German Youth Gangs that Opposed Hitler: the Edelweiß Pirates 

I want to add some information about the roots of the Edelweißpiraten which might help to understand why they formed and how they behaved. The Edelweißpiraten evolved out of a movement called "Bündisch Youth". This movement formed around the year 1900 with the "Wandervögel" (rarely used word for 'migratory birds'). At that time train tickest had become affordable enough for middle-classed students from Berlin to take a ride on the train outside the city and take a hike through the woods, where they slept under the open sky before they took the train back the next day. For many it was the first time to leave the city and have some adventures without any adults around. These trips became known as "Fahrten" (which means 'drives' in modern German, at the time it meant trips and voyages in general). Over time the movement grow, and independent "Bünde" ('associations', sg. "Bund"; reason they are called "bündisch") formed all over the German Empire and Austria. Even though these Bünde developed completely unique traditions and values, a few key elements evolved: The importance of the small group, the connection to nature, Independence from adults. Every Bund had a kind of uniform which distinguished them visibly from another. They also loved singing together. At first mainly folks song, later they started to write their own songs or collecting non-German songs from all around the world. were the went on "Fahrt", which wasn't necessarily a weekend trip anymore. During the Weimar Republic this movement reached its peak. They were well known in Germany, and more popular than the scout movement, which was just starting to set foot there. Wandervögel played a crucial role in the founding of the scout movement in Germany, and both movement influenced each other (which might explain the fleur de lys at 6:19). The biggest Bund at the time was the 'Nerother Wandervogel' (named after the place where it was founded). The Nazis adapted some elements of the Bündische Jugend for the Hitler Youth such as the independence from adults, because it allowed them to have more influence on their education, and because they wanted to attract leaders from the Bündisch Youth, since -at least in the beginning - they had not enough Youths among their own, wich were ready and capable of leading youths. Among the Bündisch Youth existed the idea of a "Großbund" (Great Bund"), also known as "Freideutsche Jugend" ('Free German Youth', a term which would be abused again by the GDR), which would combine all the small Bünde into a single Bund, but all attempts in archiving this had failed. Some saw this finally archived in the Hitler Youth, while others argued, that the Bündisch Youth revolved around experiencing freedom, while the Hitler Youth revolved around absolute obedience and educating youths in the spirit of National Socialism. When the Nazis came into power it became they soon forbid bündisch and scout associations. The Nerother Wandervogel, which I mentioned above, was also forbidden in 1933, but managed to continue until 1935, when the Nazis managed to dissolve their organization at the third attempt. However, some of the groups of which the Bund had consisted, continued underground, including the Kittelbachpiraten, which were a Bund on their own before, but parts of them had joined the Nerother, when they themselves were forbidden. Many groups which are now known as Edelweißpiraten had their origins in the Nerother Wandervogel. The leader of the Nerother Wandervogel, Robert Oelbermann, was arrested and brought to the concentration camp in Dachau, where he died. His brother Karl, who was on "Weltfahrt" ('world trip') in South Africa at the time stayed their until after the war. He founded the Nerother Wandervogel again after the fall of Nazi Germany. At first their activity wouldn't involve active resistance. They would meet in a park maybe once a week and sing bündisch songs (which were forbidden) or go on Fahrt. (It was also forbidden to go hiking except as an activity of one of the Nazi mass organizations.) When the Nazis threw a bunch of terms together to create the name "Edelweißpiraten", they accidently created a legend. A secret youth organization, which resisted the Nazis by singing and hiking. Other teenagers who had nothing to do with the Edelweißpiraten until then founded their own groups in that spirit. They would meet somewhere, someone had a guitar, someone knew a song or two, which was supposedly sung by the Edelweißpiraten. Like this the movement evolved, and groups were founded which didn't just want to resist the Nazis with singing and hiking, but wanted to fight the Nazis. The Bündisch Youth also influenced other resistance groups. Several members of the "Weiße Rose" for example had roots in the Bund Neudeutschland (New Germany) of the late Weimar Republic. In Western Germany many of the old Bünde were able to reform, and exist to this day. I myself am a member of a bündisch scout association in Germany, which is the reason I'm so interested in this topic. There is an old folks song which we still sing today. The Chorus was rewritten to this: "Wenn die Fahrtenmesser blitzen und die Hitlerjungen flitzen und die Edelweißpiraten fallen ein: 'Haut sie auf die Schnauze'. Was kann das Leben bei Hitler uns geben, wir wollen bündisch sein?" 'When the knives twinkle and the Hitler boys run, and the Edelweißpiraten sing: 'Hit them in the face'. What can live at Hitler give us, we want to be bündisch. A few years back I visited the NS Documentation Center which is located in a former Gestapo prison in cologne, where many Edelweißpiraten where held. Written on a wall I saw a very simular version of the song above. The only difference was, that that version said "und die Navajos fallen ein:[...]" ('and the Navajos sing'). It makes me proud to share a tradition with the Edelweißpiraten. But I am well aware of the fact that not all bündisch groups at the time went into passive or active resistance. The overwhelming majority joined the Hitler Youth. Some because they saw that as the best way to maintain bündisch traditions and ideas (this didn't work very well; the Nazis got rid of all known bündisch structures untill 1935), others joined the Hitler Youth out of conviction. More than a few founders of the bündisch post-war groups often had important positions either in the Hitler Youth, or in the other areas of the Nazi state.

You do a great consistent job 👍🏼. No over hyping , selling , etc . Keep up the great work .

I love this channel. So much work put into it and it's always interesting.

As a POW my father worked in the Munich rail yards. One German worker dad described as a tramp, schwarzimann (forgive the spelling). He didn't like washing himself. Prior to Hitler this guy had walked across most of Europe for years from Denmark to Spain in the winter months. He knew all the places to cross a border without a passport. He arrived on a bicycle as work started, did as little as possible and was out the yards as the work day ended as fast as he could. He always wanted to see England but never had the money or a passport to get there. He hated working and Hitler who he blamed personally for him having to load the trains.

Another comment now that I finished the video...This video is a far more interesting and detailed than anything I had heard of the "Edelweiß Pirates" before. Thank you.

Thank you for talking about a less talk about topics of the German resistance to Nazism

Very informative. Canadian living in Munich. I lived here also as a teenager in the late 70s. Have never heard of the piraten before. Thanks for keeping important history alive. 🙏

Top shelf content as usual. Greetings from very cold Wisconsin, USA..

Modern Germany testifies to the ineffectiveness of the werewolves.

Just found this channel thank You!

That was really good. I keep learning new things from you every week and I like it. By the way did you get any time to look into the Cowra POW breakout in Australia?

Very interesting, informative and worthwhile video.

Poor old Von Stauffenberg, if it wasn’t for that damn table getting in the way!

Great delivery as always.

wow I've heard about them already, but not yet have seen such a detailed account of their actions... very interesting

Excellent video !!!

I just found your channel and subscribed, Thanks!

I believe the flower was also a symbol of German mountain troops. The Band of Brothers scene showing it is suddenly more poignant.

I’m enjoying exploring and discovering so much in your videos. Really you a fantastic historian and a leading expert on this subject. If it’s possible I’d love to hear more about the bureaucracy of the Ministries and the senior Ministers and officials in charge of them and what they did day to day. Moving between Berlin and the Obersalzberg and palace rivalry I’m assuming but would appreciate any further info on this. Many thanks if you can and if it is not a silly question! Thank you for all your hard work, dedication and research.

Thank you. I knew nothing of this. Brave people, all of them.

great info and unfortunately nobody knows about it. thank you for your video

When this came up in my notifications, my first thought was, "Why the hell are you doing another story about the 'Pirates' so soon?" Then I started watching it and immediately realized my mistake. As a major history buff I subscribe to several history channels, and it was another channel which recently did a segment on the 'pirates'. While that presentation was good and informative, I have to say yours was far better. While the other channel gave the bare bones history of the 'pirates', you not only fleshed it out and made the participants human, but you also provided much more information regarding the motives and actions of these teen heroes. Good job, my friend, DAMN good job!

Very interesting! Are you planning a video on the White Rose?

Very interesting topic, I have never heard about it.

Interesting never heard of this group until know. Greetings from Ireland 🇮🇪 😊

An incredible story! I think there's even a feature film about the Edelweiss Pirates. I do wonder if the real Edelweiss Pirates had any connection to the White Rose group. Also yes a video about the so called Werewolf Gorilla war that was being floated around would be great. Its a subject that's rather sketchy and some clarity would be of interest. Love your work, keep it up!

What a great way to enable your US viewers to celebrate the end of the work week! Thank you Oscar. Please breathe deep the coming weekend, Casey & Chickadee

Very interesting

Thank you! you are one of the very very precious few english language sources to cover this topic! Resistance movement and Weimar Era anti-fascist movements are rarely discussed in mainstream US ww2 historiography. I would love it if you delved further into the topic of resistance movements. For example, I am vaguely aware of the Dutch Communist Party participating in a popular front to organize a general strike in the NE during the occupation. Topics like these are fascinating and an important reminder that the fascists were not overwhelmingly popular in Europe- they ruled through terror and instilling fear.

I always like that intro. It is my favorite on RU-vid.

Yes so much yes. Thank you for covering the young opposing the fascist regime. They are most overlooked and were so damn brave.

I believe the early 90s movie "Swing Kids" was based on this group. Love your content sir👍

Proper gangsters sounds like my kind of group if I was a teen.

0:16 That portrait... Looks very very familiar. Hmmmmm. It seems that his portrait is the same one used in TNO. (Reposted because of an unnecessary comment)

I would like to ask you to prepare a video about one of my favourite German History characters: Friedrich Freiherr vor der Trenck.

Wasn’t there also a group named the schlurfs?

Another important anti-Nazi youth movement was the Swingjugend (Swing Youth). They loved American and British culture, hated the Nazi regime, and were especially strong in Hamburg. Quite a few Swingjugend ended up in concentration camps. 15 years after the end of the war, it was Hamburg that played a major role in launching the Beatles' career, a possible legacy of the Anglophile rebel youth culture of that city.

1:50 they didn't have electric guitars in the 1940s.

Movie: Swing Kids

Fatherlands young hero’s all

Would like to see a video on the werewolf movement!!

Interesting it remembers me the movie The swing boys

0:26 Factually incorrect! Anyway, joking aside, thanks very much for this interesting and important video.

A youth group from the 1930s/1940s had a badge featuring a Fender Strat-style electric guitar? Really?

Were these the ones portrayed in the movie Swing Kids?

These kids had balls of steel to stand up to the nazis.

Swing kids, a movie from the nineties was about this.

Hitler spent all of his levelling points on charisma and luck and nothing else.

I would like to see a video about the post-WW2 resistance that existed in Soviet occupied countries e.g. Ukraine, the Baltics.

I feel like this guy is a younger mark Felton keep up the good work

Do the Cristero War in Mexico.

Je mi líto rodičů autora videa.

Great video. Could you do a documentary on the KKK certificates that the Nazis used to bleed dry the economy's of the occupied territories. Likewise, a documentary on the "pseudo-currencies" that were introduced and which circulated in some of the concentration camps?

Underestimating kids has been the downfall of all kinds of dastardly criminals. Dickens' Fagen and the pick pockets, Peter Pan and his crew, Spanky and the Gang, The Baker Street Irregulars and plenty of other fiction and non fiction kids' groups, (let's not forget Scooby Do's Gang) see things we think they don't see. They hear and understand more than we give them credit for. And they're capable of ingenuity when it comes to problem solving with a flexibility adults just cannot match.

What is the history of Königsberg? What did the Russians do to take over this plot of land and change its name to Kaliningrad?

When I watched the movie, the Edelweisspiraten dressed nicely. But, how did they bathe? Did they have indoor plumbing?

Hitler was propably after Fidel Castro the world leader with the most failed assasination attempts on his account. The more you look the more rediciolous it gets: From bombs in wine bottles smuggled to his plane not going of because they froze down to a german officer wearing a suicide vest timed to 10min during a museum tour with Hitler, but Hitler leaving after 2 min instead of the planned 20min so the guy had to quickly disarm it to not blow himself up it was a mess or nearly beeing captured by a soviet Tank collum that was just a few km breaking through the frontline where Hitler was just visiting it....the list goes on and on. Staufenbergs attempt might have been the biggest one in scope, but there were a LOT of people that tried to kill him over his rule. Hitler truly had the devils luck.

Conclusion: it didn’t end well for the gangs

A MADE FOR TV MOVIE SHOULD BE MADE TO SHOW THE WORLD ABOUT THESE BOYS,,,,

You saw swing kids ha

That globe better not have Chinas nine dash line.

Werewolf members managed to kill the new German mayor of Aachen? appointed by the allies but it seems like they weren't very successful and crushed once their existence became known to the allied powers after the war.

Is it true that Hilter had young people sent to work camps for swing dancing?

More like mods not Teddy boys 🙄

I’d never heard of them. Thank you so much. Anyone who resisted Hitler should be talked about. You’d think Germany would make them heroes. 🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺

The og hippies

What is your native tongue?

I think you could do more about German resistance to Naziism, I dont believe we should whitewash history but groups such as the communist party need more recognition.

Were these the original antifas?

I love the Prussia State and Monarchy.

The original hippies

JLo

The Bläck Fööss (Naked Feet), a famous music band from Cologne, made a great song about the Edelweißpiraten. The song is sung in "Kölsch", the "language" local people in Cologne speak. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NGikhw1KC1w.html

Of course, the international socialist regimes of the 20th century were even more repressive with no chance for this sort of resistance (e.g., East Germany, USSR, etc)

be very aware of indoctrination

Where they Jews?

The majority of resistance movements were only after it was obvious Germany was losing and had very little to do with humanity but realpolitik.

The original Antifa

Kittebachpiraten was an extrem right group; which joined Sturmabteilung and Hitlerjungend at a later point. If you want to talk about history, do a better research.

Are you Jewish?