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Artur Axmann
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Artur Axmann was leader of the Hitler Youth from 1940 through war's end in 1945.
Biography
Early lifeAxmann was born in Hagen on 18 February 1913. He studied law and in 1928, founded the first Hitler Youth group in Westphalia.
Nazi careerIn 1932, he was called to be a Reich Leader (Reichsleiter) of the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) to carry out a reorganization of Nazi youth cells and in 1933, became Chief of the Social Office of the Reich Youth Leadership. Axmann gained a place for the Hitler Youth in the direction of state vocational training and succeeded in raising the status of Hitler Youth agricultural work. He was on active service on the western front until May 1940. In August of the same year he succeeded Baldur von Schirach as Reich Youth Leader (Reichsjugendführer) of the Nazi Party. In 1941, he was severely wounded on the eastern front, losing an arm.
During the last weeks of the war, Axmann commanded units of the Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend) which were incorporated into the Home Guard (Volkssturm). His units consisted mostly of children and adolescents. They primarily fought in the Battle of Seelow Heights (Seelower Höhen) which was a part of the larger Battle for Berlin (Endkampf um Berlin). Many of the young people fighting for Axmann died without any military training or equipment.
On 4 January 1944, Axmann was awarded the German Order, the highest decoration that the Nazi Party could bestow on an individual, for his services to the Reich. Along with one other recipient (K. Hierl), he was the only holder of this medal to survive the war and its consequences. All other recipients were either awarded it posthumously, or were killed in the war or its aftermath.
During Hitler's last days, Axmann was among those present in the Führerbunker. On 1 May 1945, after Hitler's suicide on 30 April, Axmann escaped from the bunker together with Martin Bormann and Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger. He was separated from Bormann and Stumpfegger, but when forced to back-track he discovered their bodies near the Stettiner Bahnhof. He avoided capture by Soviet troops and disappeared. Axmann, presumed dead, lived under the alias of "Erich Siewert" for several months.
Axmann was arrested in December 1945 when a Nazi underground movement which he had been organizing was uncovered. A Nuremberg de-Nazification court sentenced him in May 1949 to a prison sentence of three years and three months as a 'major offender'.
Post-Nazi lifeAfter his release, Axmann worked as a sales representative in Gelsenkirchen and Berlin. On 19 August 1958 a West Berlin de-Nazification court fined the former Hitler Youth leader 35,000 marks (approximately 3,000 pounds, or $23,876.97 USD), about half the value of his property in Berlin. The court found him guilty of indoctrinating German youth with National Socialism right until the end of the Third Reich, but concluded that he had been a Nazi from inner conviction rather than base motives. During his trial, Axmann told the court that he had heard the shot with which Hitler committed suicide. He also said that he had attempted to escape from central Berlin along with Martin Bormann who he said had died during the attempt.
Portrayal in the mediaArtur Axmann has been portrayed by the following actors in film and television productions.
- Harry Brooks Jr. in the 1973 British television production The Death of Adolf Hitler.
Bibliography- Artur Axmann: "Das kann doch nicht das Ende sein." Hitlers letzter Reichsjugendführer erinnert sich. Koblenz: Bublies, 1995. ISBN 3-926584-33-5
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