From a speech by Hitler on 4 December 1938 in Reichenberg
From a speech by Hitler on 4 December 1938 in Reichenberg
Source : M. Burleigh & W. Wippermann, The Racial State. Germany 1933-1945, (Cambridge, 1991), pp.206-207.
These young people learn nothing else but to think as Germans and to act as Germans; these boys join our organisation at the age of ten and get a breath of fresh air for the first time, then, four years later, they move from the Jungvolk to the Hitler Youth and here we keep them for another four years. And then we are even less prepared to give them back into the hands of those who create our class and status barriers; rather we take them immediately into the Party, into the Labour Front, into the SA or into the SS, into the NSKK and so on. And if they are there for eighteen months or two years and have still not become real National Socialists, then they go into the Labour Service and are polished there for six months, and all of this under a single symbol, the German spade. And if, after six or seven months, there are still remnants of class consciousness or pride in status, then the Wehrmacht will take over the further treatment for two years and when they return after two or four years then, to prevent them from slipping back into the old habits once again we take them immediately into the SA, SS etc., and they will not be free again for the rest of their lives.
