Working Group of Patriotic Youth Associations
The Arbeitsgemeinschaft Vaterländischer Jugendverbände (AVJ) was an umbrella organization of military- oriented youth organizations in Germany in the second half of the 1950s.
history
The AVJ was founded in Bückeburg in January 1956 . Although the AVJ was set up to carry out joint activities, these never came about. After a short time, the Navy Youth and the German Youth in the Association of German Soldiers withdrew from the working group.
After a forced change of course in the German Youth Association Kyffhäuser , the largest member association, the AVJ dissolved in the early 1960s; the associated adult association Kyffhäuserbund had previously excluded the leadership of the youth association because of right-wing extremist orientation.
ideology
The member organizations of the AVJ were "in the tradition of the German national- patriotic youth associations of the Weimar Republic ", the core of their work was the "cultivation of soldier attitudes and virtues", the main content accordingly the pre-military training .
Characteristic for the orientation of the AVJ was the "conviction that soldierly secondary virtues and a diffuse concept of community and fatherland must become key concepts for the political orientations of the West German population and could guide action for political conflict resolution." This conviction was expressed, among other things, in anti-democratic positions, one fanatical anti-communism and the denial of German war crimes in World War II . National Socialist officers like Hans-Ulrich Rudel , Karl Dönitz , Otto Ernst Remer or Eduard Dietl were revered as heroes.
For the period between 1956 and the beginning of the 1960s, Peter Dudek and Arno Klönne had a right-wing extremist orientation of the AVJ. According to Dudek, this orientation weakened after the dissolution of the AVJ among the former member organizations, and in 1985 he no longer classified the groups that still existed as right-wing extremists.
Members
In 1956 around 10,000 children and young people were organized in the seven member organizations; all member organizations were dependent on adult associations, the groups were usually led by adults.
- German Youth Association Kyffhäuser
- German youth in the Association of German Soldiers
- Scharnhorst Youth Corps and Jungstahlhelm
- Bismarck Youth
- Navy youth
- Paratrooper youth
Several corporate members were affiliated with the German Youth Association Kyffhäuser , among them the Jungsturm and the Jungdeutschlandbund , both of which were also members of the right-wing comradeship ring of national youth associations .
literature
- o. A .: On the situation of the national youth associations. An overview. In: The bridge. Objective Information , 1957, Issue 4 (October)
- Arno Klönne: youth right wing. A documentary overview. In: Plans , 1960, issue 4/5.
- Peter Dudek: Young right-wing extremists. Between the swastika and the Odals rune. 1945 until today. Pp. 71-77. Bund-Verlag, Cologne 1985. ISBN 3-7663-0897-1 .