Hitler Youth Quex - Background

Background

Both novel and movie are based on the real story of Herbert Norkus' life. Norkus, a Hitler Youth member, died from injuries suffered when chased and confronted by Communist youths in the night of 23 / 24 January 1932 in the Beusselkietz neighborhood of Moabit, Berlin. Already the next morning, Joseph Goebbels started 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. While the murder was condemned also by non-Nazi press, the Communists started a counter-propaganda offensive, describing the incident as an accidental result of Communist self-defense during a Nazi attack. In the subsequent trial, several persons 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.

After the Nazis assumed power, the grave of Norkus was turned into a Nazi shrine, visited annually on New Year's Day by Nazi youth leader Baldur von Schirach for a speech that was broadcast nationwide. 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. 24 January was made remembrance day for all killed Hitler Youths, and the flag of Norkus' unit became the Hitler Youth's "blood flag". Two weeks after the Enabling Act of 1933, a provocative Hitler Youth march to Norkus' grave took the route through Berlin's communist districts of Wedding and Moabit. Throughout Germany, the Nazis organized demonstrations and speeches commemorating their newly created martyr. Novels, plays, poems and songs were written about him.