The Role of Women in Hitler Youth Quex

There were many obvious and also subtle cues that distinguished the role of women between the Communists and the Nazi Party in Hitler Youth Quex. The more obvious artistic portrayals of communist women dealt with the blond girl who frequently tried seducing Heini. Although she was an attractive woman, she was manipulative through working for Stoppel, she drank, she smoked, she spanked boys, and was overall very unruly. The message to a viewer says that a Communist woman, although they can be beautiful and seductive, have innate unattractive and unruly qualities. In contrast, Ulla, an associate of the Nazi Youth, is more than welcoming when Heini comes over and prepares food, while wearing a button down shirt with a tie. This contrasts the blond girl who wore dresses and kicked the bottom of her dress up while riding the Carousel. Although Heini begged Ulla to stop the group from meeting on the day the Communists planned their attack, she obeyed her brother’s order of not listening. This dynamic between the wild, blond Communist and the welcoming, orderly Nazi displays serious political agendas by the filmmakers.

Heini’s mother is a very interesting character in the film and she says more with her actions and emotions than in actual words. Depressed, downtrodden, and abused, she was an attempt at representing the subordinate poor woman of the time in Germany. She loved Heini, yet tried killing him by turning on the gas. In a way, she loved him so much that she wanted him to go in a more peaceful way instead of being captured by Stoppel. However, the way the scene is portrayed is that a mother is so out of luck and sees no hope for the future, and is coincidentally married to a Communist and pleading to her son to join as well. There is an interesting dynamic between Heini’s mother situation of hopelessness and the message the Nazi party embodies in the film of a new tomorrow.