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Originally Posted by John Beaman
I merely wanted to know if membership in the Hitler Youth was mandatory. I had always been told it was not.
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Don't know for sure but in the museum at Berchtesgaden, there is a display about how kids progressed at different ages through the Jungvolk, then the HJ (or BDM for girls), RAD and military service.
If the HJ wasn't mandatory it was clearly "normal" and the system was set up to suck you in early and carry you along through the successive organisations (and, of course, get you killed).
I have Michael Burleigh's excellent "The Third Reich: A New History" - I'll check up the section on the HJ.