Young Bundschuh

Junge Bundschuh was a little-known group of escape helpers who mainly dealt with hiding Allied fighter pilots, fugitive prisoners of war and foreign workers during World War II . The group consisted mostly of farmers, railroad workers and miners. Important places of asylum where escape groups could be hidden for longer periods were Lichtental near Baden-Baden (Eckhöfe) and Bietschied (today the municipality of Heusweiler in Saarland).

The group tried to smuggle refugees into France and Belgium . But the route via Alsace to Switzerland was also used.

The political orientation seems to have been indifferent. Former Social Democrats and Communists were, alongside professing Catholics , in the minority. The connection to France was maintained through the then illegal Masonic lodges of the French railroad workers.

The memory of this group has been almost completely lost in the main locations of their work, as escape assistance was not viewed as resistance but as treason in post-war Germany, which generally did not recognize many forms of resistance as such.