Swing Kids
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about the german jazz and Swing lovers of the 1930's. For the 1993 film, see Swing Kids (film).
- For the San Diego hardcore punk band, see Swing Kids (band).
The Swing Kids (German: Swingjugend) were a group of jazz and Swing lovers in the Germany of the 1930s, mainly in Hamburg (St. Pauli) and Berlin. They were composed of 14 to 18-year old boys and girls in high school, most of them middle or upper-class students, but some apprentice workers as well. They sought the British and American way of life, defining themselves in Swing music, and opposing the National-Socialist ideology, especially the Hitlerjugend.
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[edit] Name
The name "Swing kids" is a rough translation of the German "Swingjugend" ("Swing Youth"), which was a sort of parody of the numerous "youth" groups which flourished under the National-Socialists. They also referred to themselves as "Swings" or "Swingheinis" ("Swingity"); the members were called "Swing-Boy", "Swing-Girl" or "Old-Hit-Boy".
[edit] Counter Culture
Jazz music was offensive to Nazi ideology because it was associated with the American enemy and worse, was often performed by African American (or Jewish) musicians. They called it "nigger music" or "degenerate music"—coined in parallel to "entartete Kunst" (degenerate art). Moreover, song texts defied Nazi ideology, going as far as to promote sexual permissiveness or free love.
The Swing kids were initially basically apolitical, similar to the youthful rebellion in the history of rock and roll. A popular term that the Swing subculture used to define itself was Lottern, roughly translated as "sleaziness," indicating contempt for the repressive sexual mores of the time. Reports by Hitler Youth observers of Swing parties and jitterbug went into careful detail about the overtly sexual nature of both. One report describes as "moral depravity" the fact that Swing youth took pleasure in their sexuality.
The Swing Kids were defining a counter-culture, shown by their clothing and music. Their behavior, described by many Nazis as "effete," ran counter to the Spartan militarism that the regime was trying to inculcate in its youth. They organised dance festivals and contests, and invited jazz bands. These events were occasions to mock the Nazis, the military and the Hitlerjugend -- hence the famous "Swing heil!", mocking the infamous "Sieg Heil!". Swings kids wore long hair, hats, umbrellas and met in cafés and clubs. They developed a jargon mostly made of Anglicisms.
Despite this, not all jazz was forbidden in Germany at the time. Due to the popularity of this type of music, they permitted a milder, slower, "Germanized" version under strict regulations.[1] Swing was tolerated to some degree at least until 1940, when a Swing festival, held in Hamburg, attracted over 500 youths.
[edit] The way to Resistance
Though they were not an organised political opposition organisation, the whole culture of the Swing Kids evolved into a non-violent refusal of the civil order and culture of National Socialism.
From a paper of the "Youth Guidance" office:
"The members of the Swing youth oppose today's Germany and its police, the Party and its policy, the Hitlerjugend, work and military service, and are opposed, or at least indifferent, to the ongoing war. They see the mechanisms of National Socialism as a "mass obligation". The greatest adventure of all times leaves them indifferent; much to the contrary, they long for everything that is not German, but English."
From 1940, the violent repression by the Gestapo and the Hitlerjugend shaped the political spirit of the Swing youth. Also, by police order, people under 18 were forbidden to go to dance bars, which encouraged the movement to seek its survival in clandestinity.
The strict regimentation of youth culture in Nazi Germany through the Hitler Youth led to the emergence of several underground protest movements, through which adolescents were able better to exert their independence. There were street gangs (Meuten) of working class youths, who borrowed elements from socialist and communist traditions to forge their own identities, and there were less politically motivated groups such as the Edelweiss Pirates (Edelweißpiraten), who acted in defiance of Hitler Youth norms. A third group, consisting mainly of upper middle class youths, based their protest on their musical preferences, rejecting the völkisch music propagated by the Party for American jazz forms, especially Swing.
[edit] Connection with the Weiße Rose
The Swing Youth of Hamburg at some point had contacts with another famous resistance movement, when three members of the White Rose developed a sympathy for the Swing youth. No formal cooperation arose, though these contacts were later used by the Volksgerichtshof ("People's Court") to accuse some Swing Kids of anarchist propaganda and sabotage of the armed forces. The consequent trial, death sentences and executions were averted by the end of the war.
[edit] Swing Clubs
When bigger gatherings were banned, the Swing youth moved to more informal settings, and Swing clubs emerged in all the major cities of the Reich. Participants were mainly from the upper middle class, as Swing culture required the participants to have access to the music, which was not played on German radio, so that extensive collections of phonograph recordings were essential. Similarly, to understand the lyrics of the predominantly American songs, it was necessary to have at least a rudimentary understanding of English. Relative wealth also fostered a distinctive style among the Swing youth, which was in some ways comparable to the zoot suit style popular in the United States at the time. Boys usually wore long jackets, often checkered, shoes with crepe soles (for dancing), and flashy scarves. They almost always carried an umbrella, and added a dress shirt button with a semi-precious stone. Girls generally wore their hair long and loose and added excessive makeup. Their dandyish dress style riled the Nazis by drawing heavily on Hispanic Pachucos.
[edit] Clamping Down
On 18 August 1941, in a brutal police operation, over 300 Swing jugend were arrested. The measures against them ranged from cutting their hair and sending them back to school under close monitoring, to the deportation of the leaders in concentration camps.
This mass arrest encouraged the youth to further their political consciousness and opposition to National Socialism. They started to distribute anti-fascist propaganda. In January 1943, Günter Discher, as one the "ringleader" of the Swing youth, was deported into the youth concentration camp of Moringen.
On January 2, 1942, Heinrich Himmler wrote to Reinhard Heydrich calling on him to clamp down on the ringleaders of the Swing movement, recommending a few years in a concentration camp with beatings and forced labor. The crackdown soon followed: clubs were raided and participants were hauled off to camps.
My judgement is that the whole evil must be radically exterminated now. I cannot but see that we have taken only half measures. All ringleaders (...) are into a concentration camp to be re-educated (...) detention in concentration camp for these youths must be longer, 2-3 years (...) it is only through the outmost brutality that we will be able to avert the dangerous spread of anglophile tendencies, in these times where Germany fights for its survival. (Heinrich Himmler)
[edit] Film
Thomas Carter's 1993 film Swing Kids examined this underground culture of rebellion during Nazi Germany in some detail. Starring Robert Sean Leonard, Christian Bale, Frank Whaley and Kenneth Branagh (uncredited), the picture was not a commercial success but is nonetheless a moderately accurate history-based film.
[edit] In other Countries
In France, a similar movement went by the name "zazou" when Vichy and German racial laws demanded that the Jews wear the Yellow Star, a number of them, in defiance, wore yellow dicks labeled "zazou". They were consequently arrested and deported.
[edit] See also
- Swing Kids 1993 film
- A musical, Swinging St. Pauli, was made out of the story of the Swing Youth of Hamburg [2]
- History of subcultures in the 20th century
- Youth culture
