The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 8, Number 3, Spring 2020 | Page 137

: The Impacts of a Brainwashed
litics in Eastern Germany
5
Hitler’s ideology, following his rise to
control of Germany.
The first membership growth
came when the first leader of the Nazi
Youth Party, Gustav Lenk, urged the
party newspaper to publish a “calling”
or a demand for service. 5 This publication,
Volkischer Beobachter, was influential
in convincing parents to allow
their children to join and in showing
children that their service was truly
needed. The newspaper advertisement
read:
We demand that the National
Socialist Youth, and all other
young Germans, irrespective
of class or occupation, between
fourteen and eighteen years of
age, whose hearts are affected by
the suffering and hardships afflicting
the Fatherland, and who
later desire to join the ranks of
the fighters against the Jewish
enemy, the sole originator of our
present shame and suffering,
enter the Youth League of the
NSDAP. 6
This calling soon sparked fire
and motivation in the hearts and souls
of young German boys and girls. These
children felt that, after years of seeing
their parents suffer due to economic decline
and job loss, they would be able
to make a difference, not only in their
households, but also in the Third Reich.
The early years of the Nazi Youth Party
were paramount to the later success of
the Hitler Youth. Following the growth
of the party, Lenk published the first
Nazi youth magazine, National Jungstrom.
This new magazine failed, as it