Archive of the German youth movement
The archive of the German youth movement in Ludwigstein Castle near Witzenhausen in Hesse is a public archive that collects, indexes and makes accessible documents on the history of the youth movement .
history
The archive was founded in 1922 as the Reich Archive of the German youth movement at Ludwigstein Castle. It was initially supported by the Jugendburg Ludwigstein eV association founded by Enno Narten , which acquired the ruin in 1920 and expanded it into a center for the bourgeois youth movement.
After the seizure of power , the castle became a regional leadership school for the Hitler Youth in Kurhessen and its sponsoring association submitted to the National Socialist Reich Youth Leadership . On September 17, 1941, the Jugendburg Ludwigstein eV association was finally banned; since then the castle has served exclusively the purposes of National Socialist youth work. The archive of the German youth movement initially remained in the castle until it was confiscated in 1941 for the Reich Institute for National Socialist Youth Work in Berlin. The holdings of the archive were lost in Berlin in 1945.
Shortly after the end of the war, in 1946, Ludwigstein Castle was returned to the re-approved Jugendburg Ludwigstein eV association . The collecting activity also soon resumed; By taking over the estates , collections and archives of other leagues and associations, a new archive was built up. In 1970 the archive, like the castle itself, was transferred to the Ludwigstein Youth Castle Foundation and Archive of the German Youth Movement .
2004 brought the next big break for the archive of the German youth movement when the archive was added as a branch in the Hessian State Archive in Marburg . Since then, the archive has been supported jointly by the State of Hesse and the Ludwigstein Youth Castle Foundation and the Archive of the German Youth Movement .
Stocks
The archive stores and makes different types of material accessible, most of which can be accessed online in the Hessen archive information system:
- approx. 27,000 books
- approx. 3,500 magazines
- approx. 1000 meters of shelves for files
- Legacies of around 160 people
- approx. 170,000 photos and a further 600 photo albums
- Graphics and paintings by around 200 artists
- Sound carriers / films
- Items such as flags, pennants, badges, clothing, travel equipment and small art