Union of Christian Girl Scouts
The Association of Christian Pathfinders (BCP) was a German Protestant pathfinder association that existed from 1922 to 1972, including its predecessor organizations, the Tatgemeinschaft Christian pathfinderinnen (TCP) and the Casteller Ring . At the beginning of 1973 the BCP merged with the Evangelical Girl Scout Association (EMP) and the Christian Scouting Association of Germany (CPD) to form the Association of Christian Scouts and Scouts (VCP).
The Casteller Ring community emerged from the BCP , an evangelical religious order for women.
history
1921 to 1937: The community of Christian scouts
In 1921, the first groups of evangelical girl scouts emerged in Saxony who, like the boys' groups, called themselves “Christian” girl scouts. In 1922, these groups joined together under the leadership of Olga Riebold, Fritz Riebold's wife , to form the Tatgemeinschaft Christian scouts . In terms of content, they were initially based on the Tatgemeinschaft Sachsen , a renewal movement in the Christian scouting community that was shaped by the youth movement .
By 1933, groups of Christian girl scouts emerged in the German Empire, both within the TCP and in other smaller associations. They joined the TCP at Pentecost 1933, which thus had between 700 and 800 members in about 30 groups.
In July 1933, the TCP joined the Bund Christdeutscher Jugend within the Bund Deutscher Jugendvereine in order to avoid state dissolution. Nevertheless - as stipulated in the agreement on the integration of the Evangelical Youth into the Hitler Youth - in the spring of 1934 all girl scouts under the age of 18 had to join the Association of German Girls , and the girl scout groups had to limit their work to the religious area.
On August 17, 1937, the TCP was dissolved by the Gestapo . This was justified with the continued scouting work and the " covenant spirit" that is maintained within the TCP.
1937 to 1945: Girl Scouts in the Underground
After the TCP was banned, its former leaders continued to keep in touch by letter and met several times in small groups. For example, several groups of girls in Bavaria stayed together as flute circles. From 1941 onwards, the connections between these groups were strengthened by sending out so-called “Ursel letters” in which scouting and religious topics were dealt with anonymously.
At Easter 1942 Christel Schmid , the last federal leader of the TCP, founded the Casteller Ring with seven girls and young women from these circles in Castell . This continued the work of the TCP underground. In 1942 the Casteller Ring was still governing itself, further meetings took place and new members were accepted.
1945 to 1972: The Association of Christian Girl Scouts
Shortly after the end of the Second World War , the leaders of the Casteller Ring made contact with the American military government in Bavaria. With their permission, a first camp was carried out in September 1945. At this camp, the Casteller Ring changed its name to Bund Christian Girl Scouts . Around the same time, the BCP was accepted into the Evangelical Youth in Bavaria .
Due to the early start with the scout work, the BCP grew very quickly. In 1948 he already had 17 groups all over Bavaria. It reached its greatest expansion in the early 1960s with around 2000 members.
In the years after 1945, the leadership of the BCP developed a desire for a more solid community. In 1950 they founded the Casteller Ring community to enable a common spiritual life . This is now based in Schwanberg Castle near Kitzingen, acquired in 1957 by the BCP in lease .
In 1949, the German scout associations merged to form the Ring of German Scout Associations (RDP). In order to achieve a uniform representation of the Protestant girl scouts, the BCP and EMP agreed that the representation in the RDP would be carried out by the EMP. At the same time it was determined that the BCP limited its work to Bavaria, while the EMP worked in the rest of the federal states. The RDP was inducted into the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in 1950.
In 1964, the BCP bought a plot of land near Steingaden to create a storage area. A federal camp of the BCP was carried out on the Langau in 1966. For legal protection, the Association for Education and Recreation Langau e. V. founded, which still runs camps there today, especially for disabled people and their families.
From the end of the 1960s, calls within the BCP for a change in work and for an opening to co-educational forms of work became louder. There were similar developments in the two other evangelical scout associations, EMP and CPD. The three groups then started negotiations on the possibilities of working together. The merger to form a co-educational association quickly emerged as the goal. From spring 1971, the BCP and the Bavarian State Mark of the CPD worked together as a joint regional association in their structures. On January 1, 1973, BCP, EMP and CPD merged to form the Association of Christian Scouts and Boy Scouts .
See also
literature
- Hedwig Döbereiner: Fire and Altar. The Union of Christian Girl Scouts 1922–1972. Association of Christian Boy Scouts, Kassel 2003