Chapter Pirates and Punks

Inquiry Overview:

Like many of the socially and politically active students of generation Z /generation Alpha that are populating classrooms across the globe today, there were youth in World War II and Cold War era Germany that also became active in resisting the policies and power structures under which they lived. Specifically, this inquiry focuses on not only how and why the Edelweiss Pirates of World War II and the Ost (East) Punks of East Germany resisted systems they objected to, but also how those systems reacted to youth resistance and impacted the lives of countless young people for decades to come. This inquiry asks students to use primary documents in the form of photographs, surveillance documents from secret police files, resistance flyers, musical lyrics and even graffiti to gain an understanding of the governmental and societal pressures that German youth were living under. Moreover, students are asked to both examine how these young people, who used their agency to initiate change, should be remembered or even memorialized. Students are also challenged to use their own agency to initiate the change they would like to see in the world today.