Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Meeting with the Fourth Reich
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began to concern itself with the larger political
issues, it oriented itself in a nationalistic direction.
The problem of youth was, and is, as I soon
understood, a burning question in Germany as well as in
the other countries which have been involved in the
war and where the morale has sunk below par.
During my travels in Germany, I talked with many
youth leaders. Their opinions can be summarized in
the following manner: the youth of today is totally
disillusioned, During twelve years these boys were
the object of Goebbels’s propaganda machine. After
that they were suddenly told that everything they
had learned to believe in was fundamentally false.
They evidenced a decided distrust for democratic
ideals as they have been presented by the Allied
Military governments. The young, like the old,
compare conditions existing today with those of the
Nazi regime. In many cases, they feel that conditions
before 1945 were much better than now. Often,
they have reached a state of complete despair.
In an official report about post war conditions in
Hamburg there is a very interesting description of
the youth problem. It is told there that after the
capitulation, crowds of boys and girls formed groups
and bands which moved along country roads living
by thievery and black-market dealings. One of these
youths, a boy who died at the age of seventeen, left
a diary from which I now give some excerpts:
”Aug. 15, 1945. We are sitting here without a
penny. I am at a loss for what to do. Winter is
coming. For the first time I am struck by the absence
of meaning in life. It is frightful to have such
thoughts when one is so young. Only the memory of
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