Hitlerjugendführer was a paramilitary title

Nazi party paramilitary ranks

Nazi party paramilitary ranks were pseudo-military titles which were used by the National Socialist German Workers Party between the years of 1920 and 1945...

 of the Hitler Youth

Hitler Youth

The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...

 which existed within the Nazi Party from approximately 1928 to the fall of Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 in 1945.

Description

A Hitlerjugendführer was any adult who served in the leadership corps of the Hitler Youth and thus oversaw a cell (or groups of cells) comprising several Hitlerjunge which was the phrase for juvenile

Adolescence

Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and mental human development generally occurring between puberty and legal adulthood , but largely characterized as beginning and ending with the teenage stage...

 members of the Hitler Youth. Although the title of Hitlerjugendführer was replaced by several Hitler Youth senior leadership ranks

Ranks and insignia of the Hitler Youth

The Ranks and insignia of the Hitler Youth were a Nazi Party paramilitary rank system that existed from 1932 to 1945. The Hitler Youth had existed for nearly a decade before, but the organization did not maintain any particular system of ranks. Such ranks were introduced in the early 1930s and...

 after 1930, the term survived to refer to any member of the Hitler Youth adult leadership corps.

Other usage of term

Hitlerjugendführer has also been used in the German language as an insult, implying someone who attempts to twist the minds of others to their views or someone who is a fanatic. The term was even used in this manner during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, by some factions of the German Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

, to describe (in a derogatory manner) a member of the military who was also a fanatical Nazi Party member.

In popular culture

In the 1981 German film Das Boot

Das Boot

Das Boot is a 1981 German epic war film written and directed by Wolfgang Petersen, produced by Günter Rohrbach, and starring Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, and Klaus Wennemann...

, Director Wolfgang Petersen

Wolfgang Petersen

Wolfgang Petersen is a German film director and screenwriter. His films include The NeverEnding Story, Enemy Mine, Outbreak, In the Line of Fire, Air Force One, The Perfect Storm, Troy, and Poseidon...

 uses the term Hitlerjugendführer to describe the second in command of the featured German U-Boot, indicating the stern and "by-the-book" manner of the second officer in contrast to the more realistic views of the boat's captain played by Jürgen Prochnow

Jürgen Prochnow

Jürgen Prochnow is a German actor. His most well-known roles internationally have been as the sympathetic submarine captain in Das Boot , Duke Leto Atreides I in Dune , the minor, but important role of Neo-Stalinist dictator General Ivan Radek in Air Force One and the villain Maxwell Dent in...

. Petersen would later claim that he found the term Hitlerjugendführer rather comical when applying it to the character in Das Boot.