A comment which illumines this stimulating aspect is found in B. von Schirach, Die Hitlerjugend. Looking back to the summer of 1932 when the Hitler Youth was proscribed together with the SA, Schirach writes:
'It was a great time, and it may sound strange, but we have never been so happy as then, when we lived in continual danger. We rode through the Ruhr with pistols in our coat pockets.'