Edelweiss Pirates

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Memorial for the Cologne victims on Schönstein Str, next to the Bahnhof

The Edelweiss Pirates (Edelweißpiraten) were a loose group of youth culture in Nazi Germany. They emerged in western Germany out of the German Youth Movement of the late 1930s in response to the strict regimentation of the Hitler Youth. Similar in many ways to the Leipzig Meuten, they consisted of young people, mainly between the ages of 14 and 18, who had either evaded the Hitler Youth by leaving school (which was allowed at 14) or avoiding the Reich Labour Service and military service.

The roots and background of the Edelweiss Pirates movement were broached in the 2004 film Edelweiss Pirates, directed by Niko von Glasow.

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[edit] History

The origins of the Edelweißpiraten can be traced to the period immediately prior to World War II, as the state-controlled Hitler Youth was mobilized to serve the state, at the expense of the leisure activities it had previously offered young people. This tension was exacerbated once the war began and youth leaders were conscripted. In contrast, the Edelweißpiraten offered young people considerable freedom to express themselves and to mingle with members of the opposite sex, whereas Nazi youth movements were strictly segregated by sex, the Hitler-Jugend (boys) and Bund Deutscher Mädel (girls). Though predominantly male, the casual meetings of the Edelweißpiraten even offered German adolescents an opportunity for sexual experimentation with the girls that tagged along with every group. The Edelweißpiraten used many forms and symbols of the organisations of the German Youth Movement, which were outlawed earlier. They used their tent (the Kohte), their style of clothing (the Jungschaftsjacke), and sang songs, all of which were prohibited symbols of the German Youth Movement. These symbols and also the traditions such as hiking came from members, who were previously in the groups of the German Youth Movement.

The first Edelweißpiraten appeared in the late 1930s in western Germany, comprising mostly young people between 14 and 18. Individual groups were closely associated with different regions but identifiable by a common style of dress with their own edelweiss badge and by their opposition to what they saw as the paramilitary nature of the Hitler Youth.[1] Subgroups of the Edelweißpiraten included the Navajos, centred on Cologne, the Kittelbach Pirates of Oberhausen and Düsseldorf, and the Roving Dudes of Essen.[2] According to one Nazi official in 1941, "Every child knows who the Kittelbach Pirates are. They are everywhere; there are more of them than there are Hitler Youth... They beat up the patrols... They never take no for an answer."[3]

Although they rejected the Nazis' authoritarianism, the Edelweißpiraten's nonconformist behaviour tended to be restricted to petty provocations. Despite this, they represent a group of youth who rebelled against the government's regimentation of leisure and were unimpressed by the propaganda touting Volksgemeinschaft ("people's community").[1]

During World War II, many Edelweißpiraten supported the Allies and assisted deserters from the German army. Some groups also collected propaganda leaflets dropped by Allied aircraft and pushed them through letterboxes.[2]

Apart from gatherings on street corners, the Edelweißpiraten engaged in hiking and camping trips, defying the restrictions on free movement, which kept them away from the prying eyes of the totalitarian regime.[2] They were highly antagonistic to the Hitler Youth, ambushing their patrols and taking great pride in beating them up. One of their slogans was "Eternal War on the Hitler Youth".[2] As one subgroup, the Navajos, sang:

Des Hitlers Zwang, der macht uns klein,
(Hitler's compulsion, it makes us small)
noch liegen wir in Ketten.
(still, we're bound in chains)
Doch einmal werden wir wieder frei,
(But one day we'll be free again)
wir werden die Ketten schon brechen.
(We'll smash through the chains)
Denn unsere Fäuste, die sind hart,
(For our fists, they are hard)
ja--und die Messer sitzen los,
(Yes, and the knives are attached loosely)
für die Freiheit der Jugend,
(For the freedom of Youth)
kämpfen Navajos.
(Navajos are struggling)

[edit] Nazi response

The Nazi response to the Edelweißpiraten was typically harsh. Individuals identified by the Gestapo as belonging to the various gangs were often rounded up and released with their heads shaved to shame them. In some cases, young people were sent to concentration camps or prison. On October 25, 1944, Heinrich Himmler ordered a crackdown on the group and in November of that year, a group of thirteen people, the heads of the Ehrenfelder Gruppe, were publicly hanged in Cologne. Some of these were former Edelweißpiraten. The Edelweißpiraten hanged were six teenagers, amongst them Bartholomäus Schink, called Barthel, former member of the local Navajos. Fritz Theilen survived.

Nevertheless, government repression never managed to break the spirit of most groups, which constituted a subculture that rejected the norms of Nazi society. While the Edelweißpiraten assisted army deserters and others hiding from the Third Reich, they have yet to receive recognition as a resistance movement (partly because they were viewed with contempt because of their 'proletarian' background and 'criminal' activities by many of their former Youth Movement comrades who survived the war) and the families of victims killed by the Nazis have as yet received no reparations.

[edit] Post-World War II

Contrary to what the Allies had hoped, the Edelweißpiraten were not pro-British or pro-American. In the early days of the Allied Occupation, they sought contact with the Occupying Authority to intervene in the case of the friends and even to propose that they might go on patrol, as did the Wuppertal Edelweißpiraten.[4] They were taken seriously and courted by various factions; the first known pamphlets of the KPD (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands) in July 1945 were directed at them.[5]

While a small number of Edelweißpiraten remained in the Antifascist Youth and the Free German Youth organizations, the majority turned their back on these bodies as soon as they realized that, in the words of one member, "politics were taking centre stage again". For example, a group in Bergisch Gladbach disbanded when young people of Communist orientation tried to form a majority in the group.[4]

The Edelweißpiraten's turning away from the re-authorized political youth groups forced them into the role of social outcasts and brought them into conflict with the Allies. The headquarters of the American Counter-Intelligence Corps in Frankfurt reported in May 1946 that Edelweiss activities were known throughout the British and American Zones.

Groups identifying themselves as Edelweißpiraten conducted many violent attacks against Soviet Russian and Polish Displaced Persons. Author Peter Schult witnessed such an attack against a Polish black marketeer.[6] There were also attacks against German women who were known to have been friends or been intimate with British soldiers.[7]

In a trial held by a military court at Uelzen in April 1946, a juvenile named as Heinz D. was initially sentenced to death, for his "...very active part in carrying out the nefarious schemes of the E. Piraten. An organization such as this might well threaten the peace of Europe." The sentence was commuted the following month to a prison term. In the Soviet Zone, young people suspected of being Edelweißpiraten were sentenced to a virtually obligatory 25 years in prison.[8]

From 1946 onward, Allied Intelligence officials noted "resistance activities" by an organization which had appropriated the name of the Edelweißpiraten; this group was reported to be mainly comprised of former members and officers of Hitler Youth units, ex-soldiers and drifters, and was described by an intelligence report as "a sentimental, adventurous, and romantically anti-social [movement]". It was regarded as a serious menace by US officials.[9]

Several bands have used the Edelweiss Pirates name, such as the London-based multi-instrumental indie group fronted by Jimmy Loew and the Edinburgh-based funk rockers. Cambridge punk band The Edelweiss Pirates adopted the name as a protest against neo-fascism in the punk and skinhead subcultures.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Welch, David (1993). The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda. Routledge. pp. 62–63. ISBN 0415090334. 
  2. ^ a b c d Lee, Stephen J. (1998). Hitler and Nazi Germany. Routledge. pp. 58. ISBN 0415179882. 
  3. ^ Andy Beckett (April 14, 2007). "Review of Teenage: The Creation of Youth 1875-1945 by Jon Savage". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/apr/14/society. Retrieved on February 18, 2009. 
  4. ^ a b Biddiscombe, Perry (1995). "'The Enemy of our Enemy' - A View of the Edelweiss Piraten from the British and American Archives". Journal of Contemporary History 30: 37–63. 
  5. ^ Billstein, R. (1988). Das entscheidende Jahr. Sozialdemokratie und Kommunistische Partei in Köln 1945/46. Cologne. pp. 143. 
  6. ^ Schult, Peter (1978). Besuche in Sackgassen. Aufzeichnungen eines homosexuellen Anarchisten. Munich: Trikont Verlag. pp. 46. 
  7. ^ Henke, Klaus-Dietmar (1995). Die amerikanische Besetzung Deutschlands. Munich: Oldenbourg. pp. 198–200. 
  8. ^ Schildt, Axel; Detlef Siegfried (2005). European Cities, Youth and the Public Sphere in the Twentieth Century. Munich: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 48. ISBN 0754651738. 
  9. ^ Fritz, Stephen G. (2004). Endkampf: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Death of the Third Reich. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 218 – 219. ISBN 0813123259. 

[edit] External links

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