Hitler Youth conspiracy

The Hitler Youth conspiracy was a case investigated by the Soviet secret police during the Great Purge in the late 1930s. It resulted in the arrest of numerous adolescent Germans, some in their twenties and beyond. They were accused of having been fascist, anti-communist members of the Hitler Youth, who were working against the Soviet Union. Teenagers from the Karl Liebknecht School, from Children's Home No. 6, and adults from factories and elsewhere were arrested, tortured, and imprisoned. Many were executed or died in custody. Some were the children of leading communists. Within years, the investigation was found to have been faulty and a number of the investigators were also arrested, with sentences ranging from imprisonment to execution. In the 1950s, following the death of Joseph Stalin, a new examination of the files revealed many of the accusations to have been baseless and a number of the victims were rehabilitated.