The paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party known as the Sturmabteilung established the Hitler Jugend in 1926 for the purpose of indoctrinating German youth into Nazi ideology. In March 1942 the Nazis established military training camps expressly for the older members of the Hitler Jugend. The following year the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS began taking boys who were 16 to 18 for frontline military duty. These troops were led by young veteran NCOs from the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler panzer division.
The 10,000-strong Hitler Jugend division was officially established on June 24, 1943. The division was attached to the 1st SS Panzer Corps and sent to Normandy under the command of SS-Brigadefuhrer Fritz Witt.
The Hitler Jugend division was ground to a pulp in Normandy. In its first month of fighting, the division lost 60 percent of its strength. Some remnants escaped from the Falaise Gap. In November 1944, the reconstituted division was refitted in Bremen, Germany, for the Wacht an Rein offensive in the Ardennes. Lastly, the division participated in the unsuccessful German attempt in March 1945 to retake the Hungarian oilfields from the Red Army. The division crossed the demarcation line and surrendered to the Americans in May 1945.
