Confessions of a Hitlter Youth

Heil Hitler: Confessions of a Hitler Youth After watching the film, Heil Hitler: Confessions of a Hitler Youth, answer the following questions in full sentences. Please use a different color…to make it easier for me to grade. Thanking you. 1. At the beginning of the film, the storyteller (Alfons Heck) tells how it was to be a youth watching Hitler’s rise to power. He says he could “feel the elation that the whole town felt.” What motivated Heck to join the Hitler Youth before he was and why do you think so many young people were attracted to the Hitler Youth? Because Hitler was good at brainwashing people like this. He could motivate anyone to do almost anything at that time because he promised them money. 2. The school children in Germany were educated in “innovation science or race sciences” which provided “evidence of superiority” of some races over others. a. Why would the teachers educate children in this way?
Because they also believed in Hitler’s ways. b. Why would the students believe it?
Because they believed whatever their teachers told them. 3. How did Alfons Heck respond after the Night of Broken Glass when the Jewish people of his town (who he had grown up with) were taken away? Why did he feel this way? Surprised, and a little scared, but he probably saw it coming. 4. Hitler’s youth were taught to sing songs together, given medals and jobs to do, and invited to large rallies like the one at Nuremburg. What influence did these things have on the children that were included?
They were like our pep rallies. Pep rallies get us pumped up.

5. Heck says that when he was captured and arrested as a military youth he was shown films of concentration camps but he did not believe they were real. a. Why was it so difficult for him and others to accept what they saw?
Because they were brought up like that so they didn’t think the people were real. b. What convinced him later of the reality of what happened?
Because he was told over and over by other people that it really was real and there was other evidence to support it. c. Do you think the Hitler Youth children were responsible for their actions? Why/why not?
No because they were brought up like that thinking that the concentration camps weren’t even real. They didn’t know the damage they were causing. 6. List an example from the film of how: a. Groupthink (a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an incorrect or deviant decision-making outcome) was demonstrated in this film.
The Germans thought their economy was going to get better, and it did, but they put the population of the Jews (just regular people) down the tubes. b. Bystander Effect (phenomenon that refers to cases where individuals do not offer any means of help in an emergency situation to the victim when other people are present) was demonstrated in this film.
The Hitler Youth were bystanders of this, and also the regular citizens of Germany but they couldn’t do anything because if they stuck up for the Jews they would also be shot on the spot. 7. Is Heck guilty, as he says he is, of mass murder? Why/why not?
No, because as I said before he didn’t know any different, society was different back then, he practically had no choice in the matter. It all depends on what your exposed to.

8. Heck states at the end of the film, “Despite Auschwitz, the world has not changed for the better all that much.” Do you agree with him that things have not improved? Explain.
Yes, our government still has way to much control over us and maybe not directly, but indirectly through things that they give us in our technology. 9. How does knowledge of the Holocaust affect our moral responsibilities today?
We need to watch our leaders more carefully.
Are there groups or group pressures similar to those of the Hitler Youth in today’s society?
Yes, I think our modern day Hitler youth is violent video games.
What are our moral obligations with respect to such groups?
We don’t think anything of it. Just like they didn’t know any better then, we don’t know any better now.

10. Respond to this quote in relation to the film you just watched,” The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

People should have stood up for the Jews and died a hero because if enough people would have stood up against Hitler for what was right the Holocost might not have happened at all.