Life Savers and Hitler Youth

Harry Hay, swimmer and coach (pictured), gave an interesting talk about the Berlin Olympic Games to the members of the Queenscliff Surf Life Saving Club on 9 December 1936. The magazine Surf in Australia reported his speech in its January 1937 issue. Mr Hay, it stated, had attended five Olympic Games as competitor and coach, and he believed the Berlin Games surpassed all others. “Mr Hay was particularly impressed with the Hitler Youth Movement. He was given access to several camps. There are no unemployed in Germany today, every lad being drafted into the Youth Camps for 12 months’ training. Without a certificate from the Camp no lad could find work in Germany. Any boys who would not find work were taken into the military... Mr Hay’s comment that these camps could well be instituted in Australia is not without ultimate possibility. Mr Hay remarked that in Australia there are too many loafers living on the Governments, and we are regretfully compelled to agree with him.”
Evidently Goebbels’ propaganda had found a credulous dupe in Mr Hay. Some of the Queenscliff Savers were to get a close hard look at Hitler’s forces in the not-too-distant future.
Surf in Australia, in its April 1937 issue reported remarks made at the Manly Jubilee official dinner by Brigadier-General Lloyd, MLA, who asserted that the physical fitness of Australian youth was pitiful. The only remedy for this disgraceful state of affairs was to be found “in the introduction of the Fascist plan of development.” Sensibly, the magazine dissociated itself from his views.