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.

The way to Resistance

Though they were not an organised political opposition organisation, the whole culture of the Swing Kids evolved into a non-violent refusal of the civil order and culture of National Socialism.

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From a paper of the "Youth Guidance" office:

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"The members of the Swing youth oppose today's Germany and its police, the Party and its policy, the Hitlerjugend, work and military service, and are opposed, or at least indifferent, to the ongoing war. They see the mechanisms of National Socialism as a "mass obligation". The greatest adventure of all times leaves them indifferent; much to the contrary, they long for everything that is not German, but English."

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From 1940, the violent repression by the Gestapo and the Hitlerjugend shaped the political spirit of the Swing youth. Also, by police order, people under 18 were forbidden to go to dance bars, which encouraged the movement to seek its survival in clandestinity.

Related Topics:
Gestapo - Hitlerjugend

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The strict regimentation of youth culture in Nazi Germany through the Hitler Youth led to the emergence of several underground protest movements, through which adolescents were able better to exert their independence. There were street gangs (Meuten) of working class youths, who borrowed elements from socialist and communist traditions to forge their own identities, and there were less politically motivated groups that such as the Edelweiss Pirates (Edelweißpiraten), who acted in defiance of Hitler Youth norms. A third group, consisting mainly of upper middle class youths, based their protest on their musical preferences, rejecting the völkisch music propagated by the Party for American jazz forms, especially Swing.

Related Topics:
Youth culture - Nazi Germany - Hitler Youth - Adolescents - Gang - Socialist - Communist - Edelweiss Pirates - Völkisch - American - Jazz - Swing

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Connection with the Weiße Rose

The Swing Youth of Hamburg at some point had contacts with another famous resistance movement, when three members of the White Rose developed a sympathy for the Swing youth. No formal cooperation arose, though these contacts were later used by the Volksgerichtshof ("People's Court") to accuse some Swing kids of anarchist propaganda and sabotage of the armed forces. The consequent trial, death sentences and executions were averted by the end of the war.

Related Topics:
White Rose - Volksgerichtshof - Anarchist - Propaganda - Sabotage

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