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“These adolescents, aged between 12 and 17, hang around late in the evening with musical instruments and young females. Since this riff raff is in large part outside the Hitler Youth and adopts a hostile attitude towards the organization, they represent a danger to other young people.” 

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“These adolescents, aged between 12 and 17, hang around late in the evening with musical instruments and young females. Since this riff raff is in large part outside the Hitler Youth and adopts a hostile attitude towards the organization, they represent a danger to other young people.” 

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—Nazi Party Report, Dusseldorf, Germany, July 1943

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Sophie Scholl was born in Forchtenberg/Württemberg on May 09, 1921. IN 1934, Scholl joined the League of German Girls in the Hitler Youth, where she climbed to the role of group leader. In 1937, Scholl was interrupted at school to be interrogated by the Gestapo because of her brother Hans’ involvement in the "Bündische Jugend" youth movement. From this point forward, she no longer associated herself with National Socialism. Once she finished schooling in March of 1940, she trained as a kindergarten teacher. In 1942, she began studying biology and philosophy in Munich following labor and auxiliary war service. By means of her brother Hans, she was able to come in contact with Catholic Journalist Carl Muth. Both Muth and University professor Kurt Huber were a profound influence on both Sophie and Hans. In August and September of 1942, Sophie had to do four weeks of auxiliary war service in an Ulm munitions factory. In January of 1943 she took part in the making and distributing of the fifth White Rose leaflet. By the time she got back to Munich from Ulm on February 15 of 1943, her friends had already replicated the sixth leaflet, originally drafted by Kurt Huber. On February 18th, 1943, both Sophie and Hans Scholl put copies of said leaflet around the Munich University building, even throwing some down into the atrium. They were arrested at the university and sentenced to death by the People’s Court under Roland Freisler on February 22, 1943. They never slept another night. Both Scholls were murdered in Munich-Stadelheim Prison that same day. Sophie was 21. Hans was 24.

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"A 1938 photo of a group of Edelweiss Pirates, an unofficial youth group that emerged in response to the strict regimentation of the Hitler Youth."

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"We have unmasked a group of saboteurs and murderers in Berlin."

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"We have unmasked a group of saboteurs and murderers in Berlin."

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Although growing up in Berlin, Herbert Baum was originally born to an accountant in Posen, 1912. He later became an electrician in 1928. To qualify as an electrical engineer, he started taking night classes at the Beuth Academy, but was banned from attending on the basis of being Jewish. At the age of 20, he was the head of a German-Jewish youth group Ring-Bund Deutsch-Jüdischer Jugend. In 1931, he joined the Communist Youth Federation (KJVD). Post 1933 he was involved in the KPD’s illegal objection to the Nazi state, which was mainly responsible for connections between the Berlin regional leadership and the KJVD until 1936. Beginning in the same year, a group of mainly Jewish originated young communists began to form. Baum had correspondence with other Berlin Communists. Robert Uhrig, who also set up resistance groups, was among them.

The duplication of leaflets and underground newspapers was both dangerous and expensive. Seeing as Baum’s resistance group practically only had self-reliance, members made an attempt to get ahold of some of the money needed for stencils and a duplicating machine through means of theft. On one occasion, they even broke into and robbed the home of a Berlin Jew, stealing several valuable items that ultimately were unsellable. This truly radical attempt showed just how desperate the situation the resistance group around Herbert Baum was.

The articles put on the leaflets were discussed by several members of the group and were usually written by multiple people at once. Due to Jews not being allowed to use typewriters, non-Jewish members of the group – such as Irene Walter and Suzanne Wesse – had to use their workplace typewriters without anyone knowing to write. The stencils were replicated in Baum’s basement. Some of their leaflets were distributed to many different readers, while others were explicitly given to those of a certain profession, or sent out via post. Some members even donated up to a fifth of their wages to fund the group’s work.

Beginning in 1941, Baum was forced to work in the “Jews department” of the Berlin Elmo-Werke factory, where he would meet others who were working under no choice of their own. On May 18, 1942, the group was finally discovered after an arson attack on the anti-Soviet exhibition “The Soviet Paradise” in Berlin’s Lustgarten. Herbert Baum was arrested on May 22. He never saw freedom again. He committed suicide in Moabit prison on June 11, 1942. He was 30.

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"'In the break I used to play with a girlfriend and also happened to be called Ursula. One day her mother called her speak to her. When she came back she said with a very red face: "Uschi, I'm not allowed to play with you any more." "Why not?" I asked.‘You’re Jewish."'"

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"'In the break I used to play with a girlfriend and also happened to be called Ursula. One day her mother called her speak to her. When she came back she said with a very red face: "Uschi, I'm not allowed to play with you any more." "Why not?" I asked.‘You’re Jewish."'"

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Ursula “Uschi” Littmann was the fourth child born to Polish and orthodox Jewish parents Leo and Rosa Littmann. After the 1927 death of her father, leaving her mother to work more, Uschi attended a reading room on Oranienburger Straße after school. Starting in the mid-1930s, she was a member in the ¹group of the Ring. The group would read and discuss many Nationalist Socialist banned Marx and Lenin books. Participants would receive adhesive notes, which Littmann and her friend Hella Hirsch would stick to walls. In 1935, due to the illegality of Jewish attendance and admittance to higher schools, Littmann began to train as a milliner at 14 years old. One the day of the November Pogrom, while working in a women’s hat store, the owner sent Uschi to the basement, where she heard everything being smashed above her. That same evening, the Littmann family decided to leave the country. Possible due to Uschi’s older sister having contacts in Amsterdam, the family crossed the border with help of the sister’s friend. Once in the Netherlands, Uschi joined a socialist group that would take care of refugees. Here, she would meet Max Rubenstein, a Jew that had fled from Düsseldorf. The two would later get married. Uschi and Max went into hiding after the German Invasion. Rubenstein forged identity papers among other documents while Uschi Littmann, now Uschi Rubenstein, would perform courier services. They both survived. Ursula died in 2016. She was 73.

¹Association of Jewish Youth led by a friend of Herbert Baum, Judith Kozminski

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"Bash the Hitler Youth wherever you find them"

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"Bash the Hitler Youth wherever you find them"

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Wolfgang “Wolfer” Schieweg would work after school as a metalworker and joined the “Reeperbahn” Muete, soon becoming one of the gang’s leading members. The core group of the Muete would regularly meet at the Schieweg family home to listen to prohibited jazz records or forbidden broadcasts in the German language on foreign radio stations. In the spring of 1939, Schieweg was involved in an organized incident by bicycle in which a Hitler Youth home was defaced by the throwing of stones, resulting in broken windows. In early 1939, he, along with other gang members, distributed flyers opposing the Hitler Youth. Arrested on June 6, 1939, Wolfer was sentenced to three years and three months in a penal institution on November 21, 1939, by the higher regional court in Dresden for “preparation for high treason.” Schieweg was sent to Waldheim penal institution but was later transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp at the tail end of October 1942. In April 1975, he left the Buchenwald subcamp Schönebeck and returned to Leipzig. He lived until 1974. He was 56.

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Hella was born to a transport worker father and a housewife mother in Posen on March 06, 1921. She attended school for ten years starting in 1927, then took commercial training. After an unsuccessful job search in the commercial sector, she accepted a job as a receptionist for Dr. Fritz Hirschfeld. Starting in the mid 1930s, she and Uschi Littmann were active members in the group of the Ring. From June 1941, Hirsch unwillingly worked at the Aceta chemical works¹. She and her younger sister Alice Hirsch would join the resistance group led by Herbert Baum. Her arrest on July 08, 1942, would later lead to being sentenced to death on December 10, 1942. On March 04, 1943, Hella Hirsch was heartlessly murdered in Berlin-Plötzensee. She was 21.

¹A branch of IG Farben in Berlin-Rummelsburg

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Many people supported the National Socialist Party, and many teens joined the party's Hitler Youth movement. Some teens however, chose to rebel against the party and their harsh, antisemitic beliefs. Some would survive to tell their story. Some would die trying.

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Many people supported the National Socialist Party, and many teens joined the party's Hitler Youth movement. Some teens however, chose to rebel against the party and their harsh, antisemitic beliefs. Some would survive to tell their story. Some would die trying.

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The "swing kids" were adolescents who took a keen liking to the foreign swing jazz music from America. Swing music was very frowned upon by the Nazi party and it became forbidden during the holocaust when Hitler rose to power. Many of these children were put into labor camps for up to two to three years for listening or dancing to it.

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Nola Longueira and Taylor Creighton - Works Cited

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13 Biographies. 13 Stories. 13 Resisters.

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After the National Socialists took power on January 30, 1933, the "Hitler Youth" was to be the only youth organization in Germany. In a matter of months, almost all youth associations were banned, forced to disband, or affiliated with the "Hitler Youth." From the spring of 1939, all young people had to join the "League of German Girls" or the "Hitler Youth." They were required to show absolute obedience and received premilitary training. Not all young people accepted this total co-opting by the Nazi regime.

Political youth groups attempted to stay together illegally or to regroup. The Gestapo ruthlessly persecuted such attempts. Up to the mid-1930s, there were numerous trials against members of the Communist Youth Federation of Germany (KJVD) and the Young Socialist Workers (SAJ).

Young people had many different motives for their resistance. They came together as young Communists, Social Democrats, Christians, or young people of Jewish origin. They listened to banned foreign radio stations, passed on news, or tried to inform people of the course of the war and the National Socialist crimes of violence through flyers and leaflets. They risked death sentences if their activities were discovered.

During the war, the National Socialists stepped up the persecution of young people who defended their right to independence and self-determination outside the "Hitler Youth." Edelweiss Pirates in Cologne, Meuten in Leipzig, and Swing Kids in Hamburg, for example, resisted the dictatorship's coercion through their lifestyles. They were persecuted by the Gestapo, consigned to juvenile concentration camps, or given long prison sentences, although only few of them actively fought the regime.

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German Resistance Memorial Center - 13 Resistance by Young People

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Gillespie, Iseult. “The secret student resistance to Hitler - Iseult Gillespie.” YouTube, 3 September 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtOKRsF6Rr0. Accessed 19 May 2024.

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The secret student resistance to Hitler - Iseult Gillespie

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The TRAGIC Execution Of Herbert Baum - Bombing Hitler's Nazi Germany

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WWII 📜 Sophie Scholl - How a young woman defied Hitler