The first “Swing Cliques” appeared in Hamburg in 1935-1936.
The movement itself started in properly 1939. It became particularly
popular in Vienna, but also in big towns in Germany. For some time it was the
answer to the edict that all young people must join a youth movement. They chose
this one!
The people who joined this group were also known as Schlurfs. They met to dance to swing
music and they expressed their resistance to the Nazi regime through their behaviour
and the way they dressed.
They weren’t all that rigidly organised and just met
casually. May this kept them safe for a
while. Their main motivation was their love of American jazz music, the exact music
that Hitler claimed was decadent.
Jazz wasn’t forbidden at first. The government recognised that
people needed music to boost morale. Even so, as early as 1935 the upholders of
the master race recognised that this music was presented by black people and
the Nazis even perceived Jewishness in it. The musician Benny Goodman, the Pied
Piper of New York, had to be suppressed; Goodman was Jewish.
Gradually jazz performers were forced to leave the country. Perhaps
this made the music seem even more exotic to these youngsters.
Many of the newsreels showed anti-American propaganda but young
people would flock to the cinemas to see the newsreels where they might catch a
glimpse Americans of their generation doing the lindy hop.
There was a dress code: boys would wear long over-sized checked
sports jackets and shoes with crepe soles. They had collar-length hair. They
carried an umbrella whether it was needed or not. They smoked pipes and they liked
to wear Union jack pins. They often called their groups clubs and added other
names that would provoke the Nazi authorities e.g. The Churchill Club. A further
act off rebellion was that they often used Jewish words.
The girls too had longer hair which they wore loose instead
of in the plaits favoured by the Nazi regime.
They also wore coloured nail polish and lipstick.
Were the Swingers political? There is some debate about
this. They didn’t try to sabotage Nazi efforts. They just wanted to have a good
time and resented the discipline imposed by the authorities. They mainly came
from middle class families. They said they weren’t against the Nazis but that
the Nazis were against them. They weren’t entirely passive though; they would
fight Hitler Youth groups on the streets. And in their own way they resisted indoctrination.
They had a loud life style. They would greet each with “Swing
Heil” instead of “Sieg Heil”. They were
daring. One venue altered the word “Swing Verboten” – Swing forbidden” to Swing
Erboten “Swing Offered” They drank heavily. They were just after a good time. They
would speak English and dress and behave like dandies.
This life-style was criminalised by 1940 and there were
raids on music events. This is going to feature
in my final Schellberg novel. But they still manage to meet in secret. They met
in private homes and often in cellars beneath bars and other businesses.
Around seventy young swingers were rounded up in Hamburg and
deported to concentration camps.
Their life style may seem a little frivolous. Yet the rebellion was nevertheless deep. The young
people had seen their parents lose face as they struggled with the hyperinflation
and then the depression. This jazz-infused life was part of a dream of freedom.
