Life for the children of Aryan descent was completely different than the life of the Jewish children. Their focus and attention was based around school. The children were brainwashed into believing the ways of the Nazi lifestyle and they came to worship Hitler. These children soon became known as the Hitler Jugend (Youth). In 1930, only 25,000 children were a part of the Hitler Youth, but by the end of 1933 there were 3.5 million members. By 1936, the Hitler Youth became mandatory for all children ages ten and up (Heberer, 2011; Philip, 1999).
Many Aryan children were born into something known as a Lebensborn home. Lebensborn stands for ‘source of life’ and was a home where unmarried Aryan women gave birth to their Aryan children. It was set up by the SS to make sure that these Aryan children were well cared for. They were raised by the same people who were killing the Jews in concentration camps or working side by side with Hitler. They were raised similarly to all the other Aryan children; however, their pasts were a hidden secret (Hammer).
The normal life of these Aryan children drastically changed when Hitler gained power. Their normal school days had been transformed into a formal education focusing on educating the students to understand obedience, self-sacrifice and race consciousness. Hitler’s pictures were hung all over the classroom to show his authority. They studied history, leadership, and training with the main focus being on fitness. The students were even taught how to spot a Jew based on their features. The idea was to create perfect citizens that could take over for the Nazis when the time came. Before the war, fitness was done once a week for two hours. During the war, fitness was done every day for two hours. The major core subjects and extracurricular youth programs were taken away and replaced by the Hitler Youth programs and Adolf Hitler schools. Children were encouraged to rat out their parents or anyone else they knew if they disagreed with the Nazis, in fact they were rewarded for doing so. The roles for boys and girls were quite different however (Heberer, 2011; Philip, 1999).
For the boys, they were the true Hitler Youth. Once they reached the ages between fourteen and eighteen, they were fully enrolled into the Hitler Youth. Those who were too young to partake in the physical demands of the Hitler Youth were still being taught the ways of the Germans. The Hitler Youth received physical and paramilitary training because the Nazis wanted to create the perfect soldiers out of these children. The Nazis kept performance books on each boy to see their detailed progress within the program. These boys also took classes on rifle shooting and learned specific trades during training camps. The boy with the best skill for his trade would be “lucky” enough to meet Hitler himself. The boys did not know any better and so they eagerly went to training. The boys enjoyed having a sense of belonging and they were very interested in learning about the war. During their free time, they played war related games that involved catching the bad guy or tackling the bad guy. The boys also learned how to box to become more aggressive. They were constantly told that everything was a competition and soon enough, these children became very aggressive (Heberer, 2011; Philip, 1999).
The girls were treated a little bit differently. Once girls reached the age of fourteen through eighteen, they joined a group called the Bund Deutcher Madel (BDM). In this group they learned the lifestyle of becoming a house wife. They learned the skills of cooking and cleaning and taking care of children. They were forced to wear uniforms as well. They too were encouraged to engage in physical activity that promoted aggression; however, they were not expected to go through the vigorous training that the boys had to go through (Heberer, 2011; Philip, 1999).