and uniformity, its militarism, the 'Führer principle' and the leveling Volksgemeinschaft (people's community). They experienced a massive restriction of their personal freedom. They rebelled against all this with jazz and swing, which stood for a love of life, self-determination, non-conformism, freedom, independence, liberalism, and internationalism. Reflecting their Anglophilia, the Swing Youth preferred to speak to each other in English rather than German as English was felt to be more "cool", a choice of language that vexed the authorities greatly. English together with French were languages widely taught in Gymnasium (high schools intended as preparation for university) since the early 20th century in the case of the former and since the 18th century in the case of the latter, so any German teenager who attended a Gymnasium could speak at least some French and English. As the Swing Youth were Anglophiles, they often tried to speak and write in the "English style". One "swing boy", in a 1940 letter written in slightly broken English to a friend who was going to Hamburg, stated: "Be a proper spokesmen for Kiel, won't you? i.e, make sure you're really casual, singing or whistling English hits all the time, absolutely smashed and always surrounded by really amazing women". Hamburg, the most Anglophile of German cities, was regarded as the "capital" of the Swing Youth, and British jazz players like Jack Hylton and Nat Gonella were popular with the Swing Youth, through Willet wrote that they "... were sufficiently sophisticated to appreciate the superiority of the American artists as well as the stylish and sensuous qualities of their performances." The Swing Youth were also Americanophiles as many took monikers like Alaska Bill or Texas Jack and their clubs had such names like die Harlem club, die OK Gang club, and die Cotton club. For those designated non-Aryan, it became even more dangerous to be associated with the swing crowd by November 1938, during and after . The "Swing Youth" tended to welcome Jewish and ("half-breed") teenagers who wanted to join their gatherings. Affiliation with the jazz culture was damaging whenever other incriminating information could be factored into a formula for persecution. For example, many half-Jews were sought out and persecuted before others if they were known as Swing Kids. For the first five years of the Third Reich, Nazi propaganda had been favourable to Britain as Hitler had hoped for an Anglo-German alliance, but in 1938,