During the war my grandmother lived on a farm which had German 'soldiers' interned in 1944. They were children, crying for their mom, without socks in their too large crude boots. With a corporal not older than 18 himself overseeing them. My grandmother could not see the enemy at that moment. So she knitted socks for the young boys before they were sent off to the Ardennen.
@@BarbaraJikai that is awful . Such barbarism. I do not know as many would also feel, how an earth they survived. I often think why humans inflict so much cruelty to mankind. No answers come, and I have to let go, Bless those sous who did small mercies, for the greater deed
@@BarbaraJikai our village in the UK had a POW camp and the prisoners there although older teens and young men rather than boys had a good reputation in the village after the war. A mother of one of the POWs sent a letter thanking the village for looking after him.
Unfortunately UNWRA schools have been teaching kids the same thing only much worse,it's been going on for years and has yet to stop. They also start encouraging killing and unaliving themselves from birth.
I knew one who was living on his sailboat in the Florida Panhandle mid 1980's with his family...immigrated to USA after the war and was a retired brick mason from Chicago
At the same time, some of these young children were also the most ardent nazi's, with the typical "flame of Youth". "Wir sind die Fackelträger der Nation...." as is written on a statue at Camp Vogelsang, once a Hitler Jugend camp, today a museum I have visited with my last brother and my then 90plus year old father a few years ago (both died last year). My Belgian father was stationed in 1945 in Vogelsang as part of the occupying forces, he was 20 years old then.
My great grandfather was one of these boys. He was sent out as a soldier. He refused to shoot a small child and was thrown in a work camp for disobedience. He was rescued not long after. He moved to America after that. My mom said he wore long sleeves to hide his tattoo and only spoke about his experience while drunk. His supervisor shot the child so she didn't get away.
We read. But the facts are hard to understand. My German family, spoke of this. My Father who has only recently, talked of boys young as 10😢😢😢😢😢. He has 5 great grandchildren around this age. And he constantly tells me, it haunts him. He never sleeps from the nightmares. Protect the young. They are innocent and vulnerable, whilst hard to listen to, we must, or it as we all say lost to oblivion. My Father, passed his torment via his mental instability, to us, I think you can have generational trauma, even though you’re not involved. Yet. War still drives us to cruelty against thy neighbours. 😢😢😢😢😢😊😊
@@Yorkshirelass727I prayed n hope those Baby cages(boys) were not sexually abused for favors n food, (@25 mins, sexual trade betwn those paedos American soldiers) That would be truly tragic for many young baby Germans boys who survived but was too distraught to talk abt it. Typical paedos/evil exist then too. That's why they called it baby cages!!!
@@Yorkshirelass727 Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can affect the families of the original trauma victim. Whilst you may not have encountered the horror first hand, you got to hear the nightmares, you got to see the eyes that had seen too much, the reactions that were a bit too intense, the pain when things were mentioned. Generational PTSD is a recognised affliction.
@@Yorkshirelass727 Let's hope we have learned enough that we can pass it onto the young, l never glorify war, and I would never encourage anyone to join the armed services. I am very respectful of our war dead, and those who serve, but I would never advocate for war, unless there was absolutely no other option to preserve our freedom.
I met a man who was a young teenager in the Hitler Youth. As the war progressed the state decided to assign all these young men to different trades. He was fortunate to be too young to be assigned to combat duties. They were lined up and an official walked down the line reading the trade the young man had randomly been assigned. Reading from the list the man pointed to the teenagers and told him his new occupation. The boy beside my friend was told he was now a carpenter. He objected and said he didn't want to be a carpenter. The official walked back to him and punched him in the head full force. The boy fell over unconscious and the official continued down the line assigning trades. Needless to say no one else objected to the trade the Nazi state assigned them. The man I knew was told he was a painter. It was a trade that supported him his entire life. He immigrated to Canada where he started a successful painting business. He recalled these events with laughter and not a trace of bitterness.
My grandmother lived in a very rural part of the UK, where German POWs were held during the War to help on the farms. The POWs were allowed to take themselves between their barracks and the farms without escort, so chatted with the locals a lot. My Nan said she remembered two Germans in particular- one was an older, rather "out of condition" man who'd also served in WW1. He was very genial, basically saw the locals as his equals as he came from a similar rural community back home. I suspect he was rather glad to be spending his War pottering around the English countryside. But this man was always accompanied by a skinny, surly blonde youth. The younger man had grown up with the indoctrination and despite the rather cosy hospitality they received locally, the young man couldn't bring himself to even look these "enemies" in the eye. He seemed disgusted by the very presence of the locals, they were clearly not up to his Aryan standards, and he refused to speak to them. My grandmother said his eyes were blank, like there was nothing behind them. Every ounce of humanity had been stripped from him and a vague, futile hatred left in it's place. My Nan (being only young herself) was very frightened of this "programmed robot" at the time and made a point to avoid him, but as the years passed she'd clearly looked back and felt sorry for him. I grew up with that story so I've always been curious about those young boys. They were victims of the regime too.
My mother was in the Land Army and also worked alongside German POW's, many, as you said, ordinary folks. My mum was frowned on a little, because she treated them as humans. I remember her telling me that "they were just like your father, sent to war because that was how it was." The real Nazis were held under much closer guard, with many staying much longer in the UK to be de-radicalised. I find it hard to get over the fact that one man with insane ideas found others willing to go along with it, creating one of the worst situations the world has ever found itself in. Lest we forget, indeed.
@@sheilaboston7051 One of the local girls fell in love with one of the POWs and moved back to Germany with him after the War. An English guy who had a crush on her was so devastated he shot himself. The War had victims far beyond the casualty lists ☹️
An older friend was taken from school at 12 to serve in the German army. He was sent to the Russian front. He was captured by Americans and eventually went to live with an American family. He said there was an entire ship full of young former German soldiers headed to the US
About 15:00 min. playtime: The kid under interrogation is not German, but rather he is Hungarian, still in his first semester in a cadet school. They were not given yet arms, only some marching exercises and so forth. His German, which was mandatory language at the school, is still quite rudimentary, it's still mixed with his native Hungarian.
You are absolutely right! Never the less this film-sequence is used since decades for anti german propaganda. To "proove" that Hitler used child soldiers in combat. Thanks for your comment, this was very important to say!
@@lacertabilineata9337 Thanks for the positive response. What we can surely agree, that the war was a tragedy for all European nations, but particularly among the Central European nations. Peace be with you effendi!
My heart breaks for those boys. They grew up under the Nazis, went to Nazified schools, were required to be in the Hitler Youth. There minds were messed with from a young age. Yet they were still boys. I'm 62, but if I'd been a teenage boy in Berlin in 1945, it would have been so exciting, and scary, to be manning the antiaircraft guns, being all "grown up". A man's boyhood is an important part of his life, and their boyhoods were poisoned, stolen from them.
In one town they also herded ALL French civilians (including women, children and babies) into a church and burned them alive. Those who tried to escape through the windows were shot. NOT SO BLOODY INNOCENT.
@@Capochin950 I have met young people who do not know how we would think of children. I can't imagine any men I know being like that, but they must have been ordinary.
So glad someone finally made a doc about this. I’ve been doing research for around four years now on the HJ, and never got much info about their post-war experiences. Much thanks!
True. I need to read a few books on the subject too. I’ve been reading about all facets of WWII since I was 14 but this subject did not yet pass through my hands. Not easy to find.
I remember my mother (born in 1933) telling how shock and sad she felt when she first saw a young German soldier : his sleeves were longer than his arms, his shoes were too big and he couldn’t walk probably. Yet the HJ had been submitted to such propaganda that many of them fought with « the energy of despair ».
As an American all we've been taught, which was little, was that Germany and Nazis were bad. But mostly taught about what happened to the Jewish people. I ashamedly never thought about what happened to Germans after the war, people who opposed Nazi rule. Thank you for bringing this to light. I have a new interest in finding information about what happened to the country and the people during that time My mother's family is from West Germany but everyone slowly left to be with the family members who came to America before WW2, I believe it was over political reasons but not sure.
My mothers parents parents (my great grandparents) came over before ww1 because they didn't agree with the political climate. Things looked like there was going to be another war and they left. But I still wonder what happened to their family members who stayed behind.
Desserters and opponents were treated by people as traitors even after war and they weren't allowed to serve in Bundeswehr as former- nazis did not liked them as non-nloyal
My father, a Normandy veteran, recounted the fanaticism of the Hitler Youth (12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend) during the battle for Caen (June 1944).
Very well researched documentary. So moving to hear this elderly man recounting that tragic part of his life. What a wonderful thing that his daughter came upon the idea of getting him to speak. Too many survivors of that period, German or otherwise, failed to share their memories and took them to the grave which is a huge loss for future generations. Let’s hope life brought him happiness to make up for the loss of his childhood and witnessing the treatment of his father at the hands of the Gestapo.
My father was a German living in Poland during the war. My grandfather was conscripted in the German Army when my father five years old. He never talked about it. I am grateful this daughter was able to get her father to talk. Mine never did.
I can’t get enough of the knowledge about WWII. What these children had to do for Hitler completely saddens me. I don’t know numbers on how many of the young men that led a life of destruction and violence. Just 1 would still be too many. I hoped they lived the best prosperous life possible.
It's not a mystery. Millions of children of both genders had to join the HJ. The history of both parts of Germany in the decades following WWII is well known and documented. If you read and watch it, the history of the former HJ and their own children is what you see, though just a small minority ever got some "re-education" as shown here, apart from memories, stories and own life-experience.
@@ottosaxoTraveling and living among Germans you'll still sense this hardcore socialising scheme three generations of Germans went through, due to first and second world war!
My dad was a WWII combat vet. He had a Silver Star, a Bronze Star 3 Purple Hearts and various other medals. From what little he talked about the war he said the Hitler Youth were some of the most dangerous soldiers.
There is a serious mix-up here: There was the 12th Panzer Division "Hitler Youth". These were Waffen-SS units. The normal Hitler Youth were comparable to boy scouts, they were minors, not soldiers. Every German boy had to join the Hitler Youth. “Air Force helpers” or “FLAK helpers” are yet another category. They operated the heavy anti-aircraft cannons to defend their city from air raids. All men were at the front, so these kids had to defend their town. They were minors, they were not soldiers and did not carry weapons. But their duty as anti-aircraft gunners was extremely dangerous and many of them didn´t survive.
@@lacertabilineata9337 my dad has been gone for several years and my memory might be bad but he said the child soldiers were very dangerous. The child soldiers were fanatics. Maybe it wasn't the Hitler youth but he did face soldiers that were teenagers.
@@anthonyfoutch3152 More lies were spread about no people in the world than about the Germans during the Nazi era! The minimum age for the army (SS or Wehrmacht) was 18 years and there was no exception! When your father talked about "child soldiers", he could only mean the "Volkssturm". These weren't soldiers, but a last contingent of civilians defending their hometown. They also had no military training. My uncle was a FLAK helper in Nuremberg when he was 15 years old. The FLAK helpers were all underage and had to shoot down aircraft with FLAK guns during air raids. They too were otherwise unarmed, had no military training and were not soldiers! The Americans didn't understand a lot of things, they mistook every uniform for a soldier's uniform (hunters, HJ, tram conductors...) and they had a "werewolf persecution mania".
Do you realize they said that to cope with the thought of killing children. On one of the veteran channels a US soldier talks about how he prepared to take out his first German tank after D-day, he trained for moths and expected to face combat experienced SS elite soldiers, he leaped up on the back of the tank using one of his satchel charges he took out the tank, later on when he inspected the wreck he was still after 70 years unable to continue telling his story visibly disturbed what he actually met while looking inside the tank, teenage boys. In those days they never heard of that so of cause after defeting the enemy going trugh the aftermath, they told themselfs that was a hell of a figh and that they fought like men, but as you can see from witness here most of them didnt even fire a gun.
A good book, “Save the Last Bullet: Memoir of a Boy Soldier in Hitler’s Army” by Heidi Langbein-Allen. He was a 14 yr Hitler Youth who ended up fighting against the Russians when they had reached Germany. He was lucky & ended up in a US POW camp. He was ill treated by an American soldier. He ended up serving as farm labor for 10 months. He was luckier than other POW soldiers who labored for 3 yrs in Fr coal mines. Very interesting to learn this German viewpoint.
I'm 74 and born right after the war. I knew Hitler was desperate in the last year of the war and drafted 15 year old's, but I had never heard of the POW "Baby cages" after the war. It makes sense, though. Trying to prevent the mistakes England and France made after WWI in 1919. That's what brought Hitler to power in the first place.
You don’t need to be defeated in a war for a demagogue grifter to rise to power. Germany escaped WW1 with little of the devastation they would experience later. Yet hatred and racism were used as an excuse to start a war. Appealing to the worst in humanity.
This was not the first time Germans used their youth for wars. My great-grandfather's parents sent him to the United States around 1880s because he was being forced into military service at the age of 9. His younger brother came later for the same age and for the reason.
Actually the most attractive societal status for generations of Germans were the military elite. Becoming an army officer had higher social status than the Imperial Elite. Tells a lot about the basis for several generations of war hungry Germans willing to start two world wars ...
Thank you for saying this. A couple of male members of my family who were 18 & 20 at the time left West Germany for America at that time period. I've always wondered exactly why they'd leave home like that. I thought it might be for political reasons, maybe they were also being forced into military service and didn't want to as well
My dad went into business with two men who were Hitler Youth, Jack Berger? Karl ??? The two men sold the business to my farther. They built a building in the back lot of the shop and machined Parts for VW's, Porches and Audi's. These men were the kindest most patient men that I've known my whole life. In 1970 the shop was called J&K Volkswagen, Porsche and Audi. The shop is still there on 4000 Fountain Ave Hollywood California.I will never forget Karl's hospitality and kindness he had a way of making everybody feel important. Jack had a beaming smile that put you at ease. My dad was a shit to these men, you would have never known it.
"Children have never befor been used in this way for military purposes" Yes they have. During the crusades, an army of children where sent to fight in the holyland.
The Childrens Crusade was hardly an officially organised military expedition, but there are many examples of child warriors. Achilles was about 14 when he went to Troy, and child soldiers were the backbone of the revolutions in Africa of last centuries. A youth with a limited moral appreciation and a limited concept of the consequences of killing make deadly soldiers because they do not really know what they are doing
They were not a "sent" army as they were not trained solders nor belonging to any organized military, kingdom or religious group. Also, they never made it to the holy land.
Meanwhile My great grandpa wasnt sent home till 1955 after ten years of working as a welder in Siberia and then killed in a train collision on his way back.
@@TheSmokeGoblinMight be the case, at least they were offered the chance to survive, and make up for the insane evil they threw upon several millions of innocent civilians!
My Uncle was in France after the D-Day invasion. He was in the National Guard then activated for overseas duty. His unit took Nazi prisoners,including officers and Nazi youth.The Officers had a attitude, hard to get information out of them, real quiet and liked to smoke cigarettes. One Nazi Youth pulled a knife on my Uncle, who in turn, choked/unlived him. He was about 13 to 15 years old it surprised my Uncle that a "kid" was willing to fight even when captured.
A friend of my father was forced 1944 in a prisoner batallion at age 16- because of anti Nazi acting - was sent with 25 other young prisoner soldiers to the Rheinwiesen camps and they nearly starved to death. He had 3 choices in 1944: 1. Firing squad 2. Concentration camp 3. Prisoner batallion What would your choice have been in this situation at age 16? . He chooses the only way to survive. So.l, not all young prisoners were treated as victims by the US Army
Very valuable testimony. Thank you. My mother in NE England used to go as a child to the edge of the local POW camp and look in. They were terrible times and other than Ukraine and few other issues since 1945 we have managed to maintain peace by and large in Europe. Let us hope we can continue to do so as war is a terrible thing. The indoctrination is a similar kind but I think worse under ISIS - I saw a profile of some young "cubs of the caliphate and their behavioural problems since leaving Raqqa having been taught from so very young simply to want to kill in a way worse even than the Nazis. Do we never learn?
Well some enslaved countries were still fighting by their underground up to 60'. And you also forgot Yugoslavian wars. I would not called a Cold War a keeping peace when war was a possible option depending on Soviet's decision.
Mention of the segregation of the blacks from the whites during this period was a painful truth. As a very young person during those days I watched as Congress was in a turmoil about segregation to the point that the Southern Democratic Party actually walked out on their session in protest. In the very early 60's I took my wife and child on a car trip to FL to see friends. I believe it was Georgia where, being hungry, I pulled over to a "order to go" restaurant to buy some hamburgers and a very nice black gentleman waiting on me. He took my order and delivered it to me and off we went. All the while the food was being prepared I was aware that the man was staring at me in amazement, which I didn't challenge but certainly noticed. Otherwise my mind was blank as far as I can recall. As we drove away along this building, about 60-70 feet from where I got the food, there was another "to go restaurant" with a sign saying, "Negro window." The sign was pointed back to where I purchased our food. My first experience with segregation since I had black friends back home in Pa. and this was foreign to me.
It caused quite a turmoil in the UK when the Americans arrived. The British people treated their black servicemen the same as the white, but most of the latter couldn't handle that. It was also disgusting that, after the war, recognition of the skills/bravery of the black troops was extremely slow in coming.
You can see when he's talking about being a boy soldier the anxiety in his eyes and body movements, reliving those terrifying times and being such a young boy at that time, I'm really happy he survived to have a family and love 💕
12th SS Hitler Jugend were fanatical,i remember seeing an interview of some British Commandos and they said they were forced to use the flamethrower on them,turning them into human torches,and it sickened the brit using it and he threw it away after that..
I knew one of them who was a sweet old gentleman who was warm and cuddly at the time. He was the son of farmers, so he'd had plenty to eat before being forcefully conscripted. He was sent to the Russian front where he was captured. He managed to squeeze between the bars where he was kept as a P.O.W. Because lack of food. He was then captured by the Allies. He loved the Americans because they nursed him back to health. Then, he was sent to a re-education camp. Eventually, he immigrated to Australia, where he married a single mother with children who adored him. He was viewed as a lovely grandfatherly figure. I'm starting another comment.
Democracy and freedom are vehicles that have allowed us to leave the world as it was and create the new world that is Slavery in the apartheid has been the natural state of humanity until Western Civilization created arguments against it
The French naturally wanted a hard punishment imposed on Germany. But the Americans went from wanting to utterly destroy Germany after discovering the concentration camps to wanting them as allies against the Soviet Union by 1947 and 1948.
The Marshall Plan raised the entire Western World to common wealth and democracy, while Moscow forced everyone in Eastern Europe into a depressing state of living.
None of these young teens had a choice! My uncle was about 14 or 15 years old when he was forced to be in the Hitler Jugend and as a prisoner of war was sent to Alabama, picking cotton for 1 year. He died in his 50‘s and I was too young to know about it.. I wish I had known, I would have asking him many questions.
My grandma had a German pen friend after the war. He came to stay with her family, and he says he never forgot their kindness. I know this is true, because even though my grandmother has been dead for several years now, and despite never meeting him as a child, he and his wife still send us christmas presents with home made biscuits. We went to stay with his family one holiday, and he took us around the German side of Rhine region, including Kassel, and he talked about how the Hitler youth was just like the Scouts or any other unassuming youth club as we sat by memorials overlooking the vinyards. It was around the time Brexit was still being processed, and we discussed how much the EU meant, as more than a political entity, how it was so disappointing to see it start to break apart this way. Europe was obviously devastated by the wars, and Germany in particular faced ostracism for obvious reasons, but the trade agreement and the unification of currency allowed these neighbouring nations to rebuild relations. I, completely unintentionally, went on exchanges to both sides of the border as a teenager, one to Strasbourg and one to Stuttgart, and the history of the region is so rich, dense and scattered all at once. Alsace has its own dialect, and many families still spoke German or Alsation, a relic of the unstable border, but when I was last there, they were contructing a tramline across that border. My French exchange's mother went shopping in Germany for organic food prices or something, and we went to Europa Park to play. That such a transformation could occur in 70 years to what was literally the frontline of two wars speaks volumes to the value of the EU to the people, but also of our ability to heal, to forgive, and I suppose to forget. Werner took us to see much more than war memorials though. He was proud to show us Roman cities, castle ruins, and mountainside wineries. I'm sure that he remembers much pain and regret, and he does not forget it or push it aside, but he does not dwell on it either; he showed himself to be a forward facing man full of hope, optimism, and a firm belief in the goodness human character.
Verdun was the site of a horrific 10 month battle in 1916 fought to standstill between the French and Germans. I believe the German strategy was to 'bleed the French white'. The significance of it makes the shock understandable.
World War 1. Huge battles in France before the Americans arrived late in the war in 1918. Google "Verdun" and "Somme" Battles. Horrific. Can you imagine one million causalities in one battle? WWI wiped out a generation of British and French men. That's why they were so reluctant to get involved in another war 20 years later.
He may have looked like a living skeleton when he escaped from his Russian prison. But he certainly didn't in his old age. He took his locally acclaimed baked cheese cake recipe to the grave with him. He suddenly had a heart attack and died a week or so later. My mum and I went to visit him. I sat next to him and held his hand. Then we both hugged him, and I kissed him on the cheek goodbye. I was visiting some of my family on the other side of the country when I heard he'd died. He never went into detail about his life in that re-education camp. But he advised us that if we ever found ourselves in a situation where we could have many possessions that a bath towel should be one of them. As it can be used to dry ourselves off and could be wrapped around us for warmth. At one stage, he thought communism was the answer. But that changed upon learning the awful truth about it.
My Opa was an anti gunner around Berlin and when it got bad there NCO took the boys to Northern Germany to surrender to the Americans not the Russians . He told me he was captured by the Canadians and they beat and starved them so it didn’t matter to them they were children.
It's weird about the Canadians. They had a reputation for being particularly brutal towards the Germans, both in WWI and WWII. The Germans treated the Canadians accordingly.
As we learned from a very popular song that was Nr.1 in the US charts and in the top 10 around the globe back in the 80's, the average age of the American soldiers that were sent overseas to fight in the Vietnam war was 19 years old! N-N-N-Nineteen !!!!
I did not have to serve in Viet Nam, but several guys I went to high school with either joined or were drafted. College students had a temporary deferment from the draft. That's why so many men went to college during the Viet Nam War.
Hey Bubba did you know that more Americans have been killed BY Americans in AMERICA than ALL the Americans killed in ALL the foreign wars combined that Americans have fought in,mainly thanks to the second amendment
Thank you! This is an interesting side of history which few of us knew about. My family was no better than the Nazis even though from Eastern Europe. Socialism is dictatorship.
@@UrsulaPainter Dictatorships are dictatorships regardless of the costume they disguise themselves with. Military right wing dictatorships are just as bad as the fake left wing military dictatorships in the “Soviet” block or old fashioned absolute feudal monarchies.
Much of my fathers family lived (and still do) in and around LIege, Belgium. The SS and Gestapo made frequent stops in their small villages (Foret, Chaufontaine, Trooz) and were very condescending and cruel to locals. The atrocities takig place nearby in the Ardennes were rumored but not witnesed by many locals because of curfews and the fear of being detained.
The Ottomans used Christian children, abducting them in Pontus and central Anatolia and raising them to be soldiers. Ironically, they were superior to Ottoman soldiers and saught by the pashas for special guards.
The Janisaries- the children (boys) from Greece were taken when they were toddlers. They were usually the first-born son as that caused a particularly tragic loss for the parents, as the first-born son was always named for the paternal grandfather, and continued the family lineage.The Janisaries wore an emblem of a fork and knife on their headgear- fought for sustenance. These soldiers were unaware of their true heritage.
The teen German POW already had lost his father, a Confessing Church pastor, a few years earlier when the Nazis killed him for his pacific views. Then he survived this imprisonment, yet returned to the rest of his family in occupied Germany by 1946. This question of child soldiers is very important for the 21st century, when so many conflicts generate 10,000s of similarly victimized children of both sexes!!
47:43 The US of the 40's was a shining examle of Apartheit. Ive not heard of of anyone holding up South Africa of the Apartheid era as a beacon of "democracy".
I know one of these guys. He went on to run the export business for VW for quite a while. His reality did not match your story, not even close. His problems started after the war when he had to report to a POW camp. Took the German prisoners and the guards to keep them safe from the SS prisoners who wanted to kill them. This is all news to him. Funny that.
Incredibly sad and disturbing vlog. Children are like clay easy to mold but once the clay dries its form cant be changed. My father told me that all his four Uncles went to war the youngest being just 17years old despite conscription supposedly being 18 years for New Zealanders. Apparently, this was a fairly common occurrence.
So many of these kids lost their childhood, not to mention their innocence during the war .They were forced to join Hitler youth groups, and before the end of the war h as to fight Allied soldiers , because most of the men of military age were killed or became prisoners of war on the Eastern front..I believe it should be a cautionary tale. Children have no business in fighting a war . Their rights had been violated and any dictators who use children in fighting a war should stand trial for war crimes against humanity. Let me know what you think about this issue.
Goodness could you imagine our kids now they can't cope without WiFi mobile phones and social media !! what all the kids went through in the war bares thinking about but they kept strong !! Only hope my children don't have to go through something like this when they are older ww3 makes my heart break the thought💔💔💔
Most German soldiers were conscripts. Even the adults. Most regular soldiers in the Alied army new that. They called them Jerrys or Krauts and only rarely referred to them as Nazis. We take all the nuance out of war to make it easier. They have to all be bad guys. They weren't. Just like not all Allied soldiers were liberating saviors.
It was an informative and wonderful historical coverage documentary about humanitarian practices after WW2 by US POW administrations towards teenagers and children of Germany ( conscripted children by Nazism regime during WW2)
@@lisette2060, no, hating their nation and entire history to the point of not defending themselves. Your simplistic description of anti-Semitism is a bit more complex in reality. Jews were disproportionately represented in leftist and communist movements.
These young boys are so fortunate that they were in American hands! Germans hijacked trains from the east, just to get a chance to surrender to the Americans so they wouldn't be mistreated. Being in a camp like this was very unpleasant, but on the outside, civilians were starving, while Russians tortured Germans and killed them or if they let them live, they faced years of prison camp and life behind the Iron Curtain.
I love how Germany is one of the current countries who ACTUALLY tell their history from the war. Some countries (cough Japan) like to glance over lots of events.😅
@@Ex-MuslimMuhammad-o4d were not better because we're born later. We're better because, we're decent human beings who know how to love and how to forgive. We have empathy, compassion and kindness. I don't think you have one ounce of decency in your entire body. Forgiveness, kindness, mercy? You don't even know what those things are!
I was surprised to say the least that there was a sexual aspect in the camp. I thought given that they were all military men that that sort of thing just wouldn't happen. I of course realize that most certainly there would have been a percentage of gay and bisexual men amongst them but i thought that military discipline would have kept it at bay. I guess not.
It’s not about being homosexual or bisexual. It is an instinct that exists amongst many men when no women are present. Very well documented in research literature.
Gay men didn't commit these horrid crimes they were straight men. Alot of these people were jacked up on methamphetamines which was legal to prescribe and alot of soldiers are still given this drug makes men sexual deviance and I've learned parasite make folks promiscuous and angry violent I now believe parasites were used as bio warfare and fecal matter carries the eggs. The Spanish flu was due to the vaccines given to soldiers. Nothing about these wars make sense.nam louse Cambodia until you add the crops grown poppy cocoa guarded by armed American soldiers for big PHARMA it's always been about stealing the crops for drug manufacturers and black markets meth now a trillion dollar business in Asia folks wanna say China im sure but they are a part just not the head our tax dollars spent to take by force guarded by armed us suffers
@@AuntieTrichome They hijacked the Socialist party because it already had a following, then turned it into what they wanted it to be by adding the word Nationalist. In the same way, the trump MAGA people have taken over the Republican party in the USA.
I met the chief of police of Koblenz Germany in the 70s. He was captured by the U.S. Army. He was near his home so a sargent took his uniform and sent him home in his underwear.
The translator at 15:20 is terrible. He’s asking the kid if he ever fought against Americans, but he’s using the wrong word for “fought” it’s gekamp, not “gekempt”. Then he tries to change the question into whether the kid ever shot at an American and his sentence is so convoluted he has to use sign gestures… I’m surprised he didn’t resort to “shoot.. BANG BANG… shoot!” Lol
The footage is from Freyung Germany of hungarian children from Kőszeg military school. Nothing to do with the topic of this video. It was just the same milschool , what you have still today.
@@arturcsecserits497Thank god they were all innocent and pure abused fans of the Austrian painter? Btw, aren't the innocent Anschluss victims still admirer of those days weird ideology? Megalomaniac Pootin sure has a huge fan population and loyal oil customers in Austria!
He is probably speaking "kitchen German" he remembers from home, or from high school classes. Surely he was pressed into service as an interpreter. Many politicians deny knowledge of languages they "know" in order to avoid embarassment...you do what you can with the linguistic tools you possess.
Who are these smiling women, they talk of compassion, love, happiness, and learning... Darn, maybe someone should tell them that those kids belonged at home, not in a tent in a prisoner camp, freezing, starving and being told how wonderful democracy was, pure insanity.
And what do you think existed at home? Mum and Dad……not likely. More likely no one with no food, shelter and paternal comfort. Huge displacement of the population, let alone the death toll from bombing. No food due to ongoing fighting or poor food distribution networks. It is difficult to imagine what it would have been like during the immediate post war situation as most of us in 1st world countries have thankfully not experienced anything like post war Germany, particularly that it was so destroyed by the allies in order to achieve cessation of fighting.
I noticed you have previously made a comment about birth rate survival was 0% in Germany in 1946. Why such cognitive dissonance when recognising the terrible statistic of neonate survival but wanting to send these young men home into these same conditions?
@@sassyg3316 The Expulsions? They were not voluntary, they were kicked out, 12 to 15 million of them, the biggest human displacement in history? Yes, big problem. In the American zone, the starvation was intentional, until 1947, Eisenhower didn't even allow the Red Cross to bring food packages to the dying, just insane. You can read about it in a free and easy to find booklet called: "Famine in Germany by William Langer". Its the transcript of a speech in the US congress by Mr. Langer, governor of North Dakota. If you want to know more tell me, I've been collecting material about the unknowns of the world wars for years now. Cheers.
At Quebec, FDR forced the Morgenthau Plan on Churchill, he bribed him but when it was leaked to the press the US said it was dropped... not true, it was rewritten in a secret army pamphlet, JCS 1067, that Eisenhower made even worse in practice. If you include the bombing of 61 cities, the Rhine Meadows camps, the civilians sent to the Gulags, the starvation, and the vicious occupation after the war, it certainly looks like there was some kind of plan to erase Germany from human memory. Unprovable... yet but google "Operation Vegetarian" for example, Churchill's plan to drop cattle fodder full of anthrax from planes over the whole of Germany, that would have killed almost everyone. When D-Day came in, he was almost ready but D-Day came first, so he had to cancel it. A systematic extermination plan? Looks like it. Later, they burned the anthrax cakes, 5 million of them I believe but without taking the necessary precautions, some people were poisoned by the smoke. What the British didn't know is that the Germans had by then tons of Tabun, sarin nerve gas, much worse than anthrax and no antidote. In the end they never used it, it could have won them the war but Hitler refused, against his principles and he had some foolish affection for the Brits but under an anthrax attack? He probably would...
"Children have never before been used in this way for military purposes." What a load of nonsense. The vast majority of soldiers in both World Wars were under the age of 20, especially in the first. Looking further back, even by skimming history, one finds that what would have been considered children these days were always the mainstay of any and every army since the beginning of recorded history. A private in the armies of Napoleon was usually 16 years old and the sergeants about 18-20. Contrary to popular belief, Joan d'Arc was actually in the proper age range for a military officer in her time-it was her sex that made her stand out. Even today in lands outside of civilization such as those of Africa and Southeast Asia soldiers as young as 9 are sent to the jungle as full-blown NCOs with AK-47s and grenades.
@bumbo9622Trump. Book banning. Encouraging discrimination against homosexuals. Push for traditional gender roles. Destruction of labor organizations. Try looking at the 14 points of fascism. We're well on the way.
@bumbo9622From Webster dictionary definition of fascism "a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition". Example: the extreme right republican party in the United States, who have selected a dictator wannabe to run in their party for president, and who spew hate and violence on their far right new media puppets.
@@torinsallI meant or spoke of violence or racism toward the left? Trying to understand why people say this. Not to be mean. I thought the black lives matter movement was the one who robbed, vandalized and hurt people when the radicals had their riots? Thank you
@@cariannweiler6159Are you perhaps capable of explaining why your governmental residence were attacked by thousands of maniacs, inspired by losing president D. Dumps hateful nonsense? Answer based on conspiracy nonsense will be ignored ...!
imagine if you were 10 in 1933 when Hitler came to power, the schools were run by the nazis if you did join the Hitler youth and lets be honest it was made to appeal to young lads, camping, flying gliders, learning firstaid, millitary games ok if you werethe bookish type it may not be your thing but if you enjoyed sport and the outdoor life it must have been exciting plus the british youth of the 30s were unhealthy undernourished and under develouped.
During the war my grandmother lived on a farm which had German 'soldiers' interned in 1944. They were children, crying for their mom, without socks in their too large crude boots. With a corporal not older than 18 himself overseeing them. My grandmother could not see the enemy at that moment. So she knitted socks for the young boys before they were sent off to the Ardennen.
Your grandmother had a good heart. These young boys were no doubt victims themselves.
The young soldiers were NOT the enemy. They never are. It’s the powers that be that are. Most just are forced or do it for survival themselves.
@@BarbaraJikai that is awful . Such barbarism. I do not know as many would also feel, how an earth they survived. I often think why humans inflict so much cruelty to mankind. No answers come, and I have to let go, Bless those sous who did small mercies, for the greater deed
Bless her heart ❤❤❤
@@BarbaraJikai our village in the UK had a POW camp and the prisoners there although older teens and young men rather than boys had a good reputation in the village after the war. A mother of one of the POWs sent a letter thanking the village for looking after him.
So many of these young children didn't have a choice in joining the Youth Brigade. It is a lesson we need to remember
The SS were all graduates of Hitler Youth.
They wuz guuud bois
Unfortunately UNWRA schools have been teaching kids the same thing only much worse,it's been going on for years and has yet to stop. They also start encouraging killing and unaliving themselves from birth.
I knew one who was living on his sailboat in the Florida Panhandle mid 1980's with his family...immigrated to USA after the war and was a retired brick mason from Chicago
At the same time, some of these young children were also the most ardent nazi's, with the typical "flame of Youth".
"Wir sind die Fackelträger der Nation...." as is written on a statue at Camp Vogelsang, once a Hitler Jugend camp, today a museum I have visited with my last brother and my then 90plus year old father a few years ago (both died last year). My Belgian father was stationed in 1945 in Vogelsang as part of the occupying forces, he was 20 years old then.
My great grandfather was one of these boys. He was sent out as a soldier. He refused to shoot a small child and was thrown in a work camp for disobedience. He was rescued not long after. He moved to America after that. My mom said he wore long sleeves to hide his tattoo and only spoke about his experience while drunk.
His supervisor shot the child so she didn't get away.
We read. But the facts are hard to understand. My German family, spoke of this. My Father who has only recently, talked of boys young as 10😢😢😢😢😢. He has 5 great grandchildren around this age. And he constantly tells me, it haunts him. He never sleeps from the nightmares. Protect the young. They are innocent and vulnerable, whilst hard to listen to, we must, or it as we all say lost to oblivion. My Father, passed his torment via his mental instability, to us, I think you can have generational trauma, even though you’re not involved. Yet. War still drives us to cruelty against thy neighbours. 😢😢😢😢😢😊😊
@@Yorkshirelass727I prayed n hope those Baby cages(boys) were not sexually abused for favors n food, (@25 mins, sexual trade betwn those paedos American soldiers) That would be truly tragic for many young baby Germans boys who survived but was too distraught to talk abt it. Typical paedos/evil exist then too. That's why they called it baby cages!!!
@@Yorkshirelass727 Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can affect the families of the original trauma victim.
Whilst you may not have encountered the horror first hand, you got to hear the nightmares, you got to see the eyes that had seen too much, the reactions that were a bit too intense, the pain when things were mentioned.
Generational PTSD is a recognised affliction.
@@Yorkshirelass727 Let's hope we have learned enough that we can pass it onto the young, l never glorify war, and I would never encourage anyone to join the armed services. I am very respectful of our war dead, and those who serve, but I would never advocate for war, unless there was absolutely no other option to preserve our freedom.
@@joanmatchett8100 That's the right attitude!
I met a man who was a young teenager in the Hitler Youth. As the war progressed the state decided to assign all these young men to different trades. He was fortunate to be too young to be assigned to combat duties.
They were lined up and an official walked down the line reading the trade the young man had randomly been assigned. Reading from the list the man pointed to the teenagers and told him his new occupation.
The boy beside my friend was told he was now a carpenter. He objected and said he didn't want to be a carpenter. The official walked back to him and punched him in the head full force. The boy fell over unconscious and the official continued down the line assigning trades. Needless to say no one else objected to the trade the Nazi state assigned them.
The man I knew was told he was a painter. It was a trade that supported him his entire life. He immigrated to Canada where he started a successful painting business. He recalled these events with laughter and not a trace of bitterness.
My grandmother lived in a very rural part of the UK, where German POWs were held during the War to help on the farms. The POWs were allowed to take themselves between their barracks and the farms without escort, so chatted with the locals a lot. My Nan said she remembered two Germans in particular- one was an older, rather "out of condition" man who'd also served in WW1. He was very genial, basically saw the locals as his equals as he came from a similar rural community back home. I suspect he was rather glad to be spending his War pottering around the English countryside. But this man was always accompanied by a skinny, surly blonde youth. The younger man had grown up with the indoctrination and despite the rather cosy hospitality they received locally, the young man couldn't bring himself to even look these "enemies" in the eye. He seemed disgusted by the very presence of the locals, they were clearly not up to his Aryan standards, and he refused to speak to them. My grandmother said his eyes were blank, like there was nothing behind them. Every ounce of humanity had been stripped from him and a vague, futile hatred left in it's place. My Nan (being only young herself) was very frightened of this "programmed robot" at the time and made a point to avoid him, but as the years passed she'd clearly looked back and felt sorry for him.
I grew up with that story so I've always been curious about those young boys. They were victims of the regime too.
Notice the similarities with brainwashed musllm youngsters, living in our modern liberal societies ... 🙈
My mother was in the Land Army and also worked alongside German POW's, many, as you said, ordinary folks. My mum was frowned on a little, because she treated them as humans. I remember her telling me that "they were just like your father, sent to war because that was how it was." The real Nazis were held under much closer guard, with many staying much longer in the UK to be de-radicalised. I find it hard to get over the fact that one man with insane ideas found others willing to go along with it, creating one of the worst situations the world has ever found itself in. Lest we forget, indeed.
@@sheilaboston7051 One of the local girls fell in love with one of the POWs and moved back to Germany with him after the War. An English guy who had a crush on her was so devastated he shot himself. The War had victims far beyond the casualty lists ☹️
An older friend was taken from school at 12 to serve in the German army. He was sent to the Russian front. He was captured by Americans and eventually went to live with an American family. He said there was an entire ship full of young former German soldiers headed to the US
About 15:00 min. playtime: The kid under interrogation is not German, but rather he is Hungarian, still in his first semester in a cadet school. They were not given yet arms, only some marching exercises and so forth. His German, which was mandatory language at the school, is still quite rudimentary, it's still mixed with his native Hungarian.
You are absolutely right! Never the less this film-sequence is used since decades for anti german propaganda. To "proove" that Hitler used child soldiers in combat. Thanks for your comment, this was very important to say!
@@lacertabilineata9337 Thanks for the positive response. What we can surely agree, that the war was a tragedy for all European nations, but particularly among the Central European nations. Peace be with you effendi!
Wotan, who says they are German ?
The subject of this documentary says they are German. Hitler Youth=German. Duh.@@lucasrem
Thanks for clearing that up. I was wondering if the translator just had too thick of an accent for the kid to understand his German.
My heart breaks for those boys. They grew up under the Nazis, went to Nazified schools, were required to be in the Hitler Youth. There minds were messed with from a young age. Yet they were still boys. I'm 62, but if I'd been a teenage boy in Berlin in 1945, it would have been so exciting, and scary, to be manning the antiaircraft guns, being all "grown up". A man's boyhood is an important part of his life, and their boyhoods were poisoned, stolen from them.
And nobody to blame but their own government.
In one town they also herded ALL French civilians (including women, children and babies) into a church and burned them alive. Those who tried to escape through the windows were shot.
NOT SO BLOODY INNOCENT.
No they were cruel and barbaric as a result of their training and education.
@@Capochin950 I have met young people who do not know how we would think of children. I can't imagine any men I know being like that, but they must have been ordinary.
@@0ldb1ll I didn't mean to imply that. They were made into monsters, they weren't given a chance to be boys.
So glad someone finally made a doc about this. I’ve been doing research for around four years now on the HJ, and never got much info about their post-war experiences. Much thanks!
True. I need to read a few books on the subject too. I’ve been reading about all facets of WWII since I was 14 but this subject did not yet pass through my hands. Not easy to find.
I remember my mother (born in 1933) telling how shock and sad she felt when she first saw a young German soldier : his sleeves were longer than his arms, his shoes were too big and he couldn’t walk probably.
Yet the HJ had been submitted to such propaganda that many of them fought with « the energy of despair ».
As an American all we've been taught, which was little, was that Germany and Nazis were bad. But mostly taught about what happened to the Jewish people.
I ashamedly never thought about what happened to Germans after the war, people who opposed Nazi rule. Thank you for bringing this to light. I have a new interest in finding information about what happened to the country and the people during that time My mother's family is from West Germany but everyone slowly left to be with the family members who came to America before WW2, I believe it was over political reasons but not sure.
My mothers parents parents (my great grandparents) came over before ww1 because they didn't agree with the political climate. Things looked like there was going to be another war and they left. But I still wonder what happened to their family members who stayed behind.
I read “The Book Thief”. It’s a book about those who were citizens in Germany during WWII.
Desserters and opponents were treated by people as traitors even after war and they weren't allowed to serve in Bundeswehr as former- nazis did not liked them as non-nloyal
My father, a Normandy veteran, recounted the fanaticism of the Hitler Youth (12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend) during the battle for Caen (June 1944).
The Russians said the Hitler Youth were fanatics, Red Army was pulling them out of manholes where they would pop up and shoot at them.
Those were SS units recruited from the hitler youth. The hitler youth was a mandatory organisation not fighting at the frontlines.
Very well researched documentary. So moving to hear this elderly man recounting that tragic part of his life. What a wonderful thing that his daughter came upon the idea of getting him to speak. Too many survivors of that period, German or otherwise, failed to share their memories and took them to the grave which is a huge loss for future generations. Let’s hope life brought him happiness to make up for the loss of his childhood and witnessing the treatment of his father at the hands of the Gestapo.
My father was a German living in Poland during the war. My grandfather was conscripted in the German Army when my father five years old. He never talked about it. I am grateful this daughter was able to get her father to talk. Mine never did.
Many of the young survivors of events of WWII had to wait until they died to be given justice from our Heavenly Father!
I can’t get enough of the knowledge about WWII. What these children had to do for Hitler completely saddens me. I don’t know numbers on how many of the young men that led a life of destruction and violence. Just 1 would still be too many. I hoped they lived the best prosperous life possible.
It's not a mystery. Millions of children of both genders had to join the HJ. The history of both parts of Germany in the decades following WWII is well known and documented. If you read and watch it, the history of the former HJ and their own children is what you see, though just a small minority ever got some "re-education" as shown here, apart from memories, stories and own life-experience.
@@ottosaxoTraveling and living among Germans you'll still sense this hardcore socialising scheme three generations of Germans went through, due to first and second world war!
I can recomend a movie about the fate of nazi youth left behind in Denmark after ww2.
The name of the movie is "Land of Mines"
My dad was a WWII combat vet. He had a Silver Star, a Bronze Star 3 Purple Hearts and various other medals. From what little he talked about the war he said the Hitler Youth were some of the most dangerous soldiers.
There is a serious mix-up here: There was the 12th Panzer Division "Hitler Youth". These were Waffen-SS units. The normal Hitler Youth were comparable to boy scouts, they were minors, not soldiers. Every German boy had to join the Hitler Youth. “Air Force helpers” or “FLAK helpers” are yet another category. They operated the heavy anti-aircraft cannons to defend their city from air raids. All men were at the front, so these kids had to defend their town. They were minors, they were not soldiers and did not carry weapons. But their duty as anti-aircraft gunners was extremely dangerous and many of them didn´t survive.
Child soldiers always are...
@@lacertabilineata9337 my dad has been gone for several years and my memory might be bad but he said the child soldiers were very dangerous. The child soldiers were fanatics. Maybe it wasn't the Hitler youth but he did face soldiers that were teenagers.
@@anthonyfoutch3152 More lies were spread about no people in the world than about the Germans during the Nazi era! The minimum age for the army (SS or Wehrmacht) was 18 years and there was no exception! When your father talked about "child soldiers", he could only mean the "Volkssturm". These weren't soldiers, but a last contingent of civilians defending their hometown. They also had no military training. My uncle was a FLAK helper in Nuremberg when he was 15 years old. The FLAK helpers were all underage and had to shoot down aircraft with FLAK guns during air raids. They too were otherwise unarmed, had no military training and were not soldiers! The Americans didn't understand a lot of things, they mistook every uniform for a soldier's uniform (hunters, HJ, tram conductors...) and they had a "werewolf persecution mania".
Do you realize they said that to cope with the thought of killing children. On one of the veteran channels a US soldier talks about how he prepared to take out his first German tank after D-day, he trained for moths and expected to face combat experienced SS elite soldiers, he leaped up on the back of the tank using one of his satchel charges he took out the tank, later on when he inspected the wreck he was still after 70 years unable to continue telling his story visibly disturbed what he actually met while looking inside the tank, teenage boys. In those days they never heard of that so of cause after defeting the enemy going trugh the aftermath, they told themselfs that was a hell of a figh and that they fought like men, but as you can see from witness here most of them didnt even fire a gun.
Thank you for presenting this history. These youngsters should not ever be forgotten.
A good book, “Save the Last Bullet: Memoir of a Boy Soldier in Hitler’s Army” by Heidi Langbein-Allen. He was a 14 yr Hitler Youth who ended up fighting against the Russians when they had reached Germany. He was lucky & ended up in a US POW camp. He was ill treated by an American soldier. He ended up serving as farm labor for 10 months. He was luckier than other POW soldiers who labored for 3 yrs in Fr coal mines. Very interesting to learn this German viewpoint.
I'm 74 and born right after the war. I knew Hitler was desperate in the last year of the war and drafted 15 year old's, but I had never heard of the POW "Baby cages" after the war. It makes sense, though. Trying to prevent the mistakes England and France made after WWI in 1919. That's what brought Hitler to power in the first place.
You don’t need to be defeated in a war for a demagogue grifter to rise to power. Germany escaped WW1 with little of the devastation they would experience later. Yet hatred and racism were used as an excuse to start a war. Appealing to the worst in humanity.
Berlin was defended by 13 year olds. (I worked with one of them in the 1980’s).
Another reason the boys were being separated out is because they were being raped by the
adult Nazi soldiers.
This was not the first time Germans used their youth for wars. My great-grandfather's parents sent him to the United States around 1880s because he was being forced into military service at the age of 9. His younger brother came later for the same age and for the reason.
Germany has a long history of warfare. Look up "Thirty Years War". This is why so many Germans came to the US starting in the 1700s.
Actually the most attractive societal status for generations of Germans were the military elite. Becoming an army officer had higher social status than the Imperial Elite.
Tells a lot about the basis for several generations of war hungry Germans willing to start two world wars ...
Thank you for saying this. A couple of male members of my family who were 18 & 20 at the time left West Germany for America at that time period. I've always wondered exactly why they'd leave home like that. I thought it might be for political reasons, maybe they were also being forced into military service and didn't want to as well
My dad went into business with two men who were Hitler Youth, Jack Berger? Karl ??? The two men sold the business to my farther. They built a building in the back lot of the shop and machined Parts for VW's, Porches and Audi's. These men were the kindest most patient men that I've known my whole life. In 1970 the shop was called J&K Volkswagen, Porsche and Audi. The shop is still there on 4000 Fountain Ave Hollywood California.I will never forget Karl's hospitality and kindness he had a way of making everybody feel important. Jack had a beaming smile that put you at ease. My dad was a shit to these men, you would have never known it.
"Children have never befor been used in this way for military purposes"
Yes they have. During the crusades, an army of children where sent to fight in the holyland.
The Childrens Crusade was hardly an officially organised military expedition, but there are many examples of child warriors. Achilles was about 14 when he went to Troy, and child soldiers were the backbone of the revolutions in Africa of last centuries. A youth with a limited moral appreciation and a limited concept of the consequences of killing make deadly soldiers because they do not really know what they
are doing
British boy's aged 14 and 15 , lied about their age and fought in WW1 in the trenches.
The confederate Army during the American Civil War used teenagers and children in the infantry
They were not a "sent" army as they were not trained solders nor belonging to any organized military, kingdom or religious group. Also, they never made it to the holy land.
@@alecblunden8615 That is so correct.
My Dad was born in 1934 he made friends with an Italian POW as a little boy and has fond memories, he used to carve little toys for him.
Amazing. Well done. Glad to see this history preserved.
Amazing historical documentary. I never knew about this happening to German school age children. Thank you.
Russia does the same, even now. They have mandatory youth military "clubs" - indoctrination and fresh cannon fodder.
Meanwhile My great grandpa wasnt sent home till 1955 after ten years of working as a welder in Siberia and then killed in a train collision on his way back.
Imagine you stay a POW ten years after the war in which you were captured had ended.
@@TheSmokeGoblinMight be the case, at least they were offered the chance to survive, and make up for the insane evil they threw upon several millions of innocent civilians!
@@lisette2060 you think I don’t care about them? I’m simply stating the fuckeries my family ALSO went through.
@@lisette2060 my great grandfather was Volksturm - you should google what that is. Not SS.
Sad !!
Love this documentary ❤️. Thanks
My Uncle was in France after the D-Day invasion. He was in the National Guard then activated for overseas duty. His unit took Nazi prisoners,including officers and Nazi youth.The Officers had a attitude, hard to get information out of them, real quiet and liked to smoke cigarettes. One Nazi Youth pulled a knife on my Uncle, who in turn, choked/unlived him. He was about 13 to 15 years old it surprised my Uncle that a "kid" was willing to fight even when captured.
What a statement " we where liberated and became prisoners of war"
Thanks for the in depth documentary about this subject. Subscribed.
Thank you so much for your support ☺
The documentary moved me. Thank to presempt it on YT. From Italy
They were not enlisted, but conscripted.
Very interesting and something I’d never before heard about. Thank you 🙏
Thank you for sharing your Father's story with the rest of us. Blessings.
A friend of my father was forced 1944 in a prisoner batallion at age 16- because of anti Nazi acting - was sent with 25 other young prisoner soldiers to the Rheinwiesen camps and they nearly starved to death. He had 3 choices in 1944:
1. Firing squad
2. Concentration camp
3. Prisoner batallion
What would your choice have been in this situation at age 16? . He chooses the only way to survive.
So.l, not all young prisoners were treated as victims by the US Army
An excellent documentary...
Informative...
Enlightening...
Illuminating...
Thank you for involving your father...
🇿🇦
Very valuable testimony. Thank you. My mother in NE England used to go as a child to the edge of the local POW camp and look in. They were terrible times and other than Ukraine and few other issues since 1945 we have managed to maintain peace by and large in Europe. Let us hope we can continue to do so as war is a terrible thing. The indoctrination is a similar kind but I think worse under ISIS - I saw a profile of some young "cubs of the caliphate and their behavioural problems since leaving Raqqa having been taught from so very young simply to want to kill in a way worse even than the Nazis. Do we never learn?
Well some enslaved countries were still fighting by their underground up to 60'. And you also forgot Yugoslavian wars. I would not called a Cold War a keeping peace when war was a possible option depending on Soviet's decision.
Mention of the segregation of the blacks from the whites during this period was a painful truth. As a very young person during those days I watched as Congress was in a turmoil about segregation to the point that the Southern Democratic Party actually walked out on their session in protest. In the very early 60's I took my wife and child on a car trip to FL to see friends. I believe it was Georgia where, being hungry, I pulled over to a "order to go" restaurant to buy some hamburgers and a very nice black gentleman waiting on me. He took my order and delivered it to me and off we went. All the while the food was being prepared I was aware that the man was staring at me in amazement, which I didn't challenge but certainly noticed. Otherwise my mind was blank as far as I can recall. As we drove away along this building, about 60-70 feet from where I got the food, there was another "to go restaurant" with a sign saying, "Negro window." The sign was pointed back to where I purchased our food. My first experience with segregation since I had black friends back home in Pa. and this was foreign to me.
That, ytoo was shameful!
It caused quite a turmoil in the UK when the Americans arrived. The British people treated their black servicemen the same as the white, but most of the latter couldn't handle that. It was also disgusting that, after the war, recognition of the skills/bravery of the black troops was extremely slow in coming.
1:54 "Children have never before been used in this way for military purposes" What about all of the children who fought in the American Civil war???
You can see when he's talking about being a boy soldier the anxiety in his eyes and body movements, reliving those terrifying times and being such a young boy at that time, I'm really happy he survived to have a family and love 💕
I've heard from a veteran, way back in the 80's that a lot of these Hitler Youth were just "despatched"
Rehabilitation first, most cases i know were to sick, needing to travel a long way back home.
@@lucasrem Yes,but back then, in those radical days,therapy was out of the question
12th SS Hitler Jugend were fanatical,i remember seeing an interview of some British Commandos and they said they were forced to use the flamethrower on them,turning them into human torches,and it sickened the brit using it and he threw it away after that..
I knew one of them who was a sweet old gentleman who was warm and cuddly at the time. He was the son of farmers, so he'd had plenty to eat before being forcefully conscripted. He was sent to the Russian front where he was captured. He managed to squeeze between the bars where he was kept as a P.O.W. Because lack of food. He was then captured by the Allies. He loved the Americans because they nursed him back to health. Then, he was sent to a re-education camp. Eventually, he immigrated to Australia, where he married a single mother with children who adored him. He was viewed as a lovely grandfatherly figure. I'm starting another comment.
The irony of the American soldiers teaching democracy & freedom, while segregating the black soldiers.
Democracy and freedom are vehicles that have allowed us to leave the world as it was and create the new world that is
Slavery in the apartheid has been the natural state of humanity until Western Civilization created arguments against it
How many of them were given to the russians to die in gulags?
The French naturally wanted a hard punishment imposed on Germany. But the Americans went from wanting to utterly destroy Germany after discovering the concentration camps to wanting them as allies against the Soviet Union by 1947 and 1948.
The Marshall Plan raised the entire Western World to common wealth and democracy, while Moscow forced everyone in Eastern Europe into a depressing state of living.
@@lisette2060 You are from Norway, stop acting American.
Nobody talks about the American concentration camps.
8 years old!!!!! I didnt even know my own sufferings at that age, i cant even imagine.
1:50 Not true. Children have filled many roles on the battlefield before.
None of these young teens had a choice! My uncle was about 14 or 15 years old when he was forced to be in the Hitler Jugend and as a prisoner of war was sent to Alabama, picking cotton for 1 year. He died in his 50‘s and I was too young to know about it.. I wish I had known, I would have asking him many questions.
Ah that little lad. Alles? He says like he couldnt believe that was all the questioning he was going to get from the Americans ❤😢
"Liberated by the Americans, and made prisoners of war" That seemingly nonsensical remark speaks volumes.
My grandma had a German pen friend after the war. He came to stay with her family, and he says he never forgot their kindness. I know this is true, because even though my grandmother has been dead for several years now, and despite never meeting him as a child, he and his wife still send us christmas presents with home made biscuits. We went to stay with his family one holiday, and he took us around the German side of Rhine region, including Kassel, and he talked about how the Hitler youth was just like the Scouts or any other unassuming youth club as we sat by memorials overlooking the vinyards. It was around the time Brexit was still being processed, and we discussed how much the EU meant, as more than a political entity, how it was so disappointing to see it start to break apart this way. Europe was obviously devastated by the wars, and Germany in particular faced ostracism for obvious reasons, but the trade agreement and the unification of currency allowed these neighbouring nations to rebuild relations. I, completely unintentionally, went on exchanges to both sides of the border as a teenager, one to Strasbourg and one to Stuttgart, and the history of the region is so rich, dense and scattered all at once. Alsace has its own dialect, and many families still spoke German or Alsation, a relic of the unstable border, but when I was last there, they were contructing a tramline across that border. My French exchange's mother went shopping in Germany for organic food prices or something, and we went to Europa Park to play. That such a transformation could occur in 70 years to what was literally the frontline of two wars speaks volumes to the value of the EU to the people, but also of our ability to heal, to forgive, and I suppose to forget. Werner took us to see much more than war memorials though. He was proud to show us Roman cities, castle ruins, and mountainside wineries. I'm sure that he remembers much pain and regret, and he does not forget it or push it aside, but he does not dwell on it either; he showed himself to be a forward facing man full of hope, optimism, and a firm belief in the goodness human character.
Heartbreaking...any wars but to use such young souls.
I’m sorry, I clearly missed it but what was the significance with Verdun? Why did the two at the end react so shocked by that?
Verdun was the site of a horrific 10 month battle in 1916 fought to standstill between the French and Germans. I believe the German strategy was to 'bleed the French white'. The significance of it makes the shock understandable.
World War 1. Huge battles in France before the Americans arrived late in the war in 1918. Google "Verdun" and "Somme" Battles. Horrific. Can you imagine one million causalities in one battle? WWI wiped out a generation of British and French men. That's why they were so reluctant to get involved in another war 20 years later.
@@dfirth224 WWI also wiped out a generation of German men. And no, Germany did not "start" WWI. Do you think, Germans are no human beings?
@@robertfitchett-o6nAnd again anti-german propaganda. Why do you mention this ugly "whitebleeding"? Do you think, the French were less hateful?
My husband is French - Verdun is the battle field they all know. It has a huge ossuary as there were too many deaths to know who was who.
For this reason he prepared the children for the war, in his last appearance MurloHitler gives medals and pats them on the cheek.
Many of the young soldiers that ended up as Russian POW's suffered the same fate as their older comrades unfortunately.
He may have looked like a living skeleton when he escaped from his Russian prison. But he certainly didn't in his old age. He took his locally acclaimed baked cheese cake recipe to the grave with him. He suddenly had a heart attack and died a week or so later. My mum and I went to visit him. I sat next to him and held his hand. Then we both hugged him, and I kissed him on the cheek goodbye. I was visiting some of my family on the other side of the country when I heard he'd died. He never went into detail about his life in that re-education camp. But he advised us that if we ever found ourselves in a situation where we could have many possessions that a bath towel should be one of them. As it can be used to dry ourselves off and could be wrapped around us for warmth. At one stage, he thought communism was the answer. But that changed upon learning the awful truth about it.
Excellent video.
RS. Canada
Very sad history however at 16 minutes the boy being interviewed was in a military school. He was not a soldier.
My Opa was an anti gunner around Berlin and when it got bad there NCO took the boys to Northern Germany to surrender to the Americans not the Russians . He told me he was captured by the Canadians and they beat and starved them so it didn’t matter to them they were children.
😢😢😢 I am so very sorry that happened to your grandpa. ❤😢❤
It's weird about the Canadians. They had a reputation for being particularly brutal towards the Germans, both in WWI and WWII. The Germans treated the Canadians accordingly.
As we learned from a very popular song that was Nr.1 in the US charts and in the top 10 around the globe back in the 80's, the average age of the American soldiers that were sent overseas to fight in the Vietnam war was 19 years old! N-N-N-Nineteen !!!!
That was the average age in every western country in the 20th century.
I did not have to serve in Viet Nam, but several guys I went to high school with either joined or were drafted. College students had a temporary deferment from the draft. That's why so many men went to college during the Viet Nam War.
@kanoierable, so what's your point? There is a big difference between 12 and 19. Also, tell us about your vast military experience.
It's a UK artist Paul Hardcastle , song is called 19.
@@bobbobby9798 The one about the Vietnam war is called "I was only 19"
by Redgum.
Those numbers are hard to fathom. 1 million missing in action. 😢
Now millions of children are experiencing so much worse. In many locations 😢😢
What locations, for example? And what exactly do you mean?
Everyday we learn something new. I have never heard of these baby cages before. So sad
"I fear we've defeated the wrong enemy." - General George S. Patton
Hey Bubba did you know that more Americans have been killed BY Americans in AMERICA than ALL the Americans killed in ALL the foreign wars combined that Americans have fought in,mainly thanks to the second amendment
Keep your propaganda nonsense for yourself!
Your sort of clowns would have been the first victims of the Aryan masters!
So the US recruited nazis post war.
Very interesting part of ww2 history, thankyou for posting
Thank you! This is an interesting side of history which few of us knew about. My family was no better than the Nazis even though from Eastern Europe. Socialism is dictatorship.
I am sorry for you thank you for sharing your thoughts
Nationalism is dictatorship. Every Single Time.
@UrsulaPainter I knew an Ursula Painter when I was a child. Did you live in East Coast of Massachusetts?
@@UrsulaPainter Dictatorships are dictatorships regardless of the costume they disguise themselves with.
Military right wing dictatorships are just as bad as the fake left wing military dictatorships in the “Soviet” block or old fashioned absolute feudal monarchies.
Much of my fathers family lived (and still do) in and around LIege, Belgium. The SS and Gestapo made frequent stops in their small villages (Foret, Chaufontaine, Trooz) and were very condescending and cruel to locals. The atrocities takig place nearby in the Ardennes were rumored but not witnesed by many locals because of curfews and the fear of being detained.
The Ottomans used Christian children, abducting them in Pontus and central Anatolia and raising them to be soldiers. Ironically, they were superior to Ottoman soldiers and saught by the pashas for special guards.
The Janisaries- the children (boys) from Greece were taken when they were toddlers. They were usually the first-born son as that caused a particularly tragic loss for the parents, as the first-born son was always named for the paternal grandfather, and continued the family lineage.The Janisaries wore an emblem of a fork and knife on their headgear- fought for sustenance. These soldiers were unaware of their true heritage.
Is the french original around. Topic is very nice but I have a hard time with speaker on top of the french.
It is so sad that kids are taught hate then go to war for those hate
The teen German POW already had lost his father, a Confessing Church pastor, a few years earlier when the Nazis killed him for his pacific views. Then he survived this imprisonment, yet returned to the rest of his family in occupied Germany by 1946. This question of child soldiers is very important for the 21st century, when so many conflicts generate 10,000s of similarly victimized children of both sexes!!
47:43 The US of the 40's was a shining examle of Apartheit. Ive not heard of of anyone holding up South Africa of the Apartheid era as a beacon of "democracy".
I know one of these guys. He went on to run the export business for VW for quite a while. His reality did not match your story, not even close. His problems started after the war when he had to report to a POW camp. Took the German prisoners and the guards to keep them safe from the SS prisoners who wanted to kill them. This is all news to him. Funny that.
Gee 1977, I was 12 years old and kids of my age where soldiers I learned from a short movie I saw. But not on TV, indeed kids in Africa.
Incredibly sad and disturbing vlog. Children are like clay easy to mold but once the clay dries its form cant be changed. My father told me that all his four Uncles went to war the youngest being just 17years old despite conscription supposedly being 18 years for New Zealanders. Apparently, this was a fairly common occurrence.
🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷Très 🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷touchante 🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪 🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪Bien merci !!!
This breaks my heart for these young boys. I have German ancestry and I'm in tears!!
So many of these kids lost their childhood, not to mention their innocence during the war .They were forced to join Hitler youth groups, and before the end of the war h as to fight Allied soldiers , because most of the men of military age were killed or became prisoners of war on the Eastern front..I believe it should be a cautionary tale. Children have no business in fighting a war . Their rights had been violated and any dictators who use children in fighting a war should stand trial for war crimes against humanity. Let me know what you think about this issue.
Goodness could you imagine our kids now they can't cope without WiFi mobile phones and social media !!
what all the kids went through in the war bares thinking about but they kept strong !!
Only hope my children don't have to go through something like this when they are older ww3 makes my heart break the thought💔💔💔
Most German soldiers were conscripts. Even the adults. Most regular soldiers in the Alied army new that. They called them Jerrys or Krauts and only rarely referred to them as Nazis. We take all the nuance out of war to make it easier. They have to all be bad guys. They weren't. Just like not all Allied soldiers were liberating saviors.
It was an informative and wonderful historical coverage documentary about humanitarian practices after WW2 by US POW administrations towards teenagers and children of Germany ( conscripted children by Nazism regime during WW2)
Teaching them to hate their own country and people.
"hating their own"? Especially their innocent Jewish neighbours were subject for deadly hate, if your terms included that sort of "their own"?
@@lisette2060, no, hating their nation and entire history to the point of not defending themselves. Your simplistic description of anti-Semitism is a bit more complex in reality. Jews were disproportionately represented in leftist and communist movements.
Excellent. I knew about H.Y. But not this. Thankyou
These young boys are so fortunate that they were in American hands! Germans hijacked trains from the east, just to get a chance to surrender to the Americans so they wouldn't be mistreated. Being in a camp like this was very unpleasant, but on the outside, civilians were starving, while Russians tortured Germans and killed them or if they let them live, they faced years of prison camp and life behind the Iron Curtain.
I love how Germany is one of the current countries who ACTUALLY tell their history from the war. Some countries (cough Japan) like to glance over lots of events.😅
I'm so stinking mad 😠 😡 😠 between 8 and 17 there just babies and who would use them
Children yes. But extremely fanatical and brainwashed
Children out of context - like encountering street children.
But neverthless children.
You are just lucky to be born later. That doesnt make u better an inch
@@Ex-MuslimMuhammad-o4d were not better because we're born later. We're better because, we're decent human beings who know how to love and how to forgive. We have empathy, compassion and kindness. I don't think you have one ounce of decency in your entire body. Forgiveness, kindness, mercy? You don't even know what those things are!
@@kelrogers8480 I guess u are not even able to understand the meaning of my short and simple comment
I was surprised to say the least that there was a sexual aspect in the camp. I thought given that they were all military men that that sort of thing just wouldn't happen. I of course realize that most certainly there would have been a percentage of gay and bisexual men amongst them but i thought that military discipline would have kept it at bay.
I guess not.
It’s not about being homosexual or bisexual. It is an instinct that exists amongst many men when no women are present. Very well documented in research literature.
I was going to say the same. It's the same as in prisons. There the prisoners deny being bi or homosexual also.
Lots of those men were extremely perverted by war etc.
Gay men didn't commit these horrid crimes they were straight men.
Alot of these people were jacked up on methamphetamines which was legal to prescribe and alot of soldiers are still given this drug makes men sexual deviance and I've learned parasite make folks promiscuous and angry violent I now believe parasites were used as bio warfare and fecal matter carries the eggs. The Spanish flu was due to the vaccines given to soldiers. Nothing about these wars make sense.nam louse Cambodia until you add the crops grown poppy cocoa guarded by armed American soldiers for big PHARMA it's always been about stealing the crops for drug manufacturers and black markets meth now a trillion dollar business in Asia folks wanna say China im sure but they are a part just not the head our tax dollars spent to take by force guarded by armed us suffers
My father got lucky, the brits sent him home instead of going to the American's cattle pen.
That doesn't start well "children had never been used that way for military purpose..." REALLY??? 😂😂😂😂
Oh my goodness i just got goosebumps with the ending...
Socialism actually has nothing to do with Fascism.
They were socialist for the “good” Germans and Volksdeutsche and fascist for the rest. That’s how I see it.
@@AuntieTrichome They hijacked the Socialist party because it already had a following, then turned it into what they wanted it to be by adding the word Nationalist. In the same way, the trump MAGA people have taken over the Republican party in the USA.
Like the French underground there was a German underground & is one a lot of us have never heard of.
I met the chief of police of Koblenz Germany in the 70s. He was captured by the U.S. Army. He was near his home so a sargent took his uniform and sent him home in his underwear.
The translator at 15:20 is terrible. He’s asking the kid if he ever fought against Americans, but he’s using the wrong word for “fought” it’s gekamp, not “gekempt”. Then he tries to change the question into whether the kid ever shot at an American and his sentence is so convoluted he has to use sign gestures… I’m surprised he didn’t resort to “shoot.. BANG BANG… shoot!” Lol
The footage is from Freyung Germany of hungarian children from Kőszeg military school. Nothing to do with the topic of this video. It was just the same milschool , what you have still today.
@@arturcsecserits497Thank god they were all innocent and pure abused fans of the Austrian painter?
Btw, aren't the innocent Anschluss victims still admirer of those days weird ideology?
Megalomaniac Pootin sure has a huge fan population and loyal oil customers in Austria!
He is probably speaking "kitchen German" he remembers from home, or from high school classes. Surely he was pressed into service as an interpreter. Many politicians deny knowledge of languages they "know" in order to avoid embarassment...you do what you can with the linguistic tools you possess.
Who are these smiling women, they talk of compassion, love, happiness, and learning... Darn, maybe someone should tell them that those kids belonged at home, not in a tent in a prisoner camp, freezing, starving and being told how wonderful democracy was, pure insanity.
And what do you think existed at home? Mum and Dad……not likely. More likely no one with no food, shelter and paternal comfort. Huge displacement of the population, let alone the death toll from bombing. No food due to ongoing fighting or poor food distribution networks. It is difficult to imagine what it would have been like during the immediate post war situation as most of us in 1st world countries have thankfully not experienced anything like post war Germany, particularly that it was so destroyed by the allies in order to achieve cessation of fighting.
I noticed you have previously made a comment about birth rate survival was 0% in Germany in 1946. Why such cognitive dissonance when recognising the terrible statistic of neonate survival but wanting to send these young men home into these same conditions?
@@sassyg3316 The Expulsions? They were not voluntary, they were kicked out, 12 to 15 million of them, the biggest human displacement in history? Yes, big problem. In the American zone, the starvation was intentional, until 1947, Eisenhower didn't even allow the Red Cross to bring food packages to the dying, just insane. You can read about it in a free and easy to find booklet called: "Famine in Germany by William Langer". Its the transcript of a speech in the US congress by Mr. Langer, governor of North Dakota. If you want to know more tell me, I've been collecting material about the unknowns of the world wars for years now. Cheers.
At Quebec, FDR forced the Morgenthau Plan on Churchill, he bribed him but when it was leaked to the press the US said it was dropped... not true, it was rewritten in a secret army pamphlet, JCS 1067, that Eisenhower made even worse in practice. If you include the bombing of 61 cities, the Rhine Meadows camps, the civilians sent to the Gulags, the starvation, and the vicious occupation after the war, it certainly looks like there was some kind of plan to erase Germany from human memory. Unprovable... yet but google "Operation Vegetarian" for example, Churchill's plan to drop cattle fodder full of anthrax from planes over the whole of Germany, that would have killed almost everyone. When D-Day came in, he was almost ready but D-Day came first, so he had to cancel it. A systematic extermination plan? Looks like it.
Later, they burned the anthrax cakes, 5 million of them I believe but without taking the necessary precautions, some people were poisoned by the smoke.
What the British didn't know is that the Germans had by then tons of Tabun, sarin nerve gas, much worse than anthrax and no antidote. In the end they never used it, it could have won them the war but Hitler refused, against his principles and he had some foolish affection for the Brits but under an anthrax attack? He probably would...
"Children have never before been used in this way for military purposes."
What a load of nonsense. The vast majority of soldiers in both World Wars were under the age of 20, especially in the first. Looking further back, even by skimming history, one finds that what would have been considered children these days were always the mainstay of any and every army since the beginning of recorded history. A private in the armies of Napoleon was usually 16 years old and the sergeants about 18-20. Contrary to popular belief, Joan d'Arc was actually in the proper age range for a military officer in her time-it was her sex that made her stand out. Even today in lands outside of civilization such as those of Africa and Southeast Asia soldiers as young as 9 are sent to the jungle as full-blown NCOs with AK-47s and grenades.
Yes, but they weren't radicalised from childhood by being indoctrinated into believing the insanity of Hitler's regime at the time.
But what happened to adults tho?
Very interesting story but a random collection of war pictures.
Youth very impressionable-
I am glad these videos are being produced. With the rise of Facism in the United States, we need to be reminded of the atrocities committed by them.
@bumbo9622Trump. Book banning. Encouraging discrimination against homosexuals. Push for traditional gender roles. Destruction of labor organizations. Try looking at the 14 points of fascism. We're well on the way.
@bumbo9622From Webster dictionary definition of fascism "a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition".
Example: the extreme right republican party in the United States, who have selected a dictator wannabe to run in their party for president, and who spew hate and violence on their far right new media puppets.
@@torinsall please explain a specific statement or example in which the extreme right has become violent or spike of. Silence toward the others?
@@torinsallI meant or spoke of violence or racism toward the left? Trying to understand why people say this. Not to be mean. I thought the black lives matter movement was the one who robbed, vandalized and hurt people when the radicals had their riots? Thank you
@@cariannweiler6159Are you perhaps capable of explaining why your governmental residence were attacked by thousands of maniacs, inspired by losing president D. Dumps hateful nonsense?
Answer based on conspiracy nonsense will be ignored ...!
imagine if you were 10 in 1933 when Hitler came to power, the schools were run by the nazis if you did join the Hitler youth and lets be honest it was made to appeal to young lads, camping, flying gliders, learning firstaid, millitary games ok if you werethe bookish type it may not be your thing but if you enjoyed sport and the outdoor life it must have been exciting plus the british youth of the 30s were unhealthy undernourished and under develouped.