How was it an entire cultured nation allowed their children to be raised by a political party with an ideology of hate? Stories of the fanatical bravery of the young men and children of the Reich on the battlefields of Europe are abundant.It is easy to admire the courage of the Hitler Youth as they battled relentlessly against the Allied and Soviet armies. But when one looks at it in the cold light of day, one cannot fail to be overwhelmed with the senseless loss of life. Millions butchered for an old man's nightmare vision of a world he hated and wanted to see burn. His failure to face the facts, combined with the Allies demand for unconditional surrender resulted in an entire generation consumed to the abyss. The Wehrmacht, the Hitler Youth, the Volkssturm and the children were all in the end just gristle for the Reich's mill. This book covers the whole story of a generation of young Germans, from the rebirth of a Nation to its consignment to the abyss and their role in this calamity.Includes many photos.

"In the [1930s] the Nazi party had its own plans for the children of the new Reich. The weak would be banished and only the strong would survive. An entire generation brainwashed and raised on Nazi ideology, the bond between the children and family broken, the church's influence was dismissed and ... education and [moral] guidance would be strictly controlled by the State. The boys of the Hitler Youth never stood a chance, from the playing fields to the slaughter house in the East they happily marched into the abyss. For the boys born in 1926 there would be a new special Division, made up entirely of teenagers all born in that one year, 1926. Schooled in the art of killing from the very best, the 12th SS HJ Division would sacrifice [itself] again and again. Caution and military analysis were given no thought, they had been raised to die for their Fuhrer and this they gladly did."--Back cover.

This book covers the life of Knights cross winner SS-Sturmbannführer Werner Pötschke, a little known officer of the Waffen SS. This book also examines in detail the question of his personal involvement in the Malmédy massacre at the Baugnez crossroads. This book is not an expose of the Nazi organisation, or a concise history of the SS, it will not come to the jaw dropping conclusion that Werner Pötschke was or was not a Nazi, he was a committed Nazi, he was an officer in the Waffen SS, he was also a ferocious warrior and combat leader. He was also quite possibly a mass murderer. He was unusual in many ways, but what is truly striking about him is just how much front line combat he was personally engaged in during WWII. From the very beginning of the SS foundation unto the last month of the war this man was totally committed to the fight, unquestioning and uncompromising. For the 'men of steel' there was only victory or Valhalla.

In modern times, the recruitment of children into a political organization and ideology reached its boldest embodiment in the Hitler Youth, founded in 1933 soon after the Nazi Party assumed power in Germany. Determining that by age ten children's minds could be turned from play to politics, the regime inducted nearly all German juveniles between the ages of ten and eighteen into its state-run organization. The result was a potent tool for bending young minds and hearts to the will of Adolf Hitler. Baldur von Schirach headed a strict chain of command whose goal was to shift the adolescents' sense of obedience from home and school to the racially defined Volk and the Third Reich. Luring boys and girls into Hitler Youth ranks by offering them status, uniforms, and weekend hikes, the Nazis turned campgrounds into premilitary training sites, air guns into machine guns, sing-alongs into marching drills, instruction into indoctrination, and children into Nazis. A few resisted for personal or political reasons, but the overwhelming majority enlisted. Drawing on original reports, letters, diaries, and memoirs, Kater traces the history of the Hitler Youth, examining the means, degree, and impact of conversion, and the subsequent fate of young recruits. Millions of Hitler Youth joined the armed forces; thousands gleefully participated in the subjugation of foreign peoples and the obliteration of "racial aliens." Although young, they committed crimes against humanity for which they cannot escape judgment. Their story stands as a harsh reminder of the moral bankruptcy of regimes that make children complicit in crimes of the state.