by Heath, Tim
The Mitte girls had seen the posters many times before when they had first appeared on the streets in the mid to late 1930s, after the female Hitler youth organization first came into existence in its lesser form, the Hitler Youth for boys having been founded earlier in 1926. Now, however, the girls had come of age. They had done so on a tidal wave of national euphoria, so had begun to question their own individual identities and status within their predominantly male-dominated community. As a ten-year-old, Anita Von Schoener remembers the attraction which the Jung Madel had on young German girls:
It’s like when girls these days reach the ages of between nine and ten years old, all that they want to do is listen to their favourite pop stars and their music. They also become aware of their bodies and begin to show an interest in boys. We did not have pop stars or pop music, although I learned to play the piano, and as for boys, we were never allowed to really mix with boys in the way that girls do today.
Girls were expected to take on the responsibilities of housewives at an early age and Nazi-sympathising parents expected that of us. Time was divided between going to school, coming home and helping our mothers; if we had time we would play with our friends.
My parents supported Hitler and the reforms that the Nazi Party began to implement in 1933. I had seen the propaganda posters that called for all ten-year-old girls to join the Hitler Youth. They were designed to appear attractive, even to those who had no political understanding or loyalty. I had no problems joining the Jung Madel, though I had to firstly fill in a kind of application form. I was required to give details on my family history such as names of my parents, grandparents and great grandparents, also stating their religious beliefs. The form was then handed to the authorities who contacted me some two to three weeks later, if I remember correctly. My parents were not at all apprehensive about it and told me it was my duty, and that it would do me some good, so they did not mind. There were many benefits with joining, one of which was the sense of pride in belonging and being representative of a nation where massive changes were taking place, and a nation that was restoring its sense of pride, which had been taken away by those who had beaten Germany in World War One. The nice uniform that we were given was only very slightly different from the traditional one worn by schoolgirls at the time. We could go out into the countryside and forests on camp, which is one of the main reasons I joined, I wanted to have fun, have adventure in life. Of course, there were certain sets of rules and criteria governing who could join, and Jewish girls were excluded. Every pure German girl was expected to join and if you didn’t, then questions would be asked as to why.
The Deutsche Jung Madel was an organization for girls between the ages of ten to fourteen. Many, however, would already have been indoctrinated into the Hitler Youth membership system via the organization called the Jungvolk, or Young People. The Jungvolk catered for the very young child, from the age of six up.
Both the Jung Madel, and its senior equivalent, the Bund Deutscher Madel (The League of German Girls) for girls aged fourteen to eighteen, can trace their origins to 1930 when both organizations were founded. Although, in theory, these organizations were not compulsory in the early years, by December 1936, the Hitler Youth law made it compulsory for both males and females to join their respective youth organization. From the age of ten, they would remain with their organization until aged eighteen, when they would be called on to perform compulsory labour service for up to twelve months with the Reichsarbeitsdienst der weiblichen Jugend RADwfJ, the female youth branch of the Reich Labour Service.
For this critical period of study, the leaders of the German youth organizations for girls and young women included Baldur von Schirach, Artur Axmann (Schirach’s successor), and Gertrud Scholtz-Klink.
Gertrud Scholtz-Klink was appointed Reich Women’s Leader in 1933. Her first itinerary was to promote male superiority and dominance over the female and the importance of child bearing. Like Hitler, she was a highly gifted orator. As the wife of a high-ranking SS officer, she was feared by many of the young girls whom she often addressed. Once away from the spotlight, she was described as arrogant and spiteful. She once confided to one senior BDM girl leader – who requested that her name not be revealed – during a debate on male bullying and domineering, ‘What woman could possibly object or not want to be forcibly taken by her man. If she is honest then every woman enjoys that.’
In one of her speeches she said ‘The mission of the woman is to minister in the home and in her profession to the needs of life from the first to last moment of man’s existence.’
Later in July 1934, she was promoted as head of the women’s bureau in the Deutsche Arbeitsfront, or German Labour Front. Her responsibility was to persuade women to work for the good of the Nazi government. In another one of her speeches in 1938, she argued that ‘The German woman must work and work, physically and mentally, and she must renounce all luxury and pleasure.’ Klink was as politically insane a monster as Hitler. She would later achieve notoriety for being the driving force behind the organizing of young girls and women into home militia or localized combat units, which would see action during the closing stages of the Second World War, particularly against Russian forces.
Baldur von Schirach was a loyal and fanatical Nazi who had first joined the NSDAP in 1925 at the age of eighteen, when it was just a mere fledgling movement. Von Schirach held various appointments within Nazi youth organizations. By June 1933, with Hitler’s government in power, he was appointed Reich Youth leader, a position he held until 1940, when he was appointed Reich Governor (Reichsstatthalter) of the Reichsgau Wien (administrative division of Vienna). Artur Axmann took over his position as Hitler Youth leader.
Von Schirach had already been appointed Nazi youth leader on 30 October 1931, and had gained immense experience in the skills required to influence and convince Germany’s youth in the Nazi ideology. In doing so, he was responsible for the converting of students to National Socialism. He must therefore bear a major portion of the blame for the crimes committed in the Second World War by elements of the German armed forces. In this task, he showed an unbending loyalty and enthusiasm.
Under von Schirach’s direction, the Jung Madel flourished, further fuelled by Goebbels’s clever propaganda. There were very few girls who could escape the appeal of the Jung Madel. Further pressure was applied through the education system, where even teachers encouraged girls to join. Kirsten Eckermann explains:
There were certain teachers at our school who suddenly disappeared over night, being replaced by new teachers. The old teachers and some with Jewish ancestry who we had come to like and respect in our everyday lives had gone because they did not agree with the Nazis, and as a result they were basically driven out of their professions and many had to leave Germany, though some of them returned after the war. The new teachers would describe the old ones as ‘treacherous old leeches not fit to teach pigs!’ Hitler wanted no connections at all with what he termed as the ‘old Germany’ and its defeatist attitudes so many of our schools had new teachers. The new teachers, as we called them, were Nazis and went to great lengths to inform us of what the Nazis and the Hitler Youth could offer us as young Germans. What we were told seemed too good to be true as children of the Mitte borough who had very little. We were told that we could go on summer camp and that we would have a nice uniform to wear on important Nazi Party days and that we would learn many things which would be beneficial to us as adults.
We were shown pictures of the Jung Madel girls and their activities, we were taught a little on how to march and we were also told that special awards would be given to those who worked hard. Everything in the classroom began to change when Hitler gained power, even the way that we greeted our teachers upon arriving at school each morning. We were told that from now on we must greet all of our teachers by raising our right arm and saying ‘Heil Hitler’.
A huge red flag with a Swastika in its centre section hung at the side of the room behind the teacher’s des
k. This seemed rather funny to most of us and we did not really understand what it was all about. Though I can remember going home one afternoon with the other girls eager to become members of the Hitler Youth for young girls, I very much wanted to become a Jung Madel. We asked ourselves all of the usual questions like, ‘what will our parents think about it?’ We were very excited by it all and the need to feel like an adult that came with being a Hitler Youth was something I still find difficult to describe.
Excitedly, Kirsten and her friends made their way home from school to ask their parents about joining the Hitler Youth. The reaction from their parents would be mixed. Kirsten Eckermann:
When I arrived home my mother was always there to greet me and on this one particular afternoon I stood up straight as if coming to attention, clicked my feet together, thrust up my right arm and shouted ‘Heil Hitler!’ My mother, visibly shocked, grabbed my arm and bundled me inside the house and began to ask me questions.
‘Did you have to do that at school today?’ And then when I explained she said ‘oh’ and then remained very quiet for the rest of the afternoon, in fact she seemed troubled which was unusual. Nazism had entered the classroom and she may have thought that all of that saluting was not really necessary or perhaps too political for a young girl – I don’t really know.
As for my joining the Hitler Youth, my mother then said that it must be discussed with Father. The father always made the decisions in the household and that was the way things were. When my father arrived home much later and Mother gave him his dinner, she mentioned what I had asked her earlier about joining the Hitler Youth. My father, though supportive of the National Socialists, did not believe that young girls should be so politically motivated. Father told me to leave the room while he and mother talked. But I think he knew deep down what was coming, besides those parents who forbade their children membership into the Hitler Youth were looked upon as non-conformists or Anti-Nazi, and many had been visited by Nazi Party officials. These officials often threatened non-conforming parents of the consequences of their offspring not joining the Hitler Youth. So, in the preceding days my membership was submitted, but as a Mitte girl this was more or less expected though clearly some of the other girls had problems particularly with their fathers. We all possessed a great respect for our fathers and never dared argue or question their decisions; we only spoke when spoken to at times. I know girls who were beaten badly by their strict fathers. You had to be very careful not to adopt too much attitude upon becoming a Jung Madel, as in the privacy of the house Hitler did not rule, our fathers did and this was made perfectly clear to me by my father. Of course there were some girls who threatened to tell the authorities of their parents. The whole system encouraged you to inform on non-compliance.
For those girls entering the ranks of the Jung Madel, there were certain important preconditions of membership. The first and most important condition was that the female in question had to be a ‘pure German’. Those of Jewish and other ethnic origin were classed as wholly unsuitable for the Hitler Youth and were condemned to their own ‘racial sewer’. This was made clear within the classroom, and of course through much of the Nazi youth-propaganda material of the time. Vetting procedures were impossible to avoid. The applicants’ family records were carefully scrutinized by the local Nazi authority who ensured that any German girl, or boy, with any non-pure (mixed race) or Jewish ancestry, was quickly eliminated from the membership programme. Birth certificates and family records of the applicant’s grandparents and other relatives were also carefully checked.
The paramount importance of mental and physical health to the Third Reich meant that a programme of very thorough medical and physical inspection had to be devised to ensure that only the finest physical and mental specimens emerged as students for the Jung Madel. Anita von Schoener recalls her thorough medical inspection and inception into the Jung Madel:
An application had to be submitted and you could not hope to join the Jung Madel until the local authorities had verified all of the relevant information. The papers contained names and dates of birth of all family members, the authorities wanted to ensure that only German girls joined the Hitler Youth. Our family records going back for two generations were examined closely by officials of the local NSDAP authority. It was strange, as only a short period of time later I was notified to attend a medical examination to ascertain my fitness for the Hitler Youth. It was not a very pleasant experience at all and I have not ever mentioned it in a book or publication before. The medical inspection lasted some time and a doctor who wore one of those white surgical masks and his nurse gave me a very detailed examination.
When I entered the examination room, the first part of the inspection was concerned with eyes, hair, teeth and ears. Notes were made of my hair and eye colour and condition of teeth. I also noticed that my birth records were also present and the doctor had obviously been examining these documents. The doctor then asked me to remove my clothing. I did not feel comfortable at all about this and was embarrassed to take my clothing off in front of a man, but the nurse reassured me in quite a firm manner that everything would be all right, and that it was just an examination and I should not be afraid. The nurse carefully took my clothing and folded it neatly and placed it on a chair. Once I had removed all of my clothing including underwear the real examination began.
I was firstly asked to stand up as straight as I could with my chin up so as the doctor could take a measurement of my height. He then measured my chest, shoulders, neck, head, waist and thighs, all the time dictating notes to the nurse who scribbled the information down onto a form attached to a clipboard. The doctor also examined very carefully my skin and looked for such blemishes as birthmarks and moles and any signs of scar tissue.
After that he said ‘very good’ and then asked me to assume different gymnastic positions, some on the floor and some standing up. He then asked me to get up onto the examination table where I had to lie down. The doctor leaned over me and looked deep into my eyes with an instrument that looked like a pen that shone light into my eyes as he examined them. After returning the instrument to its box he then began to examine my breasts with both of his hands, which made me flinch and feel very uncomfortable – again the nurse firmly asked me to lie still and co-operate with the doctor. The doctor examined my breasts in great detail even though there was very little to examine, as I was only just ten years of age. The nurse then said to me, ‘Anita, you must now raise your legs up so the doctor can examine you down below as this is very important. Please do not worry and lie still; all of the girls will be having the same’.
As she said those words the doctor was putting on some of those tight-fitting surgical-type gloves. My heart started to pound in my chest and I think both the doctor and nurse could sense how uncomfortable I felt. As instructed, I raised my knees and the nurse gently parted my legs so I was laying with my legs open while the doctor examined my private parts. I could feel the doctor insert a gloved finger, he then pushed his finger in deeper and it started to hurt, and I cried out. He then stopped and walked over to a basin where he removed and disposed of the gloves and rinsed his hands.
He then picked up the clipboard and wrote down further notes. Then the doctor slipped on another pair of those horrible rubberized gloves and I wondered what he was going to do to me next. The nurse instructed me again to open my legs and pushed them apart at the knees with her hands.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
The nurse replied, ‘Please do as we ask and the examination will be over very quickly’.
The doctor inserted a finger into my back passage and began feeling around. I complained again that he was hurting me and the nurse got angry with me. When he finished he again removed the gloves and said, ‘Very good, you are perfect and very healthy.’
While he was writing down the notes, the nurse checked my hands and feet and then told me I could now dress again. Once dressed the doctor said to me, ‘Miss von Schoener, you are
physically fine and have passed my medical inspection. A report of the medical inspection will be retained on file for the authorities’ reference’.
He then smiled and said, ‘You are a special child, but do you understand why? Well, you can go now, I am sure you will be a very good German maiden and have lots of German children as our Führer requires of you.’
It struck me as being strange, as I had not even thought about the future or what I had wanted to achieve in life; children especially was something I had never considered as I had only just begun to register certain changes of a physical nature, and certainly did not wish to exploit them at that time.
Outside of the makeshift examination room there was a long line of girls who were standing talking excitedly amongst themselves. As I came out they asked me what it was like and what would happen in there. I must have looked a little pale and they guessed it was not going to be just a straightforward ‘flea check’. It occurred to me much later why the doctor called me a special child: I was tall, blonde, and blue-eyed, with milk-white skin – I was a good example of the Aryan female. I later discovered that so called doctor was on the payroll of the SS; that was what I was later told. He and his nurse were both SS and to this day I still have no understanding of what they did that day or why.
It is certainly evident in many cases that sometimes painful gynaecological examinations were carried out on pre-pubescent young girls prior to their entry into the Jung Madel, especially young, blonde girls with blue eyes. The concept of the Aryan race was already something that the Third Reich had begun to realistically consider. There is reason to believe in some cases that these examinations were also conducted on one in four of the pre-pubescent subjects, in a kind of quality-control approach, as not all received the genital examination, where in many cases fingers were inserted into their vaginas and rectal passages. Anita von Schoener was convinced that the doctor who had examined her had been someone connected with the SS, and that the purpose behind the vaginal examination, in particular, was to ensure that her hymen was intact and to compare her results with the girls of non-Aryan origin.