The Women In Hitler Youth- German Mattresses

[Psycho Mike]

"Sexual exploitation," Kater writes, "pervaded the HJ itself."

Discipline in the girls division of HJ, the League of German Maidens (known by its German initials BDM for Bund Deutscher Maedel), was designed to rob girls of conventional morality. Wags took to saying the initials stood for League of German Mattresses.

For example, after a Reich Party rally in 1936, "900 BDM girls returned home from Nuremberg carrying a child; in only half the cases was the father known."

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-rev ... 86976.html

How in God's name can apologist's for Hitler go along or justify this?

[BDMhistorian]

The BDM had many nicknames among Hitler Youth boys and other youth of the time, ranging from "Bund Deutscher Milchkuehe" (League of German Milk Cows - referring to the heavier members of the group) to "Bund Deutscher Matratzen" like you said.

However, if you had ever done any research on the BDM you would know that none of the training was "designed to rob girls of conventional morality". As a matter of fact, when Himmler suggested in a speech that it would be the duty of every German girl to give a child to the fatherland, whether or not that happened out of wedlock, it was the Reichsjugendfuehrung (national youth leadership) that unanimously said NO. If a girl in the BDM got prognant, she had to LEAVE the BDM.

Unfortunately it seems that this particular book, like so many others on the Hitler Youth (such as the work of Martin Klaus, for example), don't really base anything on facts or research but make things up as they get along. Klaus, for example, gives us photos of BDM girls taking first aid classes and tells us that they "are peparing for the war to come". The author of that article you gave us a link to can't even get the year service was made compulsory right - it was 1936, when the Hitler Youth Law was published, not 1938.

[Acolyte]

For example, after a Reich Party rally in 1936, "900 BDM girls returned home from Nuremberg carrying a child; in only half the cases was the father known."

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-rev ... 86976.html

Though Baldur von Schirach, leader of the HJ, claimed that it supported home and school, in fact it worked to undermine their influence as being threatening to its own. One consequence was that this, in concert with other Nazi policies, weakened traditional moral constraints in many areas, including libidinal impulses. "Sexual exploitation," Kater writes, "pervaded the HJ itself."

"Libidinal impulses". Cool. I've never heard that English expression before.

On a further note. I recall reading that HJ members were encouraged to spy on their parents and report their anti-Nazi remarks (if they were any) to their superiors. I wonder if BDM had the same policy. Not exactly a way to support traditional family values...