mingle with members of the opposite sex. This was unlike Nazi youth movements, which were strictly segregated by sex, the Hitler Youth (Hitler-Jugend) being for boys and the League of German Girls (Bund Deutscher Mädel) for girls. Although predominantly male, the casual meetings of the Edelweißpiraten even offered German adolescents an opportunity for sexual experimentation with the opposite sex. The Edelweißpiraten used many symbols of the outlawed German Youth Movement, including their tent (the Kohte), their style of clothing (the Jungenschaftsjacke), and their songs.
The first Edelweißpiraten appeared in the late 1930s in western Germany, comprising mostly young people between 14 and 18. Individual groups were closely associated with different regions but identifiable by a common style of dress with their own edelweiss badge and by their opposition to what they saw as the paramilitary nature of the Hitler Youth. Subgroups of the Edelweißpiraten included the Navajos, centred on Cologne, the Kittelbach Pirates of Oberhausen and Düsseldorf, and the Roving Dudes of Essen. According to one Nazi official in 1941, "Every child knows who the Kittelbach Pirates are. They are everywhere; there are more of them than there are Hitler Youth... They beat up the patrols... They never take no for an answer."
Although they rejected the Nazis' authoritarianism, the Edelweißpiraten's nonconformist behaviour tended to be restricted to petty provocations. Despite this, they represented a group of youth who rebelled against the government's regimentation of leisure and were unimpressed by the propaganda touting Volksgemeinschaft ("people's community").
During the war, many Edelweißpiraten supported the Allies and assisted deserters from the German Army. Some groups also collected propaganda leaflets dropped by Allied aircraft and pushed them through letterboxes.
Apart from gatherings on street corners, the Edelweißpiraten engaged in hiking and camping trips, defying the restrictions on free movement, which kept them away from the prying eyes of the totalitarian regime. They were highly antagonistic to the Hitler Youth, ambushing their patrols and taking great pride in beating them up. One of their slogans was "Eternal War on the Hitler Youth".
The Nazi response to the Edelweißpiraten was relatively slight before the war, because they were viewed as a minor irritant and did not fit in with the policy of selective terror. As the war went on, and some Pirates' activities became more extreme, so did the punishments meted out. Individuals identified by the Gestapo as belonging to the various gangs were often rounded up and released with their heads shaved to shame them. In some cases, young people were sent to Concentration camps specifically organized for youths, or temporarily detained in regular prison. On 25 October 1944, Heinrich Himmler ordered a crackdown on the group and in November of that year, a group of thirteen people, the heads of the Ehrenfelder Gruppe, were publicly hanged in Cologne. Some of these were former Edelweißpiraten. The Edelweißpiraten hanged included six teenagers, among them Bartholomäus Schink, called Barthel, former member of the local Navajos. Fritz Theilen survived.
Nevertheless, government repression never managed to break the spirit of most groups, which constituted a subculture that rejected the norms of Nazi society. While the Edelweißpiraten assisted army deserters and others hiding from the Third Reich, they have yet to receive recognition as a resistance movement (partly because they were viewed with contempt by many of their former Youth Movement comrades because of their 'proletarian' background and 'criminal' activities), and the families of members killed by the Nazis have as yet received no reparations.
"I want to add some information about the roots of the Edelweißpiraten which might help to understand why they formed and how they behaved. The Edelweißpiraten evolved out of a movement called "Bündisch Youth". This movement formed around the year 1900 with the "Wandervögel" (rarely used word for 'migratory birds'). At that time train tickest had become affordable enough for middle-classed students from Berlin to take a ride on the train outside the city and take a hike through the woods, where they slept under the open sky before they took the train back the next day. For many it was the first time to leave the city and have some adventures without any adults around. These trips became known as "Fahrten" (which means 'drives' in modern German, at the time it meant trips and voyages in general).
Edelweiß Pirates ..
The Edelweiß Pirates were youth gangs that opposed the ever-increasing totalitarian grip of the Nazi regime. Their actions ranged from passive resistance to robbing munitions depots and even murder. Curiously enough, after the Second World War came to an end, a group of post-war Nazi resistance cells coopted their name and carried out a series of bombings and attacks against the occupying Allied powers.
listen)) were a loosely organized group of youth in Nazi Germany. They emerged in western Germany out of the German Youth Movement of the late 1930s in response to the strict regimentation of the Hitler Youth. Similar in many ways to the Leipzig Meuten, they consisted of young people, mainly between the ages of 14 and 17, who had evaded the Hitler Youth by leaving school (which was allowed at 14) and were also young enough to avoid military conscription, which was only compulsory from the age of 17 onward. The roots and background of the Edelweiss Pirates movement were detailed in the 2004 film Edelweiss Pirates, directed by Niko von Glasow.The first Edelweißpiraten appeared in the late 1930s in western Germany, comprising mostly young people between 14 and 18. Individual groups were closely associated with different regions but identifiable by a common style of dress with their own edelweiss badge and by their opposition to what they saw as the paramilitary nature of the Hitler Youth. Subgroups of the Edelweißpiraten included the Navajos, centred on Cologne, the Kittelbach Pirates of Oberhausen and Düsseldorf, and the Roving Dudes of Essen. According to one Nazi official in 1941, "Every child knows who the Kittelbach Pirates are. They are everywhere; there are more of them than there are Hitler Youth... They beat up the patrols... They never take no for an answer."
Although they rejected the Nazis' authoritarianism, the Edelweißpiraten's nonconformist behaviour tended to be restricted to petty provocations. Despite this, they represented a group of youth who rebelled against the government's regimentation of leisure and were unimpressed by the propaganda touting Volksgemeinschaft ("people's community").
During the war, many Edelweißpiraten supported the Allies and assisted deserters from the German Army. Some groups also collected propaganda leaflets dropped by Allied aircraft and pushed them through letterboxes.
Apart from gatherings on street corners, the Edelweißpiraten engaged in hiking and camping trips, defying the restrictions on free movement, which kept them away from the prying eyes of the totalitarian regime. They were highly antagonistic to the Hitler Youth, ambushing their patrols and taking great pride in beating them up. One of their slogans was "Eternal War on the Hitler Youth".
Nevertheless, government repression never managed to break the spirit of most groups, which constituted a subculture that rejected the norms of Nazi society. While the Edelweißpiraten assisted army deserters and others hiding from the Third Reich, they have yet to receive recognition as a resistance movement (partly because they were viewed with contempt by many of their former Youth Movement comrades because of their 'proletarian' background and 'criminal' activities), and the families of members killed by the Nazis have as yet received no reparations.
Comment: [spelling corrected]
Over time the movement grow, and independent "Bünde" ('associations', sg. "Bund"; reason they are called "bündisch") formed all over the German Empire and Austria. Even though these Bünde developed completely unique traditions and values, a few key elements evolved: The importance of the small group, the connection to nature, Independence from adults. Every Bund had a kind of uniform which distinguished them visibly from another. They also loved singing together. At first mainly folks song, later they started to write their own songs or collecting non-German songs from all around the world. were the went on "Fahrt", which wasn't necessarily a weekend trip anymore.
During the Weimar Republic this movement reached its peak. They were well known in Germany, and more popular than the scout movement, which was just starting to set foot there. Wandervögel played a crucial role in the founding of the scout movement in Germany, and both movement influenced each other (which might explain the fleur de lys at 6:19). The biggest Bund at the time was the 'Nerother Wandervogel' (named after the place where it was founded).
The Nazis adapted some elements of the Bündische Jugend for the Hitler Youth such as the independence from adults, because it allowed them to have more influence on their education, and because they wanted to attract leaders from the Bündisch Youth, since -at least in the beginning - they had not enough Youths among their own, wich were ready and capable of leading youths. Among the Bündisch Youth existed the idea of a "Großbund" (Great Bund"), also known as "Freideutsche Jugend" ('Free German Youth', a term which would be abused again by the GDR), which would combine all the small Bünde into a single Bund, but all attempts in achieving this had failed. Some saw this finally achieved in the Hitler Youth, while others argued, that the Bündisch Youth revolved around experiencing freedom, while the Hitler Youth revolved around absolute obedience and educating youths in the spirit of National Socialism. When the Nazis came into power it became they soon forbid bündisch and scout associations. The Nerother Wandervogel, which I mentioned above, was also forbidden in 1933, but managed to continue until 1935, when the Nazis managed to dissolve their organization at the third attempt. However, some of the groups of which the Bund had consisted, continued underground, including the Kittelbachpiraten, which were a Bund on their own before, but parts of them had joined the Nerother, when they themselves were forbidden. Many groups which are now known as Edelweißpiraten had their origins in the Nerother Wandervogel. The leader of the Nerother Wandervogel, Robert Oelbermann, was arrested and brought to the concentration camp in Dachau, where he died. His brother Karl, who was on "Weltfahrt" ('world trip') in South Africa at the time stayed there until after the war. He founded the Nerother Wandervogel again after the fall of Nazi Germany.
At first their activity wouldn't involve active resistance. They would meet in a park maybe once a week and sing bündisch songs (which were forbidden) or go on Fahrt. (It was also forbidden to go hiking except as an activity of one of the Nazi mass organizations.) When the Nazis threw a bunch of terms together to create the name "Edelweißpiraten", they accidently created a legend. A secret youth organization, which resisted the Nazis by singing and hiking. Other teenagers who had nothing to do with the Edelweißpiraten until then founded their own groups in that spirit. They would meet somewhere, someone had a guitar, someone else knew a song or two, which was supposedly sung by the Edelweißpiraten. Like this the movement evolved, and groups were founded which didn't just want to resist the Nazis with singing and hiking, but wanted to fight the Nazis. The Bündisch Youth also influenced other resistance groups. Several members of the "Weiße Rose" for example had roots in the Bund Neudeutschland (New Germany) of the late Weimar Republic.
In Western Germany many of the old Bünde were able to reform, and exist to this day. I myself am a member of a bündisch scout association in Germany, which is the reason I'm so interested in this topic. There is an old folk song which we still sing today. The Chorus was rewritten to this:
"Wenn die Fahrtenmesser blitzen und die Hitlerjungen flitzen und die Edelweißpiraten fallen ein: 'Haut sie auf die Schnauze'. Was kann das Leben bei Hitler uns geben, wir wollen bündisch sein?"'When the knives twinkle and the Hitler boys run, and the Edelweißpiraten sing: 'Hit them in the face'. What can live at Hitler give us, we want to be bündisch.
A few years back I visited the NS Documentation Center which is located in a former Gestapo prison in cologne, where many Edelweißpiraten where held. Written on a wall I saw a very simular version of the song above. The only difference was, that that version said "und die Navajos fallen ein:[...]" ('and the Navajos sing').
It makes me proud to share a tradition with the Edelweißpiraten. But I am well aware of the fact that not all bündisch groups at the time went into passive or active resistance. The overwhelming majority joined the Hitler Youth. Some because they saw that as the best way to maintain bündisch traditions and ideas (this didn't work very well; the Nazis got rid of all known bündisch structures untill 1935), others joined the Hitler Youth out of conviction. More than a few founders of the bündisch post-war groups often had important positions either in the Hitler Youth, or in the other areas of
the Nazi state."
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