Background
Artur Axmann was born on 18 February 1913 in Hagen, Westphalia, present Germany.
Artur Axmann was born on 18 February 1913 in Hagen, Westphalia, present Germany.
Young Axmann was a good student and received a scholarship to attend secondary school.
In 1928 he founded the first Hitler Youth group in Westphalia. In 1932 he was called into the Reichsleitung of the NSD AP to carry out a reorganization of Nazi youth cells and in 1933 became Chief of the Social Office of the Reich Youth Leadership. Axmann gained a place for the Hitler Youth in the direction of State vocational training and succeeded in raising the status of Hitler Youth agricultural work. He was on active service on the western front until May 1940. In August of the same year he succeeded Baldur von Schirach as Reich Youth Leader of the Nazi Party.
In 1941 he was severely wounded on the eastern front, losing an arm. During Hitler's last days, Axmann was among those present in the Fuhrerbunker. making his escape at the end of April 1945. He was arrested in December 1945 when a Nazi underground was uncovered which he had been organizing. A Nuremberg de-Nazification court sentenced him in May 1949 to a prison sentence of three years and three months as a ‘Major Offender’. Axmann subsequently worked as a sales representative in Gelsenkirchen and Berlin. During his trial Axmann told the court that he had heard the shot with which Hitler committed suicide, and had later also seen the body of Martin Bormann lying on a bridge in Berlin. He was found not guilty of having committed any crimes during the Nazi era.
After his release from custody, Axmann worked as a businessman with varying success. From 1971 he left Germany for a number of years, living on the island of Gran Canaria. Axmann returned to Berlin in 1976, where he died on 24 October 1996, aged 83. His cause of death and details of his surviving family members were not disclosed.
He joined the Hitler Youth in November 1928, after he heard Nazi Gauleiter Joseph Goebbels speaking, and became leader of the local cell in the Wedding district. He also joined the National Socialist Schoolchildren's League, where he distinguished himself as an orator.