Der Hitlerjunge Quex is a 1932 Nazi propaganda novel by Karl Aloys Schenzinger based on the life of Herbert “Quex” Norkus. The 1933 film Hitlerjunge Quex: Ein Film vom Opfergeist der deutschen Jugend was based on it and was described by Joseph Goebbels as the "first large-scale" transmission of Nazi ideology using the medium of cinema. Both the book and the film, like S.A.-Mann Brand and Hans Westmar, which were released the same year, fictionalised and glorified death in the service of the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler.

Background

thumb|250px|[[Hitler Youths marching from Herbert Norkus' grave to the Nazi party convent in Nuremberg]]

Both the novel and film are based on the real story of Herbert Norkus' life. Norkus, a Hitler Youth member, had died from injuries suffered while being chased and confronted by Communist youths in the night of 23/24 January 1932 in the Beusselkietz neighbourhood of Moabit, Berlin. Already on the next morning, Joseph Goebbels began to use Norkus' death for propaganda purposes during a rally in Berlin's Sportpalast. The funeral on 29 January at Plötzensee, Berlin, was turned into a major ceremony of several Nazi party organizations, under the aegis of Goebbels. In the subsequent trial, several people were sentenced by the Landgericht I court in Moabit, yet the most prominent accomplices Willi Simon, Bernhard Klingbeil and Harry Tack had been able to escape to the Soviet Union. To the site of Norkus' death at Zwinglistraße 4, a plaque was attached reading "He Gave His Life For Germany's Freedom", the first of several such memorial plaques subsequently placed throughout Germany. and more than 500,000 copies by 1945.

The following chapters deal with Heini's life as a Hitler Youth. Norkus' group was Schar 2, Hitlerjugend Beusselkietz-Hansa. The plot was written by Bobby E. Lüthge and Karl Aloys Schenzinger, the author of the novel. under the aegis of Baldur von Schirach. The latter also wrote the lyrics for the Hitler Youth song "Unsere Fahne flattert uns voran", based on an existing melody by Hans-Otto Borgmann, who was also responsible for the music.

Sources

References

Bibliography

  • Der Hitlerjunge Quex at the Internet Archive