Swing Kids

The Swing Kids (German: Swingjugend) were a group of jazz and Swing lovers in the Germany of the 1930s, mainly in Hamburg (St. Pauli) and Berlin. They were composed of 14 to 18-year old boys and girls in high school, most of them middle or high-class students, but some apprentice workers as well. They sought the British and American way of life, defining themselves in Swing music, and opposing the National-Socialist ideology, especially the Hitlerjugend.

Clamping Down

On the 18 August 1941, in a brutal police operation, over 300 Swingjugend were arrested. The measures against them ranged from cutting their hair and sending them back to school under close monitoring, to the deportation of the leaders in concentration camps.

Related Topics:
18 August - 1941 - Concentration camps

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This mass arrest encouraged the youth to further their political consciousness and opposition to National Socialism. They started to distribute anti-fascist propaganda. In January 1943, Günter Discher, as one the "ringleader" of the Swing youth, was deported into the youth concentration camp of Moringen.

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On January 2, 1942, Heinrich Himmler wrote to Reinhard Heydrich calling on him to clamp down on the ringleaders of the Swing movement, recommending a few years in a concentration camp with beatings and forced labor. The crackdown soon followed: clubs were raided and participants were hauled off to camps.

Related Topics:
January 2 - 1942 - Heinrich Himmler - Reinhard Heydrich - Concentration camp

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My judgement is that the whole evil must be radically exterminated now. I cannot but see that we have taken only half measures. All ringleaders (...) are into a concentration camp to be re-educated (...) detention in concentration camp for these youths must be longer, 2-3 years (...) it is only though the outmost brutality that we will be able to avert the dangerous spread of anglophile tendencies, in these times where Germany fights for its survival. (Heinrich Himmler)

Related Topics:
Anglophile - Heinrich Himmler

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