But after the Nazis took power in 1933, modern art forms like jazz came under extreme pressure. The white supremacist Nazis, who believed that the Germanic peoples belonged to a “superior Aryan race,” sought to harmonize German society through a process known as “Gleichschaltung” (synchronization). This was the process of nazification through which all aspects of society, from politics and law to art, music and everyday life, were subsumed under a totalitarian system of control.
The period between the two wars of the Weimar Republic is often referred to as a “Golden Age” of culture and creativity in Germany. It was a time when innovative movements, from Bauhaus architecture and experimental cinema to avant-garde art and theater, flourished against a backdrop of economic disaster and extreme political polarization.
In cities like Berlin, where underground bars, cabarets and hedonistic nightlife were commonplace, a radical new genre of music became wildly popular. Jazz, which developed from African-American communities in the US Deep South, was first brought to Germany by pioneering artists from the US, UK and France after the First World War.
Josephine Baker, the US-born jazz dancer, actress and artist who rose to fame in 1920s Paris, became a major star in Germany after her sensational debut as the “Black Venus” in Berlin in 1926. By the 1930s, records by jazz icons such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington were being heard throughout Germany.
But after the Nazis took power in 1933, modern art forms like jazz came under extreme pressure. The white supremacist Nazis, who believed that the Germanic peoples belonged to a “superior Aryan race,” sought to harmonize German society through a process known as “Gleichschaltung” (synchronization).
This was the process of nazification through which all aspects of society, from politics and law to art, music and everyday life, were subsumed under a totalitarian system of control. The Reich Chamber of Culture (Reichskulturkammer) placed music, arts, literature, theater, radio, film, and the press under state supervision, allowing only artists belonging to Nazi-affiliated organizations to work.
In 1937 and 1938, the Nazis introduced the labels “degenerate art” (entartete Kunst) and “degenerate music” (entartete musik) to persecute artists and works that did not conform to the Nazi ideal of art and beauty, or the Nazi racial worldview.
By 1935, jazz was banned from broadcasting, as the Nazis denounced it as inferior because of its African-American roots. Many jazz promoters and musicians were also Jewish, and the Nazis spread anti-Semitic and racist propaganda about its origins, associating jazz with Jews.
Individual artists were eventually banned, as was listening to foreign radio stations. However, jazz music was never completely banned by the Nazis. Due to its great popularity, there were even attempts to create a more “German” form of jazz.
Thus appeared “Swing Youth” (Swing-Jugend), a countercultural movement among wealthy teenagers in the northern city of Hamburg in 1939. The movement quickly spread to other cities such as Berlin.
German youth had been the object of Nazi propaganda since the 1920s. After 1933, avoiding indoctrination became almost impossible, as youth organizations had become a key tool of ideological control.
After restricting freedom of association and disbanding independent youth groups, the National Socialist regime created organizations such as the Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend) and the League of German Girls (Bund Deutscher Mädel). Their goal was to form young Germans into loyal and disciplined members of the “people’s community” (Volksgemeinschaft), from an early age.
But not all young people in Nazi Germany supported the regime’s ideology, and for the Swing Youth, jazz music became a means of rebellion. Its members tried to distinguish themselves from the Nazi youth movements by adopting American fashion and names. They wore long hair and plaid jackets to meet in coffeehouses and clubs where swing, a subgenre of jazz, was played. It is also said that they greeted each other with the phrase: “Swing Heil!”
The term “Swing Youth” likely originated from the authorities who persecuted them, as a label for young people who distanced themselves from the Nazi regime mainly through their preference for swing.
“They defended a certain form of freedom, opposing the idea of being the same as everyone else,” says historian Mascha Wilke of the Foundation for Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future (EVZ).
While the Swing Youth’s resistance to Nazi ideology was more cultural than political, it nevertheless became the object of repression. Its members were even monitored by the Nazi Security Services, which, according to musicologist Ralph Willett, accused them of “longing for democratic freedom and American carelessness.”
Some were arrested and even sent to concentration camps. Wilke also mentions an incident where prisoners reportedly sang and danced to Louis Armstrong’s “Jeepers Creepers” inside a camp, an act she describes as “extremely brave.”
Jazz and swing fans from all generations gathered in Berlin’s Besselpark on May 8, 2026 to mark the 81st anniversary of Liberation Day (Tag der Befreiung), commemorating the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht and honoring those who were persecuted for their love of jazz and swing music.
Organized by EVZ, participants were invited to dance to the rhythms of “swing”. Beginners could also receive instruction from Natalie Reinsch, a historian and professional swing dancer who works for the Bremen Alliance for German-Czech Cooperation, who was invited by EVZ.
“Totalitarian regimes have always suppressed art forms like swing and jazz because they represent individuality,” he says.
