Association of German New Scouts
The Bund Deutscher Neupfadfinder (BNP) was a smaller scout association that existed from 1921 to 1925. Due to its content orientation and the willingness of its leaders to experiment, it achieved a significance within the Bündische Jugend that went well beyond the mere number of members . Individual elements of it continue to have an effect in the German scout movement to this day. The leader of the BNP was the Protestant pastor Martin Voelkel .
History of the Association of German New Scouts
In 1919 several renewal movements emerged within the German Boy Scout Association (DPB), the Bavarian branch of which hosted the “German Boy Scout Day” in August 1919 at Prunn Palace in Altmühltal . There the participants, who mainly came from southern Germany, declared themselves to be "New German Scouts". A little later, the Berlin and Brandenburg scout leaders met in Berlin for a conference where they founded an association of “young German scouts”. Both groups rejected the rigid and military system of the DPB and based their work more on the Wandervogel and the free German youth .
These innovators within the DPB came together at Pentecost 1920 in Naumburg , briefly involving the ring scouts . At first they stayed in the DPB, but when the conflicts about the different forms of work and organization escalated, they left this association and founded the Association of German New Scouts in 1921 . The ring scouts stayed in the DPB for the time being. The "Prunner Vow" formulated in 1919, which was formulated in further texts in 1920/21, was formative for the new covenant.
“We scouts want to be young and happy and lead our lives with purity and inner truthfulness.
We want to be ready with words and deeds wherever there is a need to promote a good and just cause.
We want to obey our leaders whom we trust. "
The first Chancellor of the League of New Scouts was Franz Ludwig Habbel (1894–1964) in 1920 .
After a short phase of internal development, the leadership of the New Scouts turned to a new project: They developed various designs to merge the various hiking bird and scout associations into a common "high union".
At the end of 1925 the BNP and the Bund der Ringpfadfinder merged to form the Greater German Boy Scout Association. For that arose in 1926 after the merger with several bird of frets of the Federation of hikers and scouts , the later German volunteer corps . Many elements of the work of the new scouts were continued in the association of the " Sturmtrupp scouts, a German knighthood of the forest ".
"The White Knight" publishing house and the "Books of the Forest Affinity"
As early as the beginning of 1919, Bavarian scout leaders founded the publishing house Der Weiße Ritter in Regensburg , which later changed its name to Ludwig-Voggenreiter-Verlag . Various magazines appeared in this publishing house, which not only worked in the Bund Deutscher Neupfadfinder , but also in all of the youth of the Bund.
Particularly noteworthy here is the book series Books of the Forest Affinity . It published several titles by John Hargrave , an English author and youth leader who founded a European counterpart to the originally American woodcraft movement, the British Kibbo Kift .
Tribal education and camp
Based on these books, the principle of tribal education was developed and tested in the BNP. It replaced the previous structure of the Boy Scout groups , which was strongly oriented towards English Scoutism , with their uniform military designations and the associated educational model. In place of the troop were the clans , from the corps were tribes . More important, however, was the emphasis on the mutual upbringing of young people in their groups, over which adults had little influence.
With the tribal education also was bearing anchored as a place of education in the scouting movement. It replaced the previous military-oriented exercises. A little later it was supplemented by the trip that came from the movement of the Wandervogel .
Known members
- Werner Heisenberg , physicist
- Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg , professional soldier and resistance fighter against the Nazi regime
literature
- Franz Ludwig Habbel : The world scout movement . Verlag Der Weiße Ritter, Regensburg 1921.
- Werner Kindt (Hrsg.): Documentation of the youth movement . Volume III: The German Youth Movement 1920 to 1933. The Bündische Zeit. Source writings . Diederichs, Düsseldorf et al. 1974, ISBN 3-424-00527-4 , pp. 389-438.