9. The Kids Who Bucked the System With Fashion
It is unclear how many of the teen pregnancies at the 1936 Nuremberg Rally were the result of consensual sex between Nazi teens, and how many were the result of molestation by adult Nazis. However the pregnancies came about, their number dismayed many. Traditional conservative elements still held some sway in the Nazi party at the time, and the Lebensborn crowd had not yet gained an ascendancy. So a temporary stir and kerfuffle ensued. In the end, many of the pregnancies were terminated by abortions, on orders from the Party.
Against that backdrop of descending evil and forced conformity, some German youngsters refused to go along with the Nazi program. To resist the pressure to join the Hitler Youth was difficult and often hazardous. Nonetheless, some brave youth refused to simply go along. Best known among those were the so-called Edelweiss Pirates, a loose association of youth movements in western Germany that developed in opposition to the regimentation of the Hitler Youth. They took their name from the edelweiss, a hardy white mountain flower that grows in high altitudes.
