Bismarck Youth
The Bismarck Youth (actually: Bismarck Youth of the German National People's Party , from 1929 Bismarck League ) was the youth organization of the German National People's Party (DNVP) in the Weimar Republic .
history
The German national Berlin Bismarck Youth was founded in 1920. The DNVP was the last party in the Reichstag to set up its own youth organization. In 1922, various youth groups close to the DNVP merged in Hanover to form the Reich Association of Youth Groups of the German National People's Party , which was renamed the Bismarck Youth of the German National People's Party (Bismarck Youth for short) in autumn 1922 . The Bismarck Youth was politically completely dependent on the DNVP.
At the beginning, the Bismarck Youth was led by Wilhelm Kube . In March 1923, Hermann Otto Sieveking (* March 24, 1891, † September 4, 1931), since 1922 chairman of her Hamburg regional team, took over the chairmanship of the Bismarck Youth. Under his leadership, the organization took on a paramilitary character. In addition, the Bismarck Youth began to hold annual national youth meetings. After Sieveking died in September 1931 at the age of only 40, Herbert von Bismarck (1884–1955) was elected as his successor in December 1931 in the chairmanship of the Bismarck League.
In mid-1923, the Bismarck Youth disintegrated more and more, as the DNVP was identified with the social order of the German Empire and therefore became unpopular among young people.
In July 1928 the Bismarck Youth celebrated a commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of Otto von Bismarck's death as part of their seventh national youth meeting in Friedrichsruh . Friedrichsruh is the location of the Bismarck mausoleum . The meeting was of great importance for the parent party, because it allowed the DNVP to show its strength, despite its poor result in the Reichstag elections in the same year . Towards the end of the 1920s, the Bismarck Youth had recovered and their membership increased again.
After the DC circuit by the Nazi Party in 1933, all the other parties were either dissolved or banned. On June 21, 1933, the youth organizations of the DNVP were banned for alleged communist infiltration. In 1935 the uniforms of the Bismarck youth were finally banned by law.
Surname
After the organization was founded, its name was initially Reichsverband der Jugendgruppen der Deutschennationalen Volkspartei . In autumn 1922 the name was changed to Bismarck Youth of the German National People's Party , which was then called Bismarck Youth for short. From 1929 the name Bismarckbund was used .
The name refers to the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and should connect the organization with the historical legacy of Bismarck. Bismarck's grandson Otto Fürst von Bismarck allowed the youth organization to use his grandfather's name.
membership
Women and men between the ages of 14 and 25 could become members. The organization had 800 local sub-organizations across Germany. Their first local groups emerged in the industrial areas of Germany. However, it later expanded into the rural areas in the east of the country. In general, the movement in the Protestant areas of Germany was more developed than in the Catholic areas . Strongholds were Berlin , Magdeburg , Hesse , Thuringia , Lower Saxony , Pomerania , Württemberg and Hamburg .
Most of the members came from middle-class or noble families. Nevertheless, the Bismarck Youth Berlin , which consisted largely of members of the working class , was the largest sub-organization. The Berlin branch of the Bismarck Youth was founded in 1920. In 1922, the Bismarck Youth Berlin had around 6,000 members, 80% of whom came from the working class.
The largest number of members was reached with 42,000, which made the Bismarck Youth the second largest party youth organization after the Socialist Workers Youth of the SPD .
magazine
The Bismarck Youth published the magazine Deutsches Echo .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Robert Gerwarth: The Bismarck Myth: Weimar Germany and the Legacy of the Iron Chancellor. Oxford historical monographs. Clarendon Press, Oxford 2005, pp. 106-107.
- ^ A b c d Larry Eugene Jones, James N. Retallack: Elections, Mass Politics, and Social Change in Modern Germany: New Perspectives , German Historical Institute, Washington, DC 1992, p. 354.
- ↑ Martin Kitchen: A History of Modern Germany, 1800-2000. Blackwell, Malden, Massachusetts 2006.
- ↑ Michael Burleigh, Wolfgang Wippermann: The Racial State: Germany, 1933-1945. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [England] 2002, p. 228.