6. Nonconformist Teen Lifestyle and Fashion Could Get Kids Sent to Concentration Camps or Executed in Nazi Germany
Stern talks and head shaves for nonconformist teenagers was too lenient for SS head honcho, Heinrich Himmler. He wanted an example made of youths who failed to show complete loyalty. The teen rebelliousness, refusal to toe the line, and counterculture lifestyle and fashion of the Edelweiss Pirates galled Himmler. He deemed any half measures when dealing with such “delinquents” to be unacceptable. In 1942, he wrote to his deputy Reinhard Heydrich that he wanted such kids to do two or three-year stints in concentration camps:
“There the youth should first be given thrashings and then put through the severest drill and set to work. It must be made clear that they will never be allowed to go back to their studies. We must investigate how much encouragement they have had from their parents. If they have encouraged them, then they should also be put into a concentration camp and (have) their property confiscated“. By 1944, with Third Reich clearly circling the drain, Himmler ordered an even more brutal crackdown. In November of that year, thirteen youths were hanged in public in Cologne, many of them active or former Edelweiss Pirates.
