City of youth

Following his failed putsch attempt and subsequent imprisonment in 1924, Adolf Hitler wrote the book “Mein Kampf” in the Bavarian town of Landsberg am Lech. During the time of the Nazi regime, the town of Landsberg am Lech became known as the “City of Youth” and as a focal place of pilgrimage in the National Socialist culture.

Members of the Hitler Youth made pilgrimages to the prison in Landsberg. Festivities were held and speeches made in the prison courtyard as National Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach is seen doing here. Source: Archive family Posset

Under the auspices of the “Hitler Youth confession march”, delegations of the Hitler Youth (HY) marched to Landsberg from many parts of the German Reich in connection with the Nuremberg Rallies in 1937 and 1938.

The National Socialists planned to convert the prison in the “pilgrimage site of German youth” into the largest youth hostel in the German Reich. The also wanted to build a parade arena that would have been larger than the old town centre of Landsberg. The last “Adolf Hitler March” to Landsberg was called off when the German Wehrmacht invaded Poland on 1 September 1939.

Together with Munich and Nuremberg, Landsberg progressed to become a central site for National Socialism. It acquired the nickname of "Town of Youth". Source: Archive family Posset