Deutsche Kinderschar - English

Children's groups of the National Socialist Women's League / German women's Association

In 1935, the National Socialist educational work for the six to ten year old children was transferred to the National Socialist Women's League. The work was set up in most of the Gau (districts) at that time under the name "Deutsche Kinderschar"; especially the Gau Sachsen was leading in this work.

In the wording of the corresponding instruction from the staff of the deputy leader reads:

"Based on your letter, the Führer's deputy recently submitted your application to the Führer. The Führer decided that the Hitler Youth should not raise the children's groups and that the admission age for the Hitler Youth should not be lowered - as in Saxony - the education of the children's groups is has to stay with the NS-Women's League.

Munich, March 14, 1935

signed
Bormann

After this instruction, most of the districts approached the work they had, which already became dear to them from the days of struggle, with great joy, and by the end of 1936 25 of 32 districts were already working. Even if there were still some difficulties in the way of the construction, the quiet, tough work spoke for itself, and very soon the party, schools and the parents of the children were interested in it, in order to then free the thoughts and the will on their own to support children's group work. The groups of children were raised in close cooperation with the regional and superintendent performances of the Hitler Youth in order to guarantee the uniform line in the National Socialist child and youth work.

Well over 350,000 six to ten year old boys and girls belong to the German children's groups. ... They do handicrafts and work in winter to make German children abroad happy. They make small useful things that will surprise the mother on Mother's Day. ... There is advice on what the winter relief organization can use as a Christmas present for borderland children.

In this way, before the child can intellectually perceive the "national community", it learns to assess its content through its own small deed. Before it knows of the fate of all Germans, it learns here to voluntarily fit into a small comradeship. Learned while young is done old - later it will not be difficult for them as a growing young person to consciously feel as a German who is a comrade to every young German - regardless of their origin. As a Pimpf and Jungmädel, as a Hitler Youth and BDM girl, the young person will understand much better what the children's group wants to awaken in them.

The children should not be taught political ideas or theories - it is much more important that the values ​​of character, the emotional impulses are addressed in them, on which National Socialism alone can build. Of course, the boy who comes to the Jungvolk at the age of ten is not a ready-made person; the young girl is certainly still versatile. But the ten-year-old child has already had a major part of its development behind it. Just as physical neglect can hardly ever be fully made up for in the first ten years later, it is also difficult to begin to make up for mistakes in the upbringing of this age group. In addition to school and parental home, the children's group wants to help the child to find their way into the community for which they were born and which one day they will have to give their strength. But if you are afraid that the children will be turned into head-hangers or precocious know-it-alls, take a look at one of our children's groups. When the weather is good, they are - if at all possible - outdoors. They play, do gymnastics, run and jump. Frightened mothers' boys lose their squeamishness of their own accord, and girls who used to be tearful are soon no longer. Because they want to be brave. On the excursions there is singing and music. To rest you sit in the grass and the group leader tells a fairy tale or a legend from the history of the homeland. The group leader thinks up something new for every group afternoon. By always tying in with things from the everyday experience of children, she expands the conceptual world of the child through childlike understanding and thus participates in the formation of a National Socialist worldview in the child.

The children's group leaders have a close camaraderie among themselves - they are trained again and again and receive inspiration and direction; because they are aware of their great responsibility to bring up the children in a National Socialist attitude and, above all, to exemplify National Socialism for them in their own demeanor, their personal attitude. As the Führer himself said: "Young people cannot be brought up early enough to first and foremost feel like Germans", the entire upbringing of children in the National Socialist Reich.

Source: Die Frau im Dritten Reich - Gertrud Scholtz-Klink Pg. 152-154