MAKING FIFTH COLUMNISTS

Evening Star, Issue 23700, 7 October 1940, Page 7

MAKING FIFTH COLUMNISTS

WORK OF GERMAN YOUTH HOSTELS The Ge.rman youth hostels arc one of the chief factors in winning German youth for Nazism and in winning a “ fifth column ” of friends among the youth of foreign countries (writes a Zurich correspondent of tho ‘ Christian Science Monitor ’). German youth have always loved to wander through the beautiful_ valleys and the medieval towns of their country. By supporting this urge and building overnight homes as centres of National Socialist training, the Nazis have been able to turn this characteristic to their interests. After each day’s wandering, the boys and girls arrive at a hostel, where they are surrounded by pictures of the Fnhrer and other loaders and by quotations on tho walls expressing tho National Socialist sense or Spartan duty and fanatical love of country. Through the Hitler Youth the Gorman youth has been taught that wandering must not be thought of as a romantic pleasure and an end in itself, hut as a stern duty. German youth travelling mostly in the brown uniform of the Hitler Youth and in groups of 10 to 15, sots tests of endurance for itself, and ho who lags behind is considered a whakling. FREE VACATIONS OFFERED. To win back children of the poorer workers, who once were strongly influenced by Marxism, groups of underprivileged children from heavily industrialised regions were given free vacations of two to three weeks in the larger hostels They were put through a Spartan course of training in games, track sports, and hiking, and taught National Socialist doctrines. National Socialist leaders have expressed themselves as feeling that tho building of magnificent youth hostels was a better investment than improvement of workers’ homes. Tho youth is made to feel as much at homo in tho hostels as in its own houses, and thus gets a feeling of unity with tho nation as a whole. Many a Hitler _ Youth springing from an airplane with its parachute doubtless considers himself as defending a beautiful youth hostel, surrounded by happy memories of comradeship, rather than the dingy slum house which is his home. APPEAL TO FOREIGN YOUTH. A special effort has been made to win the friendship of youth of foreign countries and teach them Nazi ways of thinking. Up to tho outbreak of the war .a largo group of hoys and girls of German parentage wero being invited to spend periods of two weeks in youth hostels in the Rhineland and Central Germany. There wore young folks from Holland, Belgium, Brazil, Peru, Rumania. and Switzerland. Their training was especially vigorous, the idea being to stress the contrast with tho ‘‘ enervating democratic atmosphere ” in which they had grown up. They were taught to run and jump and throw the javelin, and above all to march ; if they did not march well in the morning they could not leave tho hostel grounds in the afternoon. They were overwhelmed with pamphlets showing the unity of all people of Gorman blood There were semi-miliary ceremonies wtih blaring trumpets and speeches about the mission of Gormans in foreign countries. The effect of this experience tended to make them overlook the military character of National Socialism and to fall deeply in love with Gorman character and scenery. REACTION OF FRENCH YOUTH. Visitors from France were rarer and not so easily carried away by the impressive display as visitors form countries that had less reason to fear aggression. One French group which tho writer met in a youth hostel in the Rhineland, was reserved in the midst of boisterous marching and comradeship, and seemed more concerned at the political significance of the German national resurgence. The youth hostel fathers were always on the alert to show the foreign guests every courtesy. If a guest from a foreign country was without a bed a Hitler vonth would sleep on straw and give up his bed. The youth hostel fathers were particularly zealous in affirming tho peaceful intentions of the Fuhrer and the Reich. RACIAL DOCTRINES. The mixture of German youth with the youth of other countries, however, has rarely led to a lessening of the national feeling of the Germans. The German youth always clung stubbornly to the racial doctrines learned in the Hitler Youth. » Moreover, for the majority, the youth hostel provided a physical rather than an intellectual experience. In tho early days of National Socialism it was possible to engage in interesting conversations with tho Hitler Youth about their doctrines. But as the Nazis went from success to success, the youth became more and more dogmatic and set in their beliefs, and conversations usually ended in arguments. Foreign youth, too. became more and more weary ns the Nazis absorbed one neighbour after the other. To-day Hitler youth continually stresses the fact that the Spartan training of the youth hostels has been proved superior to democratic training by Gorman victories on the field of battle.