Boys and Girls in the Service of Total War: Defense Service Training in Swedish Schools During World War II

A Cultural History of Youth in the Modern Age

“…Service opportunities, the memo instructed, should be assigned according to "age and ability," and "strenuous and responsible jobs" including first aid and rescue work should be limited to "Scouts 15 and older" (Boy Scouts 1940). Most societies espoused a gendered division of the kind of "defense training" suitable for boys and girls, whereas the question of when children were old enough to begin premilitary training could trigger intense controversy, even in neutral countries like Sweden (Larsson 2019). Age-and gender-appropriate mobilization upheld the veneer of civilization, which tended to dissolve more quickly in societies that suffered high military and civilian causalities and had to endure widespread destruction.…”