Eleganti ed Ordinati.

Mitsuo Takahashi, who runs a clothing store near the station, saw them at a close distance.

"I was taken aback at how big they were," said Takahashi, 83, looking back.

The Hitler-Jugend was organized by Nazi Germany with an aim to train youths to support the totalitarian state.

As of the beginning of 1938, it was 7-million strong. The participation of all German boys between the ages of 10 and 18 became mandatory in 1939.

In 1938, Japan and Germany organized an exchange program for boys of both countries to visit each other.

The German delegation visited Yasukuni Shrine, the Education Ministry and the prime minister's residence among other places. It also interacted with young Japanese people through such activities as camping in Lake Yamanakako in Yamanashi Prefecture and climbing Mount Fuji.

The radio also aired a special program to welcome them, while the poet Hakushu Kitahara (1885-1942) wrote the lyrics for the song "Banzai Hitler-Jugend," which said, "the Hakenkreuz (swastika) shines with radiance."

The Asahi Shimbun also reported the visit in detail. For example, on Aug. 22, it ran a story about the group's scaling of Mount Fuji under the headline "Sacred mountain resounds with a chorus of anti-communism."

On Sept. 21, the newspaper hosted a welcome lecture for the delegation at Hibiya Kokaido hall in Tokyo, where editor-in-chief Taketora Ogata delivered the following speech: "Today, we still have something that we must learn from Germany. And that something is the Hitler-Jugend."

Hisakazu Nakamichi, professor of history of political thought at the University of Kitakyushu and the author of "Kimi wa Hitler-Jugend o Mita-ka?" (Have you seen the Hitler-Jugend?), said: "Ordinary citizens who saw the extremely well-controlled behavior of the neatly dressed members told themselves that is how model youths should be.

"By pulling at people's heartstrings, the exchange program accelerated the move to integrate various government and civilian organizations and incorporate them into the mechanism of national defense," he said. "It also became the turning point in spurring public opinion to the path that led to the attack on Pearl Harbor."

Between July and September of 1938, Japan sent its own 30-member mission of university students, teachers, farmers and factory workers selected from youth organizations across the nation to Germany.

The group attended a Nuremberg rally on Sept. 10 and underwent a review by Adolf Hitler.

Sanae Inatomi, 90, who lives in Shiroishi, Saga Prefecture, and was an elementary school teacher at the time, took a leave of absence to join the mission.

He saw Hitler at the convention and remembers him as a big man with a fair complexion.

The tone of Hitler's speech was not as intense as he had expected. He spoke with pauses between phrases, and the audience shouted "Heil!" at each interval, according to Inatomi. Many people were moved to tears.

Inatomi, who served as a record keeper, vowed to keep his eyes open throughout the rally so as not to miss anything but was so awed by the German leader that he felt faint and could barely stay on his feet.

Other members of the Japanese delegation were also entranced. They could not remember the color of Hitler's eyes and later, they debated whether they were brown, gray or blue.

Upon returning to Japan, a member of the delegation told a reporter: "(In Germany) principles of guidance to students are firmly established on the foundation of totalitarianism. I strongly felt that Japanese students lack training in this regard."

The Hitler-Jugend visited Japan again from October to December 1940.

In January 1941, immediately after the second visit, Japan organized "Dai-Nippon Seishonen-dan" (Greater Japan youth organization) by placing regional youth organizations across the nation under centralized government control.

The Education Ministry's explanation that all extra-curricular activities serve as training for young people shows the nationwide organization was partly styled after the German model.

Japan's attack on the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor and offensive on Malaya on Dec. 8, 1941, marked the opening of the Pacific War.

The Japanese public was overjoyed at Japan's victories in the early stages of the war.

All teachers at the elementary school where Inatomi taught were assembled at the teachers' office where the principal tearfully told them that Japan was at war with the United States.

Inatomi remembers how he felt dismayed that Japan was going to war against such a big power.

Takahashi was drafted in 1944 and sent to the front in China. When he returned to Japan in 1946, he found the main street of his hometown where the Hitler-Jugend marched had been burned down.

"Internally, no one was happy about the war," he said. "But before we knew, we were living in a society that did not allow us to speak out."(IHT/Asahi: February 2,2007)