The Edelweiss Pirates, German Teenage Resistance Fighters of Nazi Germany, WWII

Last edited Sun Mar 12, 2023, 02:07 AM - Edit history (4)

- Edelweiss Pirates of Cologne, Germany; brutal executions.
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- Meet The Edelweiss Pirates: The Little-Known Teenaged Resistance Fighters Of Nazi Germany, All That's Interesting, Aug. 18, 2022. Ed.

In stark contrast to the Hitler Youth, the Edelweiss Pirates resisted Nazism in any way they could at a time when doing so was a criminal offense. Despite leaving behind little information on their exploits, a group of German teenagers known as the Edelweiss Pirates played an important role in Hitler’s Nazi Germany. - Much like the tenacious edelweiss flower clinging to the crags of Austria’s Alps that the group was named after, these young Germans resisted Nazi indoctrination. They saw themselves as the opposite of the infamous Hitler Youth, rejecting their paramilitary structure, Nazi ideology, & gender segregation. Hailing from working-class backgrounds, the Edelweiss Pirates resisted Nazism in any way they could — all before their 18th birthdays.

- The Hitler Youth: Sally Rogow of the Vancouver Holocaust Educ. Ctr. said the Edelweiss Pirates was “one of the largest youth groups who refused to participate in Nazi youth activities.” To understand the Pirates, we first have to understand what they were up against. Formed in 1922 as the Youth League of the Nazi Party, it was renamed the Hitlerjugend, or Hitler Youth, in 1926 & was comprised of German boys aged 14 to 18. Four years later, the Nazis established an equivalent organization for teenage girls called the Bund deutscher Mädel, or League of German Girls. At its height, the Hitler Youth had 8 Mill members, making it the largest youth organization in the world. Although the Youth initially focused on standard activities such as camping, sports, & games, it increasingly became militarized, training its young boys for armed combat. It soon became clear that the goal of the Hitler Youth was to indoctrinate Germany’s young people with Hitler’s aggressive, Nazi worldview..

- The Edelweiss Pirates, or Edelweißpiraten, was a collective of local anti-Nazi resistance groups founded largely in western Germany. Aged 14 to 17, these teenagers rejected the Hitler Youth’s & League of German Girls’ dark aspects: restrictions on teenagers’ fun & freedom of thought, & training kids for military service. Many of them left school at age 14- common for working-class teens at the time- in order to sever ties with the Nazis, & some dropped out of the Youth. Hitler Youth membership was compulsory beginning in 1936, & in 1939 — the same year World War II began — non-membership became a punishable offense. But the Pirates had only a few years of freedom since they were typically forced to join the army when they turned 18. (* Edelweiss Flower Sketch: growing in the Alps, it became a symbol of resistance for the Pirates). Everything the Hitler Youth stood for was everything the Pirates stood against. The Youth wore their hair high and tight & closely shorn, while the Pirates wore theirs long & free.

The Hitler Youth were segregated by gender, whereas Pirates were coed & some engaged in sexual experimentation. The Youth wore standardized uniforms & listened to Nazi propaganda music, the Pirates wore checkered shirts & lederhosen & played music composed by Jewish musicians & other non-state-sanctioned songs. - Pirates’ Antics: More than just a proto-hippie fantasy, these anti-fascists were flesh & blood teens. Many of their adventures were kept secret, so information on them can be hard to come by.. They spent time was in youthful rebellion to Nazism. One recalled pouring sugar in the gas tank of Nazi officers’ cars, hurling bricks through the windows of munitions factories, & graffiti-ing messages like “Down with Hitler” & “Down with Nazi Brutality.” They listened to the verboten BBC radio. When the Allies dropped anti-Nazi propaganda from their airplanes, the Pirates made sure to gather the leaflets before the Nazis snatched them up; they would organize leaflet drops in nearby towns so the local police wouldn’t recognize them. More daring activities included shielding German deserters and escaped concentration & labor camp prisoners, and supplying adult resistance groups with explosives.

Anything that could weaken the Nazis’ morale was fair game to the youthful Pirates. Many of them faced brutal punishment, from forced head-shaving to torturous prison sentences to public hangings...

- More, https://allthatsinteresting.com/edelweiss-pirates