For a regime wishing to impose its blueprint on society, winning over the support of youth, or at least neutralising youth's potential for opposition is crucial. Nowhere does this principle seem to have been taken to heart more than in Germany. From the Kaiserreich onwards, German elites devoted enormous energy to influencing the behaviour, life-style and attitudes of the young. Every administration and political party from the extreme left (Karl Liebknecht: ‘He who has the young, has the army’) to the extreme right (Joseph Goebbels: ‘He who has the young has the future’), from party politicians to priests, and from senior civil servants to military figures tried to win young people over to their political goals. Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the German scene was the huge number of associations, leagues and clubs created by the adult world for young people. This development was triggered by the existence of the independent German youth movement, which from the Kaiserreich onwards prompted the established elites to found their own alternatives for young members. From these roots the attempt to shape youth through an organised youth movement broadened and intensified, reaching its highpoint in the Third Reich and the GDR.

Because of the energy and attention devoted to it, youth policy in Germany offers historians a fascinating arena in which to observe the relationship between regime and society. This is particularly so in the phases of breach and transition-in 1914, 1918–19, 1933, 1945 or 1989–90. For one thing, those were the periods when successive regimes' efforts at mobilisation were especially concentrated and energetic.