For Want of Membership and Money: The 1936 Hitler Youth Law and the Hitler Youth's Home Procurement Campaign

Abstract

This article offers a much-needed reconsideration of the Hitler Youth law's purpose and impact. It contends that Hitler's cabinet adopted the 1936 law for two reasons: first, to pressure boys and girls to join the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls, and second, to compel municipalities to finance the construction of thousands of new Hitler Youth Heime (homes). The first part of the article focuses on the drafting of the Hitler Youth law and locates the origins of the Hitler Youth's Heimbeschaffung (home procurement) campaign. It argues that Nazi leaders deliberately inserted language into Article 2 of the final law that would pressure municipal and district authorities to fund the construction of new homes in their communities. The second part of the article documents Nazi leaders’ repeated efforts to persuade and compel municipalities to finance new construction, assume the costs of ongoing maintenance and, after 1939, pay rental and maintenance costs for temporary accommodations.