Germany meeting of young people

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10 Pf - special stamp of the GDR Post 1964 for the Germany meeting in 1964

The German Youth Meetings in the 1950s and 1960s were all-German meetings organized by the FDJ of the GDR , at which the main aim was to promote German unity based on the ideas of the GDR . They were the German counterpart to the international world festival for young people and students that were held in East Berlin in 1951 and 1973.

history

The youth meetings in Germany took place in 1950, 1954 and 1964 at Whitsun in the GDR. There was an extensive cultural program as well as lectures and discussions at the meetings.

The first German meeting took place in East Berlin from May 27-30, 1950, and 700,000 young people took part, including members of the FDJ of the Federal Republic of Germany, which was later banned as anti-constitutional . On the return journey from this first meeting, the 30,000 West German participants who had entered the GDR from the Federal Republic of Germany were refused to return to the Federal Republic near Herrnburg / Lübeck and a medical examination and registration by name were requested because of the "risk of epidemics", which the young people refused. The young people then besieged the West German crossing point and inevitably camped on GDR territory. There were first clashes with the West German police who had gathered there. The then FDJ chairman in the GDR, Erich Honecker , reacted immediately and organized tents, food ( goulash cannons ) and bedding for those locked out and invited numerous journalists there. Two days later, the West German authorities let the young people re-enter. Erich Honecker emerged stronger from the Herrnburg confrontation and was elected to the SED Politburo in July . Bertolt Brecht and Paul Dessau wrote the cantata Herrnburger report for the III. World Festival of Youth and Students in Berlin in the summer of 1951.

The second meeting of Germany followed from June 5 to 7, 1954 in East Berlin, one year after the June uprising in the GDR .

The third and last meeting of Germany took place from May 16 to 18, 1964 after the Wall was built in East Berlin; this year only 500,000 participants were counted. At this meeting, GDR music groups played western music in public for the first time, contrary to previous practice. For the Germany meeting in 1964, the GDR radio set up a special DT64 studio that broadcast a youth program. Due to the great response, the special studio became its own radio program, which was continued after the Germany meeting.

A four-person delegation from the Hessian Naturefriends Youth also took part in this German meeting in 1964 . It included, among others, Egon Becker and Klaus Vack , and the group took for himself an observer status to complete. Nonetheless, the four of them made their overall critical assessment of this event preceded by the admission that their “way of looking at the events at the 'Germany Meeting' was based on the position of a socialist youth association”. It should be explored "which possibilities for 'all-German talks and discussions'" this meeting offered "in order to fathom a bit of truth, which lies in the contradicting such events. In its theses and suggestions , the group comes to the conclusion that "whoever wants human and political contacts that bring us closer to an understanding that could also serve a liberalization process in the GDR, cannot bypass the FDJ". In order to intensify this process, they propose that the “organs of the Friends of Nature should examine whether the Youth of Nature Friends could be ready - [..] to apply to the Federal Youth Council (DBJR) that earlier resolutions of the Federal Youth Council prohibit the member associations from contacting the FDJ , To get picked up".

The fact that the observer group formulated this more than cautiously - also with a view to their own association - was due to the political climate in the Federal Republic of the mid-1960s. Traveling behind the Iron Curtain , combined with so-called Eastern contacts , was anything but natural for a West German youth organization in the mid-1960s, especially when direct contact with official GDR organizations such as the FDJ was established. The Executive Committee of the DBJR , did in March 1965 just the opposite of what the Natrufreunde delegation had proposed: In the Naumburg Declaration of DBJR official contacts with the FDJ were still rejected. And within Germany's Friends of Nature , too, there were reservations about GDR contacts: “ Many older friends of nature viewed encounters with the FDJ or alliances with the SEW with skepticism. The protection of the constitution observed the nature lovers youth. "

After the GDR had given up the goal of reunification, instead of the Germany meetings there were Whitsun meetings of the FDJ, in which ultimately only GDR young people took part.

See also

literature

  • "Germany meeting" of the Free German Youth (FDJ) Pentecost 1964 in East Berlin. Reports • Analyzes • Comments , Naturfreundejugend Deutschlands, Landesverband Hessen, Offenbach, 1964. This brochure, for which the Hessische Naturfreundejugend signed as the editor, was created by the Landsjugendausommausußemember Egon Becker, Horst Goßfelder, Klaus Vack and Sigi Wenzel, who were commissioned by the State Youth Committee observed the FDJ Whitsun meeting.

Web links

Commons : Germany meeting of young people  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Germany meeting" of the Free German Youth (FDJ) Whitsun 1964 in East Berlin , p. 3
  2. ^ "Germany meeting" of the Free German Youth (FDJ) Whitsun 1964 in East Berlin , p. 6
  3. ^ "Germany meeting" of the Free German Youth (FDJ) Whitsun 1964 in East Berlin , p. 33
  4. ↑ See also: Sabine Troitzsch: The relations of the German Federal Youth Association (DBJR) with the Free German Youth (FDJ) of the German Democratic Republic in the course of the policy of détente , in: Archive of the Workers Youth Movement: Mitteilungen II / 2017 , pp. 28–31
  5. ↑ Naturfreundejugend Berlin: History . In this context, see also the article by Theo Sommer: More fear than love for the country. The Oberhausen scandal , Die Zeit , 36/1965 of September 3, 1965