in its youth. They organised dance festivals and contests and invited jazz bands. These events were occasions to mock the Nazis, the military and the —hence the famous "Swing Heil!", mocking the infamous "Sieg Heil!" Swing Kids wore long hair and hats, carried umbrellas and met in cafés and clubs. They developed a jargon mostly made of anglicisms. The Swing Youth were intense Anglophiles who preferred to listen to "English music" (i.e. American swing and jazz music) and liked to dress in the "English style". A secret report from the Reich Ministry of Justice in January 1944 described the Swing Youth as follows: Ways of resistance Though they were not an organised political-opposition organisation, the whole culture of the Swing Kids evolved into a non-violent refusal of the civil order and culture of National Socialism. From a paper of the National Youth Leader: The members of the Swing youth oppose today's Germany and its police, the Party and its policy, the , work and military service, and are opposed, or at least indifferent, to the ongoing war. They see the mechanisms of National Socialism as a "mass obligation". The greatest adventure of all times leaves them indifferent; much to the contrary, they long for everything that is not German, but English. From 1941, the violent repression by the and the shaped the political spirit of the swing youth. Also, by police order, people under 18 were forbidden to go to dance bars, which encouraged the movement to seek its survival in clandestine measures. The strict regimentation of youth culture in Nazi Germany through the Hitler Youth led to the emergence of several underground protest movements, through which adolescents were better able to exert their independence. There were street gangs () of working class youths who borrowed elements from socialist and communist traditions to forge their own identities, and there were less politically motivated groups, such as the Edelweiss Pirates (), who acted in defiance of Hitler Youth norms. A third group, consisting mainly of upper middle class youths, based their protest on their musical preferences, rejecting the music propagated by the party for American jazz forms, especially swing. Connection with the White Rose The Swing Kids of Hamburg at some point had contacts with another resistance movement, when three members of the White Rose () developed a sympathy for the Swing Kids. No formal co-operation arose, though these contacts were