History of the Young Democrats
The Young Democrats were a radical democratic youth association , which was founded in 1919, in the post-war period until 1982 represented the youth association of the FDP and since then has worked independently of parties .
In the first half of 2018, the federal association JD / JL dissolved after there had been a significant decline in active members and members in the previous years.
Weimar Republic
The young democrats were founded at the Democratic Youth Convention from April 25 to 27, 1919 as the Reich Federation of German Democratic Youth Associations. In 1928 they then renamed themselves the Reich Association of German Young Democrats. The Young Democrats were founded as a youth association closely related to the German Democratic Party (DDP).
However, the DDP increasingly lost voters and moved further and further to the right at the end of the Weimar Republic. In 1930, the DDP finally merged with the right-wing Young German Order (JungDO) to form the German State Party . The left within the DDP bitterly opposed unification and founded the Radical Democratic Party in the same year . Leading young democrats of the time worked there, but with little success. The Radical Democratic Party was supported by Ludwig Quidde, among others . Other well-known members of the Young Democrats at that time were Ernst Lemmer , Julie Meyer , Erich Lüth , Thomas Dehler , the writer Lilo Linke , the actress Inge Meysel , the later resistance fighters against National Socialism Ernst Strassmann and Hans Robinsohn and the later German President Gustav Heinemann . In order to avoid being forced into union with the Hitler Youth , the Young Democrats decided to dissolve themselves in 1933.
post war period
In 1947 the young democrats were re-established under the name “German Young Democrats” (DJD) as a youth association of the FDP . At that time it was Thomas Dehler's idea to use the name Young Democrats again. It should be linked directly to the history of the left-wing liberal young democrats of the Weimar Republic. In the first decade after the war, the young democrats were positioned less progressively in some regional associations than the LSD ( Liberal Student Union of Germany ).
While the young democrats from Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hamburg, Berlin and Bremen influenced the FDP's social-liberal orientation very early on, the DJD in North Rhine-Westphalia fought with old National Socialists and National Democrats in court in the 1960s over the course of the party. While parts of the Young Democrats were still giving nationalist speeches at the solstice celebration at the Hermannsdenkmal in 1961 , from the 1960s onwards Gerhart Baum , Günter Verheugen and others emphatically supported the opening of the FDP to the left, which ultimately led to the formation of the social-liberal coalition in 1969 and the most important of Werner Maihofer created Freiburg theses , which the party decided in 1971 . The young democrats were decisively involved in the formulation of progressive programs of the FDP, a reform of inheritance law and land law, the "Stuttgart guidelines for a liberal educational policy" with the "open comprehensive school" of 1972, formulated the "Liberal Manifesto for Emancipation" (1973) and set the so-called “church paper” on the separation of church and state (1974). With one vote they were subject to the decision on co-determination with a decisive vote for the executive employees.
Ostpolitik was a particularly important topic for the young democrats. For example, Federal Chairman Wolfgang Mischnick took part in the "Germany Meeting" of the FDJ in Berlin as early as 1954 and held political talks. In 1959 LSD took part in the World Youth Festival in Vienna. In 1962, the Young Democrats called for the Hallstein Doctrine to be abandoned , according to which the Federal Republic of Germany terminated diplomatic relations with any state that entered into such relations with the GDR. In 1963 the Young Democrats demanded normal political relations with all Eastern Bloc countries, the admission of magazines from the GDR and took part in the 1965 World Youth Festival. Under the federal chairman Baum they officially established contact with the Soviet youth association KMO. Essential principles of the Ostpolitik of the later social-liberal coalition such as "Change through rapprochement" were developed by the Young Democrats and implemented by Walter Scheel as Foreign Minister from 1969 onwards.
Under the influence of the student movement, the young democrats moved comparatively radically to the left by their standards. In contrast to the Young Socialists at the time, there was no link to party membership in the DJD statutes, the FDP was merely recorded as a “parliamentary contact person”. As a result, less than half of the members also belonged to the FDP.
At the same time, the Liberal Student Union of Germany (LSD) , which is close to the FDP, orientated itself to the left during the student movement, separated from the FDP, but broke up as early as 1969 due to internal contradictions because, as an association of bourgeois intellectuals, it was calling for a fundamental reorganization of the economy Social system did not match. The Liberal University Association (LHV) was founded as a successor association in 1972 and was anchored in the party statutes as a student organization at the federal party conference of the FDP in Mainz in 1978. Like the Young Democrats, the LHV fought against the programmatic backward development of the FDP from social to economic liberalism initiated in 1977 by the “Economic Commission” under Otto Graf Lambsdorff . In the United German Student Associations (VDS), the umbrella organization of the political student associations, the LHV and the JuSo university groups formed alternating coalitions with the undogmatic left “basic groups” and the Marxist-oriented and DKP-related MSB Spartakus and the Socialist University Association, which from the SPD was replaced by the JuSo university groups and organized strikes and decentralized actions against tightening of study programs, numerus clausus, professional bans and job cuts at universities.
As early as the 1970s, there were individual attempts to set up Young Liberals as a party-compliant competitive organization against the Young Democrats . Splinter groups also called themselves Social Liberal Youth (SLJ) or Sozialliberaler Hochschulverband (SLH), which was financed in Tübingen by the Ring of Christian Democratic Students (RCDS).
Social Liberal Coalition
Since the replacement of Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger's government by Willy Brandt (“dare more democracy”) and Walter Scheel , the young democrats have also worked increasingly in the parliamentary area. These few years shaped the new self-image of the DJD. In their “Leverkusen Manifesto” they stipulated that power and rule must be broken or controlled, and that Marxist approaches were developed and included.
Since 1967, the Young Democrats increasingly advocated the “two-way strategy”: the Jusos later came to know this strategy as the “double strategy”. That meant being present at parliamentary level, but also doing "grassroots work" in order to fundamentally break power relations. According to this, on the one hand, action should be taken in the institutions - i.e. FDP, trade unions etc. - and on the other hand, action should be taken in the extra-parliamentary area ( APO ). 1970 in the Bonn Manifesto of the DJD "... the strategy of the two ways" is criticized, because it has "only concealed the practicing priority of efforts to the FDP" "and the other way is essentially limited to verbal radical protests." In the Bonn Manifesto is rejected capitalism and gave preference to “socialism over liberalism” - in terms of the idea but not in terms of practice. Federal Chairman Heiner Bremer moderately demands: “The DJD must not withdraw from the daily social conflicts, because the DJD thereby loses the opportunity to familiarize itself with larger groups as allies in the struggle for even minor improvements and because it ultimately makes them feel better isolate. “The more the FDP turned into a liberal economic party in the years that followed, the more this isolation also occurred.
During this time, Benneter , the then Juso federal chairman, was excluded from the party , who classified the social order as " state monopoly capitalism " (Stamokap). Just in 1972 the DJD elected a woman for the first time as federal chairman: Ingrid Matthäus .
Matthäus' successors didn't make things any easier for the FDP, especially Christoph Strässer . In 1977 the Berlin Judos caused a nationwide echo with the printing of the so-called Buback obituary in their association organ Blatt (which they then published from 1999 together with the Marxist youth association Junge Linke ). As early as the late 1970s, it was clear to the young democrats that the former FDP, shaped by Count Lambsdoff, Josef Ertl and Hans-Dietrich Genscher, did not want to continue with Chancellor Helmut Schmidt . Even the DJD did not particularly like the government policy under Schmidt (such as the infamous Pershing retrofitting decision). The young democrats had therefore been preparing for a separation from the FDP years earlier.
After the turning point in Bonn in 1982
The change of coalition of the FDP on October 1, 1982 (overthrow of the SPD / FDP government by the CDU / CSU / FDP) was the long awaited signal. Thereupon the Federal Conference of Young Democrats in Bochum decided unanimously on November 27, 1982 to separate from the FDP - by deleting the FDP as parliamentary contact person from its own statutes.
Two years earlier, a rival, newly founded youth association had tried in vain to be recognized by the FDP as a replacement youth association: The Young Liberals . Here, noticeably young people with national pathos first gathered. Your next federal chairman, who was pursuing a career in the FDP, was then called Guido Westerwelle . He and the "Julis" were welcomed by the FDP when they lost their youth association DJD.
The Young Democrats first initiated the establishment of the Liberal Democrats (LD). The previous left-liberal mandate holders of the FDP, also outraged about the FDP turnaround, could not decide to found an alternative party. Former Interior Minister Gerhart Baum , Hildegard Hamm-Brücher and Friedrich Hölscher remained in the FDP. They counted on a hoped-for “reconsideration” in the FDP, even if that failed thoroughly at the following FDP federal party congress in Berlin: After bitter discussions , the turning point towards and with Helmut Kohl was largely recognized.
Instead, most of the left-wing liberal parliamentarians believed that they could save the FDP with a “liberal association”, including the former young democrat Günter Verheugen from North Rhine-Westphalia . The DJD tried to establish the Liberal Democrats without their support, as a deliberate attempt to split the FDP and to dig up its progressive part of the members and voters. Ulrich Krüger became the first federal chairman of the LD . It soon became clear that the Liberal Democrats, despite their supraregional prominence, would hardly get beyond the status of a splinter party in the next state elections .
In the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, the Young Democrats worked relatively closely with the Greens . With the party's permanent indecision and the increasing professionalization of Green Party work, the yearning for its own youth organization grew, which led to the founding of the Green Youth . This establishment loosened the cooperation with the young democrats. Some young democrats, such as B. Claudia Roth , and Roland Appel were later able to rise to full-time politicians with the Greens. Others, such as the then Baden-Wuerttemberg DJD state chairman Jürgen Gneiten, operated the dissolution of the association in favor of the Greens.
Time of transition in the GDR and German unification
After the reunification in the GDR , cooperation with the Marxist youth association Junge Linke started in spring 1990 . Together they developed the concept of an independent, radical democratic left youth association and aimed at a merger. At a joint federal delegate conference in March 1992, the DJD and the MJV Junge Linke finally merged under the name Young Democrats / Young Left (JD / JL). In the course of this, an east-west parity was set in all committees for a transitional period. Delegates Steffen Gerbsch (Bad Kreuznach) and Alexander Weiß (Berlin-East) elected equal chairmen.
Between 1990 and 1994 several members of the MJV Junge Linke belonged to the Saxon State Parliament as part of the Left List / PDS parliamentary group. Later, some former members of JD / JL were represented in various state parliaments via the PDS or Die Linke . B. Benjamin-Immanuel Hoff , Steffen Zillich (both Berlin ) or Heike Werner (Saxony).
In the 1990s, the debate between the radical democratic and the anti-national wing dominated the work of the association. In 1999 the anti-nationalists finally left the association and founded the Young Left against Capital and Nation , which was initially mainly active in Lower Saxony, Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg and Thuringia.
Until their dissolution in 2018, the Young Democrats / Young Left were positioned independently or across parties in the left spectrum and were most recently politically left of the Left Party. They separated the commitment to radical democracy from purely socialist positions . The 19th German Bundestag includes four former young democrats, Matthias W. Birkwald , Pascal Meiser (both Die Linke), Claudia Roth (B'90 / Greens) and Wolfgang Kubicki (FDP), with the latter holding the office of Vice President .
Reich and federal chairmen
| Term of office | Chairman |
|---|---|
| Weimar Republic | |
| 1919-1920 | Max Wiessner |
| 1920-1923 | Heinrich Landahl |
| 1923 | Werner Fischl |
| 1923-1930 | Ernst Lemmer |
| 1930-1933 | Hellmuth hunter |
| Federal Republic | |
| 1947-1949 | Nicolaus Schücking |
| 1949-1952 | Theodor barefoot |
| 1952-1954 | Arnold Hoffmeister |
| 1954-1957 | Wolfgang Mischnick |
| 1957-1958 | Hermann Dürr |
| 1958–1962 | Gerhard Daub |
| 1962-1964 | Günther Kastenmeyer |
| 1964-1966 | Karl Holl |
| 1966-1968 | Gerhart Baum |
| 1968-1970 | Wolfgang Lüder |
| 1970-1972 | Heiner Bremer |
| 1972-1973 | Ingrid Matthäus |
| 1973-1974 | Friedrich Neunhöffer |
| 1974-1976 | Theo Schiller |
| 1976-1988 | Hanspeter Knirsch |
| 1978-1981 | Christoph Strässer |
| 1981-1983 | Werner Lutz |
| 1983-1985 | Martin Budich |
| 1985-1987 | Dagmar Everding |
| 1987-1989 | Ernst-Christoph Stolper |
| 1989-1991 | Markus Büchting |
| 1991-1992 | Frank-Oliver Sobich |
Well-known DJD members
From the time of the political upheaval of the young democrats from 1967 to around 1982, there were personalities who, after their young democratic days, had a considerable career or political advancement nationwide. Many left the FDP by 1982 at the latest and found their way back to the SPD or the Greens. Some are on the left today, very few are still in the FDP or even in a right-wing liberal camp. Well-known DJD members from this period and their particular career steps are listed below as examples of political changes:
- Hartmut Aden : 1978–82 DJD state chairman in Lower Saxony, since 2010 professor of public law at the Berlin School of Economics and Law
- Roland Appel : 1976–77 DJD state chairman Baden-Württemberg, 1979–83 deputy. DJD federal chairman and treasurer, 1981–82 federal chairman of the LHV and member of the FDP federal executive committee , from 1983 research assistant in the parliamentary group “ The Greens ”, 1990–2000 member of the parliament in North Rhine-Westphalia, parliamentary group chairman of the “Greens” in the state parliament in the red green coalition with Johannes Rau
- Gerhart Baum : 1966–68 DJD Federal Chairman, 1978–82 Federal Minister of the Interior, 1978–92 member of the FDP Federal Presidium, member of the FDP to this day
- Peter Becker : Deputy DJD State Chairman Hesse, long-standing successful civil rights attorney in proceedings against professional bans, conscientious objection, nuclear power plant safety and energy decentralization
- Hans-Jürgen Beerfeltz : DJD and LSD member since 1969, long-time deputy. Head of the Federal Agency for Civic Education , FDP Federal Managing Director , 2009-2013 State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development
- Matthias W. Birkwald : 1990–1994 full-time youth education officer and honorary state manager at the state board of young democrats / young leftists in North Rhine-Westphalia. PDS member since 1993, member of the Bundestag since 2009 and spokesman for pension policy for the parliamentary group “ DIE LINKE. ", Since 2014 its parliamentary managing director and since 2018 deputy. Chairman of the Bundestag Committee for Labor and Social Affairs.
- Heiner Bremer : 1970–71 DJD national chairman, 1986–89 Stern editor-in-chief, then Springer-Verlag , RTL , n-tv
- Hinrich Enderlein : Member of the Young Democrats in Baden-Württemberg, since 1972 deputy. State chairman of the FDP Baden-Württemberg, member of the Hamburg committee against professional bans, 1972-88 member of the Baden-Württemberg state parliament, 1990-94 education minister in Brandenburg
- Dagmar Everding : 1985–86 DJD federal chairwoman, professor for architecture and sustainable urban development at Nordhausen University
- Wolfgang Grenz : Active young democrat in Cologne and North Rhine-Westphalia in the 1970s and 80s, chairman of the Liberal Center (Cologne), lawyer, 2011-2013 Secretary General of Amnesty International
- Bernd Hadewig : 1969 DJD chairman in the Pinneberg district , 1972–74 Schleswig-Holstein FDP state chairman, 1975–83 FDP member of the state parliament in Schleswig-Holstein
- Burkhard Hirsch : 1959–64 DJD regional council president North Rhine-Westphalia, 1976–80 Minister of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia, 1976–2005 member of the FDP federal executive committee, 1979–83 state chairman of the FDP North Rhine-Westphalia , 1983–2002 member of the Bundestag, 1994–98 vice-president of the German Bundestag, still a member of the FDP
- Karl Holl : 1964–66 national chairman of the DJD, from 1971 professor for contemporary and party history at the University of Bremen
- Georg Hundt : 1978–82 deputy DJD federal chairman, 1982–84 federal managing director of the " Liberal Democrats ", member of the state board of North Rhine-Westphalia of the BUND , founder of the "Fahrradstation Münster "
- Michael Kleff : 1976-77 Deputy DJD federal chairman and treasurer, employee of the left-liberal “pool” in the Bundestag ( Helga Schuchardt , Gerhart Baum), freelance journalist WDR, DLF and music editor since 1983, temporarily member of “Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen”
- Hanspeter Knirsch : 1976–77 DJD federal chairman, from 1979 parliamentary group chairman of the FDP council group in Bochum , 1982 resigned from the FDP and founded the “Liberal Democrats” (LD), 1990 joined the SPD
- Wolfgang Kubicki : 1975–76 DJD state chairman in Schleswig-Holstein, 1992, 2000 and 2005 top candidate of the FDP in the Schleswig-Holstein state elections, since 2017 Vice-President of the German Bundestag
- Jürgen Kunze : 1969–72 DJD state board member Berlin , at the beginning of the 1980s state chairman of the FDP Berlin, professor, later rector of the FHW Berlin and founding rector of the OTA University in Berlin
- Roland Kutzki : 1969–71 DJD state chairman of Bremen, from 1971 a member of the SPD, 1990–2004 head of the urban development, urban development and urban renewal department of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
- Wolfgang Lüder : 1967–70 DJD regional chairman of Berlin, 1968–70 DJD federal chairman, 1975–81 FDP senator in Berlin, 1987–95 FDP member of the Bundestag
- Ingrid Matthäus-Maier : 1972 DJD federal chairwoman, from 1982 SPD member, 1988–92 deputy SPD parliamentary group chairwoman, until 2008 chairwoman of the board of the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW)
- Wolfgang Mischnick : 1954–57 DJD federal chairman, 1954–91 member of the FDP federal executive committee and 1968–91 chairman of the FDP parliamentary group
- Jürgen Morlok : Deputy DJD state chairman in Baden-Württemberg, 1978–84 FDP state chairman, 1972–84 member of the state parliament, since 1996 chairman of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation's board of trustees
- Friedrich Neunhöffer, Baden-Württemberg: 1973–74 DJD federal chairman, 1971 to 2019 member of the Stuttgart-Mitte district advisory board for the FDP, from 1982 then the SPD and from 2005 for the Left
- Volker Perthes : Deputy DJD regional chairman North Rhine-Westphalia, 1982–83 editor-in-chief of "Liberalen Drucksachen", professor, since 2005 director of the German Institute for International Politics and Security and executive chairman of the Science and Politics Foundation (SWP)
- Jürgen Reents : 1969 member of the DJD state board in Bremen, 1980 co-founder of "Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen", 1983-85 member of the Green Party, PDS member since 1998, 1999-2012 editor-in-chief of " Neues Deutschland "
- Florian Rödl : from 2002 Deputy Federal Chairman of the Young Democrats / Young Left, since 2016 Professor of Civil and Labor Law at the Free University of Berlin
- Claudia Roth : 1971–90 young democrat, from 1987 press spokeswoman for the “Greens” parliamentary group, 1990–94 member of the European Parliament , from 1994 member of the Bundestag and federal chairwoman of “Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen”
- Irmingard Schewe-Gerigk : DJD member in the Ennepe-Ruhr district association, 1994–2009 member of the Bundestag for "Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen"
- Theo Schiller : 1974–76 DJD federal chairman, 1974–80 member of the FDP federal executive committee, 1983–85 deputy. Federal Chairman of the “Liberal Democrats”; since 1973 professor of political science in Marburg and 1997–2001 vice president of the University of Marburg
- Andreas von Schoeler : Member of the SPD from 1982, 1976–82 Parliamentary State Secretary , 1991–95 Lord Mayor of Frankfurt / Main
- Helga Schuchardt : around 1970 member of the DJD federal executive committee, from 1982 independent, 1983–87 Hamburg Senator for Culture , 1990–98 Minister of Education for Lower Saxony
- Christian Schwarzenholz : 1970 Deputy DJD state chairman of Lower Saxony, from 1986 member of "Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen", 1994–2003 member of the state parliament in Lower Saxony and temporarily environmental policy spokesman for the “Green” parliamentary group, 1999 transfer to the PDS and 2000–2003 member of the federal executive committee, until 2016 head of department in the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Environment
- Christoph Strässer : 1977–82 DJD federal chairman, from 1982 SPD member, including 1993–2007 chairman of the SPD sub-district of Münster, candidate for mayor, 2002–2017 SPD member of the Bundestag, a. a. 2014–2016 Human Rights Commissioner of the Federal Government and member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
- Günter Verheugen : 1967 DJD state chairman in North Rhine-Westphalia, 1977 FDP federal manager, 1978 FDP general secretary, from 1982 SPD member, 1983–98 SPD member of the Bundestag, 1998 Minister of State , 1999 member of the EU Commission
See also
- Young Democrats / Young Left
- Socially Liberal Youth
- Radical democratic youth
- Young left against capital and nation
swell
Documents on the DJD and the LHV can be found in the Archives of Liberalism of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Gummersbach and in the Green Memory Archives of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin.
literature
- Literature by and about German Young Democrats in the catalog of the German National Library
- Roland Appel , Michael Kleff (ed.): Realize basic rights - fight for freedom. 100 years of young democrats. Academia Verlag, Baden-Baden 2019. ISBN 3-89665-800-X .
- Michael Kleff: 30 years of young democrats - a historical review. In: liberal 19, 1977, pp. 295-299.
- Wolfgang R. Krabbe : The failed future of the First Republic. Youth organizations of bourgeois parties in the Weimar state (1918–1933). Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 1995, ISBN 3-531-12707-1 .
- Wolfgang R. Krabbe: Party youth in Germany: Young Union, Young Socialists and Young Democrats 1945–1980. Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2002, ISBN 3-531-13842-1 .
- Hans-Otto Rommel: The Weimar Young Democrats In: liberal 13, 1971, pp. 915-924.
- Hans-Otto Rommel: The German Young Democrats after 1945. In: liberal 22, 1980, pp. 563-573.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Federal Board LD for the dissolution of the Federal Association of Young Democrats / Young Left (JD / JL). Liberal Democrats, accessed August 11, 2018 .
- ^ Basic program of the DJD from November 1967.
- ↑ Bonn Manifesto of the DJD from 1970.
- ↑ Heiner Bremer: On the Self-Understanding of Young Democrats , in: liberal , Heft 6, 1971.
- ↑ Gunter Hofmann in BONNER BÜHNE: “For golden beds and thick gemstones?” , Zeit.de, accessed on May 19, 2015.
- ^ Leaf: Newspaper of the Young Democrats and the Marxist Youth Association (MJV) Junge Linke , socialhistory.org, accessed on May 19, 2015.
- ↑ Thomas Bleskin: Young Democrats and "Young Left" united. In: New Germany . March 28, 1992. Retrieved December 5, 2018 .
- ↑ Stuttgarter Zeitung of January 21, 1973
- ↑ Homepage of Dagmar Everding at the Nordhausen University of Applied Sciences.
- ^ Homepage of Frank-Oliver Sobich .
- ^ Homepage of Hartmut Aden at the Berlin School of Economics and Law.
- ^ Munzinger archive .
- ↑ Biography of Michael Kleff at the German Record Critics' Prize .
- ^ Homepage of Florian Rödl at the Free University of Berlin .