Widukind the Protector: The Intertwined Portrayal and Production of Masculinity and Tradition in the Hitler Youth

Nazi discourse was rife with internal ambivalences concerning both masculinity and tradition. Scholars have identified a martial, violent yet caring comradeship (Kühne) and a simultaneous embrace of perceived ancestral past and orientation toward a novel future (Griffin, Mosse, Steigmann-Gall). Bringing together recent scholarship on Nazi masculinity and on Nazi relationships to tradition, this paper contends that Nazi ideals of masculinity and pursuit of tradition co-constituted and shaped each other. Drawing on published Hitler Youth primary material, I analyze the portrayal of the eighth-century pagan leader Widukind as a role model for his defense of the Saxons against the Frankish army. I argue that the Hitler Youth narrative inscribes a masculinity based on the protection of an abstract traditionalism in the face of existential struggle. This intervention illustrates the necessity of putting Nazi masculinities and traditionalisms in conversation in order to better understand both.