Academy for Youth Leadership

Therefore, the academy was at the head of the HJ training system, which consisted in part of Reichsführer schools, Reichsführer camps, and leadership preparation 'factories' (Führerschulungswerke - discussion and study groups designed to improve HJ leaders' abilities) in the years after the so-called seizure of power.

In addition to sports and fitness, it encompassed knowledge regarding political, economic, and cultural life in addition to the natural sciences, though exclusively in propagandistic and educational use in service of the Nazi ideology such as biology as genetics and racial hygiene and history from Nazi leadership's point of view.

To give graduates an appropriately international appearance, foreign languages and dance classes were also included in the curriculum.

Less than four weeks after the academy was opened on 2 August 1939, with the first class of 87 pupils, the Second World War began with the German invasion of Poland.

After youth leader Baldur von Schirach expressed an urgent desire for the Academy's release, provisional five-month courses occurred in November 1942.

The Academy for Youth Leadership in Braunschweig, as seen in 1938. From the German Federal Archives .
The former “Akademie für Jugendführung”, built 1937 to 1939, in Braunschweig, as seen from the south.
The building viewed from the southeast. To the left is the "Ehrenhalle", or Hall of Honor, with its 12 meter high columns.