The Edelweiss Pirates 3jc4v

Student: Szasz Szidonia

 



The Edelweiss Pirates (Edelweißpiraten) were an organized group of youth in Nazi . They emerged in western out of the German Youth Movement of the late 1930s in response to the strict regimentation of the Hitler Youth. There were many young people in Nazi who resisted the cruelties of the Nazi Youth and remained true to their own codes of moral conduct.



The first Pirates appeared at the end of the 1930’s.Dressed in checkered shirts, short dark tros and white stockings, the Pirates wore metal Edelweiss pins on their collars. Because they lived in the same neighborhoods they had a territorial identity and shared beliefs. Refusing to participate in Nazi Youth activities, they shared a strong sense of social identity and solidarity with one another.



Named for the metal Edelweiss pins and badges wore on their collars or hats,these working-class teens became”one of the largest youth groups who refused to participate in Nazi youth activities”





Jean Julich(middle), who died at tyhe age of 82 , was one of the last surviving of the Edelweiss Pirates. He was born on 18th of April 1929 in the working-class Cologne suburb of Sultz



In 1944,at the age of 15,Julich was arrested with several of his friends for allegedly being involved in a plot to bomb the Gestapo headquarters in Cologne.



He spent four months in a cell at the Brauweiler prison on the outskirts of the city where he was interrogated and tortured by the Gestapo.Though he survived ,on November 10th 1944 his friend and fellow prisoner Bartholomaeus(Bathel)Schink



He was executed without trial on the public gallows at Ehrenfeld railway station,along with seven adults and five other “Pirates”.



Julich was later transferred to a concentration camp where he survived beatings ,starvation and typhus until the camp was liberated by the Americans in 1945.

Hitler’s power may lay us low, And keep us locked in chains, But we will smash the chains one day, We’ll be free again. We’ve got the fists and we can fight, We’ve got the knives and we’ll get them out. We want freedom,don’t we boys ?



Song of the Edelweiss Pirates(Peukert,p.158)



Their decision was one of resistance and,consequently, was not without hardship, but it was also one of liberty, for, as one of their songs contends, ”Our song is freedom, love and life, /We’re the Pirates of the Edelweiss.”The story of the Edelweiss Pirates is a story of courage and resistance.