Edelweiss Pirates

Genre:.....................WWII Drama
Language:.................German - No Subs
Picture:...................Colour
Runtime:..................1Hr36Mins
Size:........................699Mb

The Edelweiss Pirates were a loosely organized youth culture in Nazi Germany that emerged in western Germany out of the German Youth Movement in the late 1930s in response to the strict regimentation of the Hitler Youth. Similar in many ways to the Leipzig Meuten, they consisted of young people, mainly between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, who had either evaded the Hitler Youth by leaving school (which was allowed at age fourteen) or avoiding the Reich Labor Service and military service. The origins of the Edelweisspiraten can be traced to the period immediately prior to World War II, as the state controlled Hitler Youth was mobilized to serve the state, at the expense of the leisure activities it had previously offered young people. This tension was exacerbated once the war began and youth leaders were conscripted. In contrast, the Edelweisspiraten offered
young people considerable freedom to express themselves and to mingle with members of the opposite sex, whereas Nazi youth movements were strictly segregated by sex into the Hitler-Jugend (boys) and Bund Deutscher Mädel (girls).