Hitler Youth Knife

[Howland937]

I have always struggled with Nazi paraphernalia. I believe it's an important part of history that should be preserved, but I just don't want it around

I'm in this camp as well. I can convince myself that it's ok to own (though I don't own anything anymore) as it's historically significant. It shows that if you're evil, good people will destroy your way of life and your prized possessions will become trophies for the victors. With the provenance bikerdoc has, displaying it preserved but unrepaired along with the the story would be an excellent tribute. Without that, it almost feels like owning it is sympathizing.

 

[Boattale]

Not judging. But anything Japanese, German, Vietnamese, Afghani, Iraqi or any of our enemies stuff will never ever be in my house.

 

[Double_J]

Clean the blade with oil, coat lightly and place in a shadow box with the story of where it came from.

We must remember what lead to the war, and how easily we could have the same issues come up again.

 

[Shanghai McCoy]

Many years back I was with my Dad visiting our cousins in Denmark. On the wall of cousin Peder's farmhouse,displayed along with some deer antlers,(he was a hunter and a hell of a shot) were an M1 carbine and a German Mauser. Cousin Peder had been in the Danish resistance during the war and he explained to my Dad how he got the carbine from the Allies and then he used it to get the Mauser...
My point is that keeping stuff that you took from an enemy is a way of "counting coup".
YMMV

 

[Boattale]

Many years back I was with my Dad visiting our cousins in Denmark. On the wall of cousin Peder's farmhouse,displayed along with some deer antlers,(he was a hunter and a hell of a shot) were an M1 carbine and a German Mauser. Cousin Peder had been in the Danish resistance during the war and he explained to my Dad how he got the carbine from the Allies and then he used it to get the Mauser...
My point is that keeping stuff that you took from an enemy is a way of "counting coup".
YMMV

Yeah, I can see that.

 

[Ernie Bass]

View attachment 918124

I got one of these. That is a stock photo, and mine is in rougher shape than that. Like the photo mine doesn't have the retention strap and my blade is in worse condition. my scales are in great condition.
Whoever it was issued to didn't take care in sharpening and there are deep gouges in the blade. It is sharp but could be sharper. I never touched it.

Interesting oral history. (Forgive any inaccuracies)

With the absence of "Blood and Honor" etching on the blade it was made sometime after 1942. It was "liberated" in 44 by my Uncle Tony, a medic with the 26th "Yankee division".
The YD was an activated National Gaurd division from Mass.
Tony , my dad and 3 buddies joined in 38 for the simple reason that they wanted the money paid for going to drills.
Going ashore at Normandy in the 10th wave they didn't see action until a few days later. According to them the division was on the right flank of the push to Berlin. Dec of 44 found them in Czechoslovakia when the Battle of the Bulge began. The whole division turned 90° north and pushed to relieve Bastonge
They encountered fierce fighting the whole time and when they got closer they encountered Hitler youth troops, mere boys around 14, dressed like soldiers but untrained. One kept taking inaccurate pot shots at Tony instead of running away. Reluctant to return fire and kill a kid Tony just shot close hoping he would run away. Another medic and one of the original 5 opened up on the kid with a 45 grease gun.
That's how they got the knife and my dad won it in a poker game.

Any way that a long way of asking should I leave it alone, or clean up the blade?

Great story. And very sad about the Hitler youths. Incidentally recently watched a very good Movie of Tank Soldiers (Brad Pitt) which featured a very similar event of being attacked by the Youths and one soldier reluctant to kill, and the other a seasoned vet took him out. In another scene a Father pleades for his Nazi youth son to be relieved of duty as he knows his son will be killed.
Thanks for posting. Very interesting to get a part of History with the Knife and your Uncle and his division.

Movie "Fury"

 

[kBob]

I had an aquaintence in Germany in the mid 1970's that had been in HJ from the time he was old enough until the spring of 1944, when he joined the SS.

He worked in the base physical plant at Wiley Kaserne in Neu Ulm West Germany. He was sent to the school in Oberamergau and served as a 18 y/o equivilant of a 2LT for a few months in late 1944 before being badly wounded....by a bayonet on a rifle wielded by a US soldier. He was missing a rib as a result. He was in SS division HJ which he said actually was mostly auslander troops but for German SS officers. He was in Market Garden. He was re educated at Dachau, though it took him longer than most as he was involved in an escape and made to start over.

He must have been pretty well re educated as that Kasserne and buildings he worked in was home to the 1/81 FA and 1/41 FA Pershing Missile Battalions and a Nuke storage facility for them and Big Red 1 forward 8 inch and 155 Special Projectiles.

He gave me an Wehrmact Artillery NCO visor cap he was wearing when he was arrested the first time. A neighbor also home for wounds outfitted him in a set of his clothing . All his SS gear and HJ stuff was traded away, stuffed in communal trash piles for burning, or tossed in the Danau river as they believed the US was shooting SS on sight. He said a replica of the HJ knife I had bought down town in Ulm proper was "exactly" like the one he had for years as a youth. ( there was a small Souvineer shop down town that sold Nazi parifinalia and the owner had his own SS uniform on a maniquin in back. Besides the HJ knife I bought a replica Panzer Combat badge I gave to a friend that thought he was going into armor) My replica was stolen in our barracks likely when one of my three room mates invited a horde of outsiders that should not have been allowed upstairs or even past the CQ desk. The replica seemed to take an edge and hold it as well as the one I had stateside....used to be Solingen on a blade really meant something. I think the one I bought in Europe was Kissing Crane and the one I had stateside was Othello.

I imagine that "Scout Knife" and the original both have makers marks on the blade next to the hilt. If those posters would check to see and share the makers that might be interesting.

Last thing, a friends Dad was in Germany at age 6 and in Nurenburg during a rally he got lost and sepperated from his family and was rescued by a group of "boy scouts" that took him to a local police station. He remembered the knives. His family was in Germany trying to talk family there into leaving and offering to sponsor them for US entrée. In later years the man realized how lucky he had been, being a Jew rescued from the streets by HJ.

-kBob

 

[theotherwaldo]

I picked up one of those knives in a junk shop back when I was in junior high.
One of my neighbors, a veteran and retired pro baseball player, explained the knife's significance to me.
I left it behind on our family's next move.
Just too many family members murdered by Nazis.

 

[Mullo98]

Personally , I don't think owning authentic Nazi era stuff is necessarily having Nazi sympathies. Owing a Nazi proof marked Luger, a bring back flag or a collecting a few SS medals because of historical interest or just for WW2 collecting.Is not the same as downplaying Nazi war crimes, defending the ideology, or outright supporting them. Which is what Neo Nazis do.

With that stuff said, father owns a youth knife. I don't know how he came to own it, it's definitely not a family memento and I have little to no doubts it's a replica ; a old one at that. As it is worn and tarnished with the emblem rattling in the hilt. Does anyone know when clones start being made and by whom?

 

[kBob]

well I did a little research and found that the Othello mark on the knife I bought in Gatlinberg,Tn in about 1966 was used by the company from 1937 until 1985 so it did not help me in finding out if it was original or a replica.

-kBob

 

[alaskanativeson]

I have one of those purchased at a gun show in the late 70’s. Looks authentic but I’ve always considered it a knock off.

Here's a website with some info about originals. Maybe you could find out more about it there.

https://www.lakesidetrader.com/Education/Blut-und-Ehre!/

 

[alaskanativeson]

The style is the same and they were standard Scout knives until the '50s.

That's good to know. I saw this knife in a YouTube video about some guys building a Viking House with hand tools. I noticed it immediately and recognized it. I knew the red and white diamond was missing, I wondered if it was an HJ knife with the symbol removed. Sounds like they stopped attaching the Nazi symbols but kept making the knives for sporting and practical use. The 30's and 40's Germans had awful politics, but they've almost always made quality equipment.