by Heath, Tim
BDM girls were also expected to take childcare classes, as having children was to be their primary role whether they liked it or not. Groups of girls were taken to maternity units, usually in local hospitals, where they would meet new and old mothers alike, and discuss childcare subjects. The visits also served to give the girls some firsthand experience of holding a real baby. Though many of the girls already came from quite large families where there were infants present, and as the girls had to help their mothers with everyday chores, the maternal-care subject was nothing out of the ordinary for them.
The Nazis created new laws to protect the hereditary health of the German nation. Two such laws were the Marriage Health Law and the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring. It was made clear to the girls that they were to have no sexual association whatsoever with those males considered to be weak or inferior racially, physically or mentally. It was continually stressed to the girls ‘to be healthy and to remain healthy is not our private concern, but our duty’.
Heidi Koch remembers a visit from her BDM group leader, or Gauleiter, who addressed the importance of the issue of avoiding mixed-race and incestuous breeding, particularly with the mentally unfit, and gypsy peoples and those of Jewish origin:
The Gauleiter explained his theories to us and was becoming quite agitated as he talked. His talk came to a climax which would have made Hitler look boring, when he glared at us and shouted, ‘If any of you here dare to sleep with Jews and gypsies, then you are poisoning not only yourselves but the very soil of your homeland. You will be condemning everything that you are, and you are Germans, and as Germans only German men will lie at your sides in your beds.’
Most of us looked at one another in slight embarrassment, but the message was made quite clear, and one of the older girls of our group later said as we left the library where the talk had taken place, ‘Why couldn’t he just not say “girls, please don’t fuck Jews and gypsies!”’ We laughed about it and went on our way.
Health hygiene and nourishment all came under the scrutiny of the state. Parents were told that their girls should take care of their skin, hair, teeth and nails. The use of cosmetics to enhance their natural beauty was forbidden. The girls had to have at least ten hours sleep a night in a well-ventilated room. Much emphasis was placed on ensuring that they ate well, and received meals that would give them the right balance of vitamins, minerals and protein. Families received special subsidies to ensure that their offspring could eat the correct foods and remain healthy. It was a form of science in itself, and the girls of the BDM became like prized cattle, subject to regular health and fitness checkups.
The BDM uniform had to be worn on all important days, including all special family and school festivals. The uniform had to be washed and ironed properly and had to be worn with pride. No jewellery was permitted to be worn, either with the BDM uniform, or without it – only the small Hitler Youth membership badge was allowed.
The Nazis wanted simplicity and uniformity at all times. This had to be strictly obeyed by all of the girls. Their own uniforms were usually received within one to two weeks of joining the BDM. They were then fully responsible for its care and maintenance.
There was also a BDM knife issued by the authorities. This was identical to the type issued to the boys of the Hitler Youth, but was much lighter and carried no inscriptions or manufacturer’s markings. This weapon was an unofficial accessory, offered to girls as an ‘optional’ private purchase. As it was considered at the time unladylike for girls or women to wear or carry weapons, very few of these knives were actually issued, and as a result today they are rare.
The subject of sex education within the BDM was virtually non-existent, as sex was seen as a biological function performed only in the interests of reproduction. Talking about sex was something completely alien to the Nazi regime and its so-called ‘new morality’. The fact that very few girls received adequate information on the subject of sex and intercourse inevitably led to problems later on. There were many unplanned pregnancies amongst BDM girls, particularly in the American Occupation Zone after the war. This had occurred due to the lack of basic sexual knowledge.
Many girls found that there would be certain young men waiting to take advantage of them especially during their work placements in the early years with the RADwf, where during the early years, they mixed frequently with young males during the course of their work. There certainly were, however, an adventurous few who did find out all about the birds and the bees, and began to exploit such ‘forbidden’ knowledge. This will be looked at later.
Religious education went more or less unchanged, not that many of the girls ever took it as seriously as their elders. As far as most girls were concerned, the only bible that really meant anything to them was Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Through religious debate, the teachers taught them that the destruction of the Jew within German society was an intended course of history. It was God’s will, and a logical conclusion to the amputation of a diseased portion of the evolutionary mechanism of the human race. Nazi religion challenged that it was one of the reasons that God had appointed Hitler to save Germany, and that the Germanic Aryan race would one day inherit the earth.
The BDM were also expected to attend regular seminars given by such prominent Nazis as SS chief Heinrich Himmler. Himmler, a former Bavarian chicken farmer, would become the architect for the annihilation of Jews, Slavs and gypsies in Europe. He would give hour-long seminars on the subject of the Jew, and in particular why the Jew could no longer be tolerated within German society. Himmler was cold and calculated. He had no scruples whatsoever as to how he would achieve his aim. As a chicken farmer, he had planned to dispose of Europe’s Jewish, Slav and gypsy populations in much the same way as he did his chickens: keeping them in communal huts surrounded by wire, before slaughtering them with ruthless efficiency. Many of the girls listened intently to Himmler, and many believed and accepted without question his theory on race and eugenics. By the time most girls had joined the BDM, they had already been poisoned against Jews, Slavs and gypsies, accepting that the decisions made by their leaders were correct. There were, however, a good number who secretly began to question the ethics of the BDM, and Hitler Youth in general.
One such brave German girl was Sophie Scholl. Along with her brother Hans, she became involved with the White Rose student resistance movement at Munich University. This body began to oppose Nazi ideology and the education of Germany’s youth through the publication of various anti-Nazi leaflets and handbills. Sophie Scholl and her important role and stance in opposing the Nazi regime will be examined later.
Girls who had no involvement with the BDM came under immense pressure to join, mainly from their friends. In an effort to determine their loyalty, the authorities also began to scrutinize those who resisted. Neighbours were often asked to act as informers. If parental interference was to blame for a child not volunteering for the BDM, then a visit with sinister intentions was certain. In the end, fear proved to be the major motivating factor, resulting in the parents of most girls not objecting to their joining the BDM.
Prior to 1939, it had, in some cases, been possible to buy oneself out of the Hitler Youth and BDM by agreeing to pay a subscription fee. Under the new compulsory laws, however, this was soon scrapped. It soon became obvious to most parents that their own sets of values had either been distorted or replaced by those of the Nazis. Girls joining the BDM became the property of the state, and over a period of time, parents lost almost complete control over their daughters. Theresa Moelle explains:
My adoptive parents Walter and Greta Moelle adopted me on 12 November 1933 when I was five years old and I was brought up within their strict Christian community. The Moelles already had three other natural children, and while my relationship with them was reasonable, I was always a difficult and sometimes aggressive girl. We lived on the outskirts of Berlin in a very comfortable environment. My problems inevitably arose from the fact that I came from an or
phanage, and my adoptive parents never tried to disguise this fact from me. Though I have never to this day discovered who my real parents were, I certainly don’t want to know. Walter Moelle was very strict and if I stepped out of line he would take a stick to me, just like his other children. Well, he did until I got older when I once hit him back. Walter Moelle did not agree with everything which the Nazis were doing to change Germany from 1933, but generally benefited from certain things they did. People used to say ‘Don’t worry about Hitler and the National Socialists, they are good for German business.’
He did not like the idea of the BDM, as he believed, unlike many fathers, that it was a deviant organization. He also felt that young girls should not become a part of any political circus or anything, and that their role was in the home. He didn’t believe in all the big parades and rallies and things either and did not like the fact that we marched and wore uniforms. I suppose he felt it went a bit too far and it must have made him feel insecure in some way.
By 1937, the whole Hitler Youth thing had become compulsory and you had to join, it was really very simple. Jungvolk and Jung Madel prepared us for inception into the BDM, though the BDM was different in many ways. It was certainly more political and encouraged us to think politically, especially where Jews, blacks, Slavs and gypsies were concerned. Biology and eugenics were also studied in detail and these subjects were very interesting, though their principles were much different back then in the mid-to late-1930s.
Aryanism was also studied and served as a kind of role model, what we as a race should strive to become. I joined the BDM in April of 1942, and I suppose my adoptive parents did not really approve of it, except for the above given reasons, but the BDM took me away from home and I was able to enjoy doing things that I could never have otherwise done. We did many of the normal feminine things such as making things for old ladies and kindergartens, but we also did many things that only boys used to do. When we went camping we made rope swings attached to trees and swung across streams on them and things, those were things that girls did not do normally.
The BDM also taught us the rudiments of first aid, along with home economics and childcare, though the latter certainly did not interest me very much. I found babies quite messy and unpleasant things as a fourteen-year-old. The BDM changed my attitude to myself completely and after only a short period I started to think about how I wanted to change my life in some way and do something really positive. Maybe the BDM made me feel like a part of something big, which had happened and was continuing to build in Germany.
I began to question my adoptive father’s discipline in certain ways and wanted more freedom, and that spelled much trouble. Walter Moelle hated violence and did not want me to be a part of an organization which endorsed the use of hate and destruction in any form. This led to inevitable rows in the Moelle household. My language could be appalling at times and after one particular row with my father over the BDM I shouted, ‘Well, are you going to go out there and tell the fucking Gauleiter and the Nazis, that you don’t want me to be a part of them? Why don’t you do that and get us all arrested and shot?’
Poor Walter Moelle reacted in the only way that he could and he actually slapped me hard across the face. He had never done that before. I remember screaming that ‘I hated him and would one day shoot him dead for hitting me if the BDM didn’t do it first.’ Everyone had changed under Hitler and it was done in a very clever way where young girls and women were concerned. We were manipulated away from the good senses of our homes, upbringings and parents, and led to follow a very dangerous political and military course of action. Though our activities would become very limited by 1943, this mainly due to the constant threat of bombing, this only helped the Nazis to reaffirm our belief that the world was indeed not our friend but our enemy.
As the property of the Reich, the girls had to be prepared to work hard in the interests of the national community. All individuality was therefore rendered as an unimportant factor. In fact, individuality was viewed as the path chosen by the traitor.
Life became a sterile beehive of conformity, where all girls were bound to the same grey ideology and social process. It was a process carefully manipulated by the hierarchy to make the girls believe that they were the driving forces behind their own personal destiny, and were indeed acting upon their own sets of initiative. The reality of the situation was, in fact, the exact opposite.
Faith and honour were traits created through the strict BDM discipline, and hard physical exercise routines, which conveyed the sense of national responsibility that was the code by which all of the girls would live. They had sworn an oath to serve and honour their Führer. They would even die for him if called upon to do so.
In order to promote the idea of a unified body, soul and spirit, in 1934 national youth leader and head of the Hitler Youth from 1931 to 1940, Baldur von Schirach, introduced an achievement badge for physical prowess. The award was similar to the BDM Leistungsabzeichen. Of course, von Schirach had absolutely no real interest in the competitiveness aspect as such, but this was an easy way of ensuring that the girls always performed physically to the very best of their ability. In turn, this would ensure a healthy breeding stock of young females. It was a very simple philosophy. The award of pretty metal badges and ‘tinnies’ created a great sense of personal pride in the girls, who therefore worked very hard to earn them. Such proficiency awards were the only items that a BDM girl could wear on her uniform. It was also one of the reasons that so many sporting festivals were held in towns and villages all over Germany, through which a framework of achievement could be easily seen and then turned into yet more racial and biological propaganda for the BDM.
Many in German male society also secretly scoffed at the BDM. It also found itself the target of some particularly unwelcome and vulgar jokes and remarks from the male population, particularly boys of the Hitler Youth, members of the SS, and young soldiers of the Wehrmacht. The initials BDM were given improper substitutes such as ‘Bubi Drück Mich’ (squeeze me laddie); ‘Bedarfsartikel Deutscher Manner’ (requisite for German males); ‘Brauch Deutsche Madel’ (make use of German girls); ‘Bald Deutscher Mutter’ (German mothers to be); and ‘Bund Deutscher Milchkuhe’ (League of German Milk Cows).
BDM girl Heidi Koch recalls:
We were at times the target of ridicule and name-calling from the boys and young men. A gang of local Hitler Youth boys were always making unpleasant remarks to me, while also mocking my name. They would say to me, ‘Heidi, hide my cock’ and things like that. I also remember the same boys discussing out loud about the origins for the design of the steel helmet as worn by our soldiers. They said that the idea came from the shape of the end of the male sexual organ. Girls like myself were often far too embarrassed to report such incidents.
Under the Hitler influence, the general attitude towards girls and young women in Nazi Germany had begun to change radically – it became something of a slowly tightening noose.
Dora Brunninghausen:
Our lives more or less began to revolve around five particular things. These were school, our two hours each week with the BDM [Heimabend meetings], helping our mothers with home chores, church and Adolf Hitler. School was all right as I mixed with my friends and we were able to talk amongst ourselves, often about things we shouldn’t. The two hours a week with the BDM was divided between ideological tuition, the role and work of the BDM organization, and German history and culture.
In fact, anything that was happening at the time was open for discussion, but only in a limited and very controlled sense, and although we always contributed with our opinions, our opinions evolved from the poison of what we had been taught. Most of the themes revolved around the subjects of loyalty and honour, particularly towards our men folk and our personal courage and conviction to serve males. After the serious work was done, we could sit and talk with the other girls and BDM leaders, and we often knitted or sewed and did handicrafts. Sometimes we were treated to a magic or
puppet-theatre-type show. These were often terribly amateurish but they made us laugh.
Before we went home, we all stood to attention and sang a patriotic song. It was designed to not only educate us but also ensure we understood just how important it was for us to love our fatherland and to understand what it was that Hitler was saying to us all in his speeches. The BDM was special to me at that time. We were a community of our own, and each of the other girls was like a sister to me, that’s how close we became to each other.
There were also a number of important publications that were produced mainly for BDM leaders, the most well-known of these being Die Madelschaft. This was a form of guidebook for the BDM leader, containing information on activities, training and the basic teaching themes. All manner of topics were thrown in. These ranged from subjects relating to the First World War, to political figures, and so on. The issue produced in November 1938 dealt with the National Socialist Party and its early years of struggle, painting its members, such as Horst Wessel and Herbert Norkus, as heroes and martyrs. In April 1939, the publication dealt with the issue of the struggle against Bolshevism and Germany’s role as a kind of bulkhead against the spread of Communism. The text included sections on how Bolshevism destroyed the structure of normal marriage and family life. Everything that the BDM leader absorbed was directed like a hypodermic needle into the minds of the other girls, as the leader often became the potential BDM teacher.
The summer camps, which the BDM girls enjoyed, were also saturated with Nazi politics and ethos. However, many did not mind the lecturing and the strict drill, as they enjoyed the escape from their everyday surroundings and the monotony of the inner city. The camps were centred on very strict discipline that had to be observed at all times.