European youth campaign
The European Youth Campaign (EYC) was a movement from 1951 to 1958 whose aim was to counteract the efforts of the communist Comintern, to create a sense of unity among European youth and to promote attitudes towards a united Europe.
history
Funding for the work of the European Youth Campaign was provided by the American Committee on United Europe (ACEU). The ACEU itself was a sub-organization of the US secret service CIA , whose representatives held key positions in the ACEU. In 1958, the European Youth Campaign was disbanded when the ACEU stopped receiving financial support.
Campaign work
The European Youth Campaign appeared in public through large-scale propaganda activities such as the press and radio, book publications, conferences and exhibitions. The organizers of these activities were, among others, the French politician Jean Moreau and the Italian activist Fausta Deshornes la Vallee . In total, young people from more than 15 (Western) European countries took part in the work of the youth campaign, with those from countries such as Germany, France, Italy and the Benelux countries being particularly active. The youth campaign hoped that the countries behind the Iron Curtain would turn into democracies and emphasized that these countries must be part of a united Europe. That is why events such as the World Festival of Youth and Students in East Berlin in 1951 were particularly painful for politicians in Europe and the USA and, among other things, disrupted the development of the European idea.
literature
- Christina Norwig: The first European generation. European constructions in the European youth campaign 1951-1958 . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2016, ISBN 978-3-8353-1846-5 .
- Jean-Marie Palayret: Eduquer les jeunes à l'union: La Campagne européenne des la jeunesse 1951–1958 , Revue D'Histoire de l'intégration européenne. 1995, Volume 1, No. 2.
Web links
- [1] (fr.)