"Clear the Streets for the Brown Battalions!"
The "wounded" are carried off.
"Experts" drill the troops in "Present
arms!"
The Liebknecht House's last defenders
The Liebknecht House is captured.
A "concentration camp" is established
in the courtyard.
One is weary after hard political labors. |
How often do we think of our own childhood as we
watch children play! After finishing the school work — and
sometimes before — it was a pleasure to head outside and let
childhood fantasy run free in games like thief or cowboys and Indians.
Sherlock Holmes and Nat Pinkerton were the models for our inventiveness.
Buffalo Bill roused us to courageous deeds, which often ended a
free-for-all. We devoured the ten-penny novels, which often led
us to imitate their tricks and pranks. Karl May's thick novels did
the same, bringing our imagination to a fever pitch.
Our post-war youth do not always have it as easy and pleasant as
earlier generations. Particularly in big cities, the lack of room
to play has particularly noticeable effects on children. The spiritual
pressures of the last fourteen years always weighed heavily on children's
souls, hardly allowing their natural playfulness to be expressed.
And the asphalt literati thought that it was bad for children to
be interested in military games. Such snobs joked about the little
lad with a wooden sword and a paper helmet.
In this area, too, much has changed since 5 March [the
last real election]. The national revolution also
did not leave children's souls untouched. Even the youngest children
sing the Horst-Wessel Song with burning enthusiasm and real devotion.
The youth greet S.A. and S.S. men with raised arms and a joyous
"Heil Hitler." The strong figures in brown shirts earn
the respect and quiet admiration of children's hearts, joined with
the longing to themselves become such a Hitler soldier.
There is a lot of noise in the courtyard of a large Munich apartment
building. The boys have invented a new and lively game. Between
them, they have gathered 2.40 marks to buy the necessary equipment.
A "Brown House" [Nazi Party
headquarters] has been built with cloth and sticks
in the center of the courtyard. Inside the tent are a picture of
Adolf Hitler, and a postcard with the words of the Horst-Wessel
Song. The five- to twelve-year-old boys have done everything themselves.
The happy owner of a drum is the leader. They practice hard, and
succeed. They study the songs. Things often get lively, for example
when the Karl-Liebknechthaus, made of old trash cans, is stormed.
It is then searched, and the communists taken off to a concentration
camp. The littlest S.A. man is so eager that he is often in the
courtyard early in the morning to call his comrades together. He
is thought to be very brave. His improvised brown shirt is a little
tight around the neck. He can hardly breathe when the collar is
buttoned. When a grown-up expressed concern, he proudly answered:
"An S.A. man has to be able to put up with that!" With
a thoughtful wrinkle of his brow, he got back to work.
In the evening, their mothers call them in for supper. The Sandman
then slips into their quiet dreams, drumming and trumpeting, and
they sing, attack, and triumph.
The youth once again has a future...
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