18. In a Tragic Development, Many of the Edelweiss Pirates Morphed Into Reactionaries After WWII
In 1944, Himmler ordered a brutal crackdown on youngsters who failed to toe the Nazi line. That November, thirteen youths were hanged in public in Cologne, many of them active or former Edelweiss Pirates. The repression failed to break the youth coalition, however. It continued as a deviant subculture that rejected the norms of Nazi society until the “Thousand Year Reich” went down to defeat after a mere twelve years. After the war, some factions of the Edelweiss Pirates attempted to work with the Allied occupation authorities and were welcomed, particularly by the communists in the Soviet-occupied zone.
However, most of them, true to their ethos, turned their backs on the attempt to politicize their movement. They had risked their lives to evade the regimentation of the Nazis, and were not eager to embrace regimentation under the communists. In a tragic development, those in what became communist East Germany ended up as dissidents and social outcasts, and many did long stints in prison as a result. In West Germany, in yet another tragic twist to an already tragic tale, many Edelweiss Pirates ended up as reactionaries, even less reconciled to defeat than the Nazis. They became notorious for their attacks on Germans – particularly women – who were friendly or intimate with occupation soldiers.