Axmann, Artur
Publié le 22/02/2012
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Axmann, Artur (1913–1996) founder of
the Hitler Youth movement
Born on February 18, 1913, in Hagen, Germany,
Axmann studied law, became an early member of
the Nazi Party (NSDAP), and, in 1928, established
the first Hitler Youth group, in Westphalia. In 1932,
the party summoned him to reorganize all Nazi
youth cells throughout the country. The following
year he was named chief of the Social Office of the
Reich Youth leadership. From this post, Axmann
put the Hitler Youth in the forefront of determining
the nature and direction of state vocational
training, and he put Hitler Youth groups to work
on farms.
Axmann became an officer in the Waffen SS
and fought on the western front until May 1940. In
August, he succeeded Baldur von Schirach in the
post of Reich youth leader of the Nazi Party.
Returning to combat, he was gravely wounded on
the eastern front in 1941, suffering the loss of an
arm. Axmann returned to Germany and resumed
personal leadership of the Reich Youth.
A thoroughly committed Nazi, Axmann was a
member of Adolf Hitler's inner circle and was
with Hitler in the infamous Fuhrerbunker, the shelter
deep beneath the streets of Berlin from which
the dictator directed the war in its final desperate
days. Axmann escaped capture by the Red Army in
April but was arrested in December 1945 by the
Western Allies, after he was discovered organizing a
Nazi underground movement. He was held until
1949, when he was tried by a Nuremberg de-Nazification
tribunal, which sentenced him in May
1949 to a three-year three-month prison term.
After serving his sentence, Axmann found employment
as a salesman in Gelsenkirchen and Berlin.
However, on August 19, 1958, a West Berlin de-
Nazification court levied a heavy fine against
Axmann of 35,000 marks (about $15,000), which
represented some 50 percent of the value of property
he owned in Berlin. Although it was the judgment
of the court that he was guilty of
indoctrinating German youth with National Socialism
until the very end of the Third Reich, he was
acquitted of actual war crimes.
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