Bündische Jugend

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Camp of the Bündische Jugend in Berlin-Grunewald (1933)

Bündische Jugend is the name given to the youth movement that emerged from the Wandervogel in its second phase after the First World War . On the ideas of migrant birds and Scouts Building, emerged in the Weimar Republic, the frets of the Bund Youth (short the Leaguists called).

history

Both scouts and migratory birds returned disaffected from the First World War , and most of the previous leaders had died. This changed the frets and the fret landscape. They wanted to change society from the ground up. Political activities began to gain in importance.

During this time the covenant youth cultivated a human image of the man as a knight who voluntarily submits to the discipline and self-discipline who is in the service of his covenant and its goals. It was important for the development of the Bündische Jugend to endeavor to form groups in the future that would not only consist of young people, as in the past in the Wandervogel, but rather had the character of a livelihood . For many leagues, the desired federal community only appeared to be attainable in purely male or female leagues , which is why coeducational leagues lost much of their importance.

From 1924 onwards, some groups, e.g. B. the Schlesische Jungmannschaft (SJ) and the Artamanen , the labor camp as an educational means in which the national community should be exemplified. According to F. Raabe, they wanted to prepare for the development of a people; so they should reorganize state and society based on the idea of ​​nationality and thus ensure the organic cooperation of all parts across all classes, parties and denominations .

In 1927 the German Freischar was formed as a central federation from various federations of the scout and wandering bird movement.

The Catholic youth association Bund New Germany , in which Catholic pupils were organized at higher schools, is also included in the Bündische Jugend.

Around 1930 the youth movement emerged , which rejected the principle of life alliance and put in its place the idea of self-conquest of the younger generation. The young people exerted a great fascination on the groups of the Bündische Jugend. Most of the fractions were questioned on a central question of their self-image. Even if some style elements such as Kohte and the boys' jacket were gradually adopted by most of the frets, the previous frets were largely able to hold their own.

In 1933, many leagues joined together in the Greater German Confederation under the leadership of Admiral von Trotha in the hope that, as a larger league of around 50,000 members, the Nazi state would not be banned. A joint Bundestag as a national camp at Pentecost in Dresden on the training area Heller planned, but by the Nazi Reich Governor Mutschmann banned at short notice. Therefore, the federal government turned to Munster , where it was also supported by the Reichswehr . The event was viewed as a provocation by the Hitler Youth ; As a result, the district administrator of the Fallingbostel district ordered the immediate demolition of the camp on Pentecost Sunday (June 4th). A few weeks later, the Greater German Confederation was also banned.

From 1933, the Hitler Youth , which had initially oriented itself towards the forms of the workers' youth movement , took over some of the scouting and alliance traditions. This led many members of the Bündische Jugend to hope that the Hitler Youth would be redesigned from the inside out in the Bundisch sense. Therefore, some of the leagues voluntarily joined the Hitler Youth, while other groups disbanded themselves in order to escape integration. From the summer of 1933, the leagues were initially banned in the Third Reich ; later, clothing and equipment were also considered punishable under the name of bundische Umtriebe . The free leagues were considered "archenemies of the Hitler Youth" (quotation from Baldur von Schirach ). The suppression of the Bund structures initially met with incomprehension and rejection in milieus loyal to the regime and in some cases also in party offices and state organs. National Socialist ideologues therefore intensively labeled and criminalized the youth leagues. In order to discredit the Bündische structures, one often resorted to the actually given or simply assumed homosexual orientation of the Bündische.

Since the structure of the Bündischen groups was not designed for illegality, a significant part of the total state adapted as much as it was necessary to survive, or went into exile early on, especially to Great Britain. A few confederate groups continued to exist in secret, and went on trips underground and carried out camps. These groups went through a politicization due to the National Socialist persecution. Some of them formed resistance groups against the Third Reich and some waged open street battles against the Hitler Youth. This resistance was particularly noticeable in the Rhineland . Many of these wild Bündischen youth groups were called edelweiss pirates or referred to themselves by this name, under which they were persecuted. The popularization of this youthful subculture was due to the fact that the free youth groups realized the demands and expectations that were propagated by the Hitler Youth, but ultimately not fulfilled, in particular the continuation of the youth movement and self-determination within the youth groups. In addition, the opposition youth milieu formed an attractive contrast to the regulated Hitler Youth system for many young people through the free hiking and traveling life with romanticizing customs and free interaction between the sexes.

After the beginning of the Second World War , numerous Bündische living in exile in Britain took part in the preparations for the Socialist Union made up of the SPD , ISK and the "New Beginning Group" led by Richard Löwenthal for the democratic rebuilding of Germany after the war.

Core beliefs

The development of the youth movement from the Wandervogel to the Bündische Jugend brought about a change in basic convictions:

While the Wandervogel emphasized the renewal of the individual and derived other renewals from this, the Bündian Youth accordingly strived for the renewal of society.

The Bündische Jugend was no longer an end in itself like the Wandervogel, which in itself was to be viewed as revolutionary. Instead, by joining the federal government, the individual performed a comprehensive "service obligation" that claimed him in the most private way.

One paid homage to ideas of the order and took orders of knights as models. The individual was not his group leader, but all were committed to the common cause.

The orientation towards Bündischen partly led to the fact that the union was understood as a boys and men union "par excellence" (Laqueur), which led to a significant decline in coeducational and segregation of female groups.

There was an elitist claim. A selection was sought: By far not every aspirant was accepted into a league. Often boys were picked out who could fit into the respective covenant, and only these were asked whether they would like to see a group of the covenant. The idea of ​​the covenant thus lived off the opposition to the masses.

Outwardly, the emergence of a uniform rift as an expression of the close community of the covenant or order was significant.

The Bündische Jugend attached great importance to symbolic acts and romantic, solemn, mythical forms. This was closely related to the confrontation with Graubünden ideas, partly mediated by studying the poet Stefan George : his conception of the union, which he described in the Stern des Bund in 1914 , had a mythical-religious character. George himself could not get enthusiastic about the reformist ideas of the wandering bird.

Another source of ideas for the Bündische Jugend came from Great Britain. John Hargrave developed his ideas in the British scouting movement. Hargrave was excluded from this in 1920, whereupon he founded the Kibbo Kift the Woodcraft Kindred movement . In Germany, the nature-oriented educational principles developed therein were received with great interest.

As in other leagues in world history, the idea of ​​a life league was one of the fundamental ideas of the Bündische Jugend. This was in marked contrast to the basic beliefs of the wandering bird before the First World War.

Assessment by historians

After the end of the Third Reich, critics of the Bündische Jugend accused the youth of the Bundestag to have been the stirrup holder of National Socialism by conveying similar ideas such as “leading and following”, “soldierly virtues” or patriotism. Others pointed out that the confederations placed great value on self-determination and autonomy , emphasized the personal relationship between leaders and those led, did not fit in with the elitist claims of the mass movement of National Socialism and were declared apolitical.

"In summary: The bourgeois German youth movement until 1933 was predominantly so close to National Socialism in its political way of thinking or emotional world that it could see itself as part of the" national uprising "in 1933. These political ideas of the youth movement or its majority were signs of a general political misdevelopment of the German bourgeoisie - but just one symptom in addition to many similar and certainly not the cause of the movement towards fascism. But when fascism was established by the state in Germany, it became apparent that the tradition of the youth movement also offered an opportunity for systemic oppositional behavior. The "autonomous" milieu of youth group life remained at least partially resistant to the totalitarian grasp of state youth education under fascism. "

present

The Brigantine Falado from Rhodes, sailed by youth groups . The ship sank on August 9, 2013.

It is controversial among historians to what extent the Bündische Jugend still exists today. Some believe that it finally perished with the beginning of the National Socialist dictatorship . They justify this with the great differences in the living environments of the young people and the frequent structural and content-related reorientation of the leagues that emerged again after the Second World War .

Unaffected today, there are groups and frets that when bündisch and / or youth moves comprehend. After the end of the Third Reich, numerous youth movements / Bündische re-established their leagues, building on the tradition of the 1920s and early 1930s. In addition, there are also sporadic newly founded groups today. More common, however, is the elimination of parts of a group due to incompatibility of views.

Groups of the German scout movement and church youth work, especially the YMCA , are shaped by the influences of the youth movement, which also clearly distinguishes them internationally. However, there are major differences between the individual groups.

Mannheim resolution

An advertisement of many leagues of the youth movement in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit from January 15, 1993 is referred to as the Mannheim resolution . In it, the signatories spoke out against the xenophobic riots in autumn 1992. The resolution was signed by a large number of groups and individuals who see themselves in the footsteps of the Bündische Jugend, and was also published in several daily newspapers.

Alliance initiatives and groups

literature

  • Rüdiger Ahrens: Bündische Jugend. A new story 1918–1933. Wallstein, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8353-1758-1 .
  • Matthias von Hellfeld : Bündische Jugend and Hitlerjugend - On the history of adaptation and resistance 1930-1939 . Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1987, ISBN 3-8046-8683-4 .
  • Werner Kindt: Documentation of the youth movement, Volume III: The German youth movement 1920 to 1933. The Bündische Zeit . Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1974, ISBN 3-424-00527-4 .
  • Arno Klönne : Young opposition in the “Third Reich” . State Center for Political Education Thuringia. Second edition, Erfurt 2013 ( PDF ).
  • Arno Klönne: Youth in the Third Reich: The Hitler Youth and their opponents . PapyRossa Verlag, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-89438-261-9 .
  • Walter Laqueur : The German youth movement . Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1978, ISBN 3-8046-8548-X . Translation by: Walter Laqueur: Young Germany: A History of the German Youth Movement , Transaction Pub, 1984, ISBN 0878559604 .
  • Florian Malzacher , Matthias Daenschel: Youth Movement for Beginners. 2nd Edition. Publishing house of the youth movement, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-88258-131-X .
  • Felix Raabe: The Bundische Jugend. A contribution to the history of the Weimar Republic . Brentanoverlag, Stuttgart 1961.
  • Alexej Stachowitsch in: Bündisch is… Contributions to the question of Bündisch . Publisher: Free Education Center Balduinstein, Balduinstein Castle 1977.

Web links

Bündische groups

Cross-sectoral initiatives

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Joachim von Stülpnagel: "Munster-Lager" Whitsun 1933 - last major event of the Bündische Jugend. In: 100 Years of Soldiers in Munster 1893–1993. Editor: City of Munster, August 1993, p. 86 f.
  2. Hellfeld, pp. 90ff.
  3. a b Arno Klönne: Young subcultures in the Third Reich. In: shock and creation - youth aesthetics in the 20th century. Darmstadt 1986, p. 311.
  4. Borinski, Grimm, Winkler, Wolf (eds.): Youth in political protest 1923–1933–1977 (sources and contributions to the history of the youth movement, vol. 19). Frankfurt am Main 1977, p. 81 ff.
  5. ^ Arno Klönne: Young subcultures in the Third Reich. In: shock and creation - youth aesthetics in the 20th century. Darmstadt 1986, p. 312.
  6. Borinski, Grimm, Winkler, Wolf (eds.): Youth in political protest 1923–1933–1977 (sources and contributions to the history of the youth movement, vol. 19). Frankfurt am Main 1977, p. 88.
  7. ^ Peter Nasarski : Departure of the youth in the border and abroad. In: ders .: German youth movement in Europe. Cologne 1967, p. 21.
  8. ^ A b c Walter Laqueur : The German youth movement. A historical study. Cologne 1962, p. 150.
  9. Wolfgang Lindner: Youth movement as an expression of ideological mentality. The mentality-historical preferences of the German youth movement as reflected in their lyrics. Writings on cultural studies 48. Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-8300-0886-4 , p. 312f.
  10. Florian Malzacher, Matthias Daenschel: Youth Movement for Beginners. 2nd Edition. Südmarkverlag Michael Fritz KG, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-88258-131-X , p. 68ff .; Wolfgang Lindner: Youth movement as an expression of ideological mentality. The mentality-historical preferences of the German youth movement as reflected in their song texts (Schriften zur Kulturwissenschaft 48). Hamburg 2003, ISBN 978-3-8300-0886-6 , pp. 312f .; Walter Laqueur : The German youth movement. A historical study. Cologne 1962, p. 151f .; Johann Thun: The Bund and the Bunds. Stefan George and the German youth movement . In: Thorsten Carstensen, Marcel Schmidt (ed.): The literature of life reform. Transcript, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-8376-3334-4 , pp. 87-105.
  11. ^ Thomas Karlauf: Stefan George. Pantheon, 2008, p. 397.
  12. ^ Walter Laqueur: The German youth movement. A historical study. Cologne 1962, p. 153f.
  13. ^ Arno Klönne : Youth in the Third Reich. The Hitler Youth and their opponents. Papyrossa Verlagsges., 2003, ISBN 3894382619 , p. 125.
  14. ^ Mannheim resolution
  15. Bündische Arbeit CVJM Westbund