German Youth Association from November 1, 1929

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Eberhard Koebel , the founder and leader of dj.1.11, in the boys' blouse he designed

The German Youth Association of November 1, 1929 refers to a youth association founded by Eberhard Koebel , also known by his journey name tusk , which is also referred to as the German Youth Association from November 1, 1929 and the German Autonomous Youth Association from November 1 , 1929 and above all under the abbreviation dj .1.11 is known. Koebel rejected the Lebensbund principle that was widespread among the youth and founded his union as a pure boys' union. The young people in this tradition saw and still see themselves as the third wave of the German youth movement after Wandervogel and Bundischer Jugend . But many historians today count them among the youth of the Bundestag.

Pre-war youngsters

On November 1, 1929, Eberhard Koebel founded the German Youth Union from November 1, 1929 within the German Freischar as the "uprising of the boys" against the Bündische, which shaped the Freischar and which had the vital bond as its content and thus secured the elderly great influence on the boys' groups.

With dj.1.11, Koebel coined a new style of youth associations. He demanded more commitment and commitment from the members and wanted to convey impressive experiences to them, for example by the groups carrying out the most extreme trips and camps or having the “most heroic boys and guides”. He stimulated the romanticism of Nordland and Russia , which one can still find today in the Bündische Jugend (especially in the songs). dj.1.11 also introduced the Kohte , the yurt and the boys' blouse into the Bundische youth.

Most important for the self-image of the youngsters was the claim to be completely independent. The boys should act as "self-struggles", that is, create new things themselves, and not as "repeaters", i.e. just imitate what is already there. In line with this self-image, the young people oriented themselves differently from other groups of their time to modernity and its aesthetics, especially to the Bauhaus .

From 1932 onwards , first a few, then a large number of members began to turn to the political left. Koebel himself became a member of the KPD in 1932 , at the same time he gave up the leadership of the youth group. His turn to communism was not accepted without contradiction, the union shrank to a few hundred members, and the “white” boyhood split off.

In addition to these two larger frets, several smaller frets were created in the early 1930s , parallel to dj.1.11, which were also called the boys' union.

Excursus: culture

Young communities in the form of dj.1.11 see themselves as a milieu that is strongly shaped by the culture cultivated in the youth groups ( hoarding ) . Since this culture is of central importance for the description of youth groups, it is briefly presented here using the concrete example of the central youth group dj.1.11.

A central ritual of dj.1.11. was the flag guard, a meditative standing in front of the open flag . The rehearsal of speaking choirs was also typical for dj.1.11 . The stick fencing was understood as a practice area for self-discipline . Banjo and balalaika found their way into the youth movement through the youth community. A special feature was also the rehearsal of choral movements (especially those of Russian origin), whereby the discipline and community in the groups should be emphasized. The scenic dance with sophisticated choreographies was an integral part of festivals and camps. There were approaches for filmic productions - an exception for youth groups at that time. In photography, the young people were mainly inspired by modern Russian photographers. Inspired by the Bauhaus, the lower case principle was followed. After 1932, encouraged by Koebel's monthly magazine “Die Kiefer”, many young people's shorts began to grapple with Asian philosophy and cultural practice. One of the roots of the youth resistance against the National Socialists can be seen in this dispute.

The gap of dj.1.11. were the blue boys' blouse , a cord (the color denoted the function, for example hoarder) and cloth trousers. A belt lock with the coat of arms of the boys' union was introduced as a federal symbol. The coat of arms shows a falcon over three waves, another symbol of the boyhood was the cherry blossom. Later youth groups have at least partially taken over this gap, for example the German youth group . Some of them, like the fraternity , have broken new ground here.

In the early 1930s, the cultural ideas of dj.1.11 reached a larger audience in the Bündische Jugend, as dj.1.11 published extensively and was represented by Eberhard Koebel and a few other leading members in the editorial offices of various "cross-union" magazines. The most important of these are The Campfire , The Icebreaker and The Pine .

illegality

The emerging Third Reich, with its absolute claim in youth work, questioned the continued existence of the independent boys' associations. Unlike other leagues, dj.1.11 did not join the short-lived collective grouping of the Greater German Confederation . Instead, in the spring of 1933, dj.1.11 tried to come to terms with the Reich Youth Leadership (RJF) and to cooperate with the young people of the Hitler Youth in order to enable the life of young people to continue within these structures. Jochen Hene, then federal leader of the RJF, suggested forming a 1000-man youth union within the young people or allowing the youth groups to be autonomously tolerated with their own badges. After already at the beginning of 1933 z. B. in Ludwigsburg dj.1.11-Horten left it and joined the Hitler Youth, there were transfers to the young people in the course of the year - even prompted by tusk; locally this was dominated by dj.1.11. However, the initial successes were not permanent: young people who remained true to their ideals were interrogated, especially after Tusk's arrest, and some were temporarily arrested. House searches also took place, those affected were forced out of the young people or left it voluntarily.

Koebel himself was arrested by the Gestapo on January 18, 1934 in Stuttgart and taken to the Columbia House in Berlin . On February 20, 1934, he was released from custody after attempting suicide. The exact reasons for imprisonment are not yet known, but what is documented is the police surveillance of dj.1.11, which began in 1932 with Koebel's turn to communism, and an obligation signed by Koebel when he was released to refrain from further attempts to influence the Hitler Youth. Koebel emigrated to Great Britain via Sweden in the summer of 1934.

After the youth community could no longer exist as a fixed organization, the successful attempt was made in the newspaper Die Kiefer and in Koebel's book Die Heldenfibel to enable the continued existence of dj.1.11 as a community of beliefs, as a “spiritual order”. The magazine and book were published by Günther Wolff in Plauen.

After 1933 the widespread impact of the autonomous youth community increased significantly. Members of other fraternities adopted styles, beliefs and behaviors from dj.1.11. In addition to the Nerother Wandervogel , it was above all the influence of dj.1.11 that made the state see the groups that continued the banned Bündische Jugend as the most dangerous political opponents.

A large number of youth groups continued to exist despite multiple bans, with a large proportion of the members of the groups to be subsumed under the term dj.1.11 from other, now forbidden leagues. In spite of the increasing number and intensity of attacks by the Hitler Youth and the state authorities, these youngsters kept going, met as far as possible for group lessons and cultivated their culture.

In the early phase of the Third Reich, many of these groups tried to ensure their continued existence. In the course of their experiences with the Nazi state, some groups also switched to active resistance: In several cities, together with other groups, members of the Hitler Youth were attacked, and in some cases there were real street battles with the Hitler Youth. In some places the resistance went so far that people were smuggled out of the country and acts of sabotage were carried out, especially during the war. Contacts were maintained with various resistance groups at home and abroad, including Karl Otto Paetel in Paris.

Because of their participation in the active resistance, several members of resistance groups who were influenced by dj.1.11 were executed, including Hans Scholl (originally dj.1.11 Ulm - Trabanten), Willi Graf (originally Deutschmeister-Jungenschaft ) - albeit not in connection with their membership in the youth league - and Helle Hirsch (originally dj.1.11 Stuttgart - Horte Helmut Haug, schnipp). Others were imprisoned in concentration camps and prisons or died in so-called probation units during the war .

dj.1.11 was described as "probably the most important group for the development of the Bündischen counter-milieu". However, some former members of youth groups turned to National Socialism.

Post-war youngsters

After an arrest operation in 1937/38, contact between the genuine dj.1.11 groups and former members of Eberhard Koebel in Great Britain that still existed in Germany was broken off. Nevertheless, the Gestapo pursued everything that could somehow be classified under dj.1.11. After the end of the war and the Nazi regime, groups were brought back to life by former dj.1.11 members in various cities (e.g. Cologne, Minden, Wuppertal, Kiel and Ludwigsburg). An example of this is the group re-established by Michael Jovy in Cologne. Michael Jovy was sentenced to six years in prison while he was illegally for the continuation of the Bundestag youth. Even after the war, his group was directed against any continuation of the Hitler Youth.

One of these new foundations was the Göttingen Jungenschaft founded in 1946 by Walter Scherf (name of the journey tejo). As with many start-ups, this consisted mainly of former members of the young people , which for a long time led to a rejection of these groups by young people's groups, which had roots in the young people's resistance against the National Socialists.

In 1946 some of these groups (Bremen, Göttingen, Hildesheim, Lüneburg, Verden / Aller, Wolfenbüttel and Hanover) united to form the German Youth Union . At the turn of the year 1948/1949 Walter Scherf was elected federal leader. In mid-1949, however, he withdrew. The association was continued by Michael Jovy, Hans-Jochen Zenker and Gerhard Rasche. In 1951, Klaus-Jürgen Citron founded the Neue Deutsche Jungenschaft out of the Deutsche Jungenschaft , but this new foundation was not supported by most of the leaders of the German Jungenschaft and did not last long. In 1951, Jovy, Zenker and Rasche then registered the name deutsche jungenschaft as an association to protect the name.

The dj.1.11-Bund was founded by Johannes Ernst Seiffert in 1953 , which is considered an "orthodox" heir of Koebel's dj.1.11 and is much more focused than other youngsters on tusk's forms and content, in particular on the imagination of Koebel's "Heldenfibel", aligned.

In addition, new foundations or continuations of old groups existed as autonomous hoarding and hoarding rings such as the cartel of German young people founded on November 1, 1959 and the dj.1.11-hortenring in the Rhine / Ruhr area (joined the dj.1.11-Bund in 1963).

The Bund deutscher Jungenschaften - BdJ , which was more similar to the German Freischar before 1933 than the pre-war youth fraternity , emerged in 1960 from the Jungentrucht and the Jungenschaft in the Bund (which consisted of parts of the German Freischar, the companionship and the New German Jungenschaft and was founded in 1954). The BdJ saw itself as a present-day and multifaceted alliance and developed, especially in the course of the Meißner camp in 1963, great supra-bundle influence. Five members of the Munich Horte of the BdJ wrote as - albeit involuntarily - the trigger of the Schwabing riots with their Russian travel songs of Munich city history. The BdJ opened up to girls and adults up to mixed groups. There were also girls in groups of the dj.1.11 federation, all other post-war youths retained the idea of ​​the all-boys federation.

In the 1950s and 1960s, especially in southwest Germany, youth groups were founded as part of Protestant community work. The greatest importance among them was achieved in 1958 by the German Protestant youth group ( dej ; also dej 58 ), with a focus on North Baden, which existed until the 1970s.

present

Today there are still some, numerically not very strong, youth fraternities, which see themselves to varying degrees in the succession of dj.1.11. Above all, the youngsters emphasize the goal of “fighting for yourself”, which Koebel had formulated programmatically in “Gespanntes Bogen”. Today's groups place a different value on aspects of past ideas about young people: While the German young people founded in 1990 (until 1996 with the addition of the name Neubund ) came close in its appearance to the prewar dj 1.11 and thought more closely to the approaches of the post-war young man from Michael Jovy and Walter Scherf, the youngsters particularly emphasized a modernized version of the concept of the order propagated by dj.1.11 . The gray youth group tries to create a symbiosis of the concept of youth and the gray corps . Still other groups, such as the Free Young Society, particularly emphasized left-wing political action, which was expressed, among other things, in the occupation of an oil platform in the Wadden Sea.

In some groups, such as the German Freischar , the German Boy Scout Federation or the Boy Scout Federation Crusaders, the term young people is used to denote groups or ages.

Also in the church, predominantly the Protestant youth work and in the YMCA , the concept of the youth group has been preserved for groups of boys. However, these groups mostly have different roots than dj.1.11. There are also some Christian (mostly Protestant) young people who see themselves in the tradition of dj.1.11. However, critics interject that a denominational relationship with the ideal of autonomy of dj.1.11 cannot be reconciled.

In June 1988, former members of some post-war youth groups such as the Deutschen Jungenschaft ev and the Bund deutscher Jungenschaften met in Minden and decided to found an open group of elderly people, the Mindener Kreis . Since then, the mindenerkreis has been inviting people to an open meeting at different locations every June. The mindenerkreis works closely with the archive of the German youth movement at Ludwigstein Castle , which also contains part of Eberhard Koebel's estate.

Known members

dj.1.11. or from it emerged frets

Confessional youngsters

literature

  • Wilfried Breyvogel: Young forms of resistance - From organized resistance to youthful everyday opposition , in: Peter Steinbach, Johannes Tuchel (ed.): Resistance against National Socialism . Series of publications Volume 323, Federal Agency for Political Education, Bonn 1994. ISBN 3-89331-195-5
  • Paulus Buscher: dj.1.11. The final league of the German youth movement . In: jungenschaft 1, Sabershausen 1990
  • Achim Freudenstein (Ed.): Die Kiefer 1933/1934, complete reprint. 1994 without name of publisher or location
  • Helmut Grau: dj.1.11. Structure and change of a subcultural youthful milieu in four decades . dipa, Frankfurt am Main 1976. ISBN 3-7638-0213-4
  • Eckard Holler, Arno Klönne, Erich Meier, Hansmartin Kuhn, Martin Ortlieb, Jürgen Reulecke, Fritz Schmidt: Eberhard Koebel-tusk, works. 12 volumes. Achim Freudenstein publishing house, Edermünde 2002–2005.
  • Eckhard Holler: The Ulm "Trabanten". Hans Scholl between Hitler Youth and dj.1.11 . Puls 22nd publishing house of the youth movement, Stuttgart 1999. ISSN  0342-3328
  • Bettina Joergens: Masculinity. German Youth Association, YMCA and Naturefriends Youth in Minden, 1945–1955 . Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Potsdam 2005. ISBN 3-935035-57-8
  • Eberhard Koebel: The Heroes' Primer . Günther Wolff, Plauen 1933
  • Eberhard Koebel: The tense bow: a pamphlet on the German youth community . Achims Verlag, Edermünde 1994
  • Meino Naumann (Ed.): But in the evening we invite each other. Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Potsdam 2001. ISBN 3-935035-27-6
  • Fritz Schmidt (Ed.): The clear air is free today: The Bund Deutscher Jungenschaften . Südmarkverlag Fritsch, Heidenheim 1986. ISBN 3-88258-090-9
  • Fritz Schmidt: German Youth Association 1945–1951 . Puls 19. Südmarkverlag, Witzenhausen 1991. ISSN  0342-3328
  • Fritz Schmidt: A man between two worlds. Eberhard Koebel's political development, his first years in emigration and its effect on illegal dj.1.11 . Achim Freudenstein Publishing House, Edermünde 1997
  • Fritz Schmidt: The men on the other side are threatened with murder . Case studies on the threat and murder of young people on the move in the Third Reich: Karl Lämmermann and Günther Wolff in connection with June 30, 1934, Helmut Hirsch and Gerhard Lascheit . Achim Freudenstein Publishing House, Edermünde 2003
  • Fritz Schmidt: dj.1.11 trilogy. Among other things, the Dust Eater Festival - foundation of dj.1.11 and the first year of the federal government . Achim Freudenstein Publishing House, Edermünde 2003
  • Fritz Schmidt: around tusk and dj.1.11. 75 years of the German Youth Association on November 1, 1929 . Achim Freudenstein Publishing House, Edermünde 2006.
  • Johannes Ernst Seiffert: Eberhard Köbel's design . Werkstatt-Verlag, Kassel 1985

Web links

On the history of the youth movement

Today's autonomous youth groups

Confessional youth groups

Individual evidence

  1. Gray: dj.1.11, p. 42.
  2. ^ Fritz Schmidt: waymarks. Camp of the old dj.1.11 in: Ring of young fraternities : Messages 107 December 1999.
  3. Schmidt: A man between two worlds , pp. 48–52.
  4. Schmidt: A man between two worlds , p. 72ff; another : The men on the other side are threatened with murder , chap. Wolff and Lämmermann. Edermünde 2003. Reichsführer of the SS, Leitheft publishing house. March 1937: II. The development since 1933. e. Bündische publishers
  5. ^ Announcement of the RSHA of the SS of March 17, 1943.
  6. a b Schmidt: A man between two worlds , passim
  7. Schmidt: A man between two worlds , p. 102ff; Arno Klönne: Youth in the Third Reich , ISBN 3-492-12045-8 , p. 224 f.
  8. Breyvogel: Adolescent Forms of Resistance , p. 435.
  9. ^ Schmidt: Deutsche Jungenschaft . P. 11.
  10. Grau: dj.1.11 , p. 53; Schmidt: New German Young Society , -schrift- 37
  11. ^ Schmidt: Deutsche Jungenschaft , p. 38.
  12. a b Grau: dj.1.11 , p. 54
  13. Florian Malzacher, Matthias Daenschel: Youth Movement for Beginners . Second edition. ISBN 3-88258-131-X , p. 157
  14. Cf. Stefan Hemler: The beginning of a cultural revolutionary upheaval? The "Schwabinger riots" 1962 , in: Historical youth research. Yearbook of the Archives of the German Youth Movement, NF 4 (2007), pp. 74-101. ISBN 978-3-89974-463-7
  15. Gray: dj.1.11 , p. 65
  16. In the fight for the FDJ (PDF, p. 45)
  17. https://www.ejwue.de/aktuell/news/pure-verschaltung/
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on June 6, 2006 .