Young National Federation

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The Jungnationale Bund ( Junabu ) was an association within the Bündische Jugend during the Weimar Republic . The federation was founded in 1921 as a split from the right-wing conservative and monarchist German National Youth Association (DNJ). The Junabu saw itself as an “education union” for political renewal and rejected parliamentary democracy . After a small wing of the Junabu had split off as the Jungnationaler Bund - Deutsche Jungenschaft in 1924 , the remaining Junabu - Bund deutscher Jugend merged with the Greater German Youth Association to form the Freischar Junge Nation , while the Junabu - Deutsche Jungenschaft has been trading as Junabu again since 1933 . Members of this union resisted National Socialism and were brought to court in 1937 in a sensational trial in Essen.

The Young National Federation split off from the German National Youth Federation in 1921

At the time, the DNJ was deliberately not organized according to the model of the leagues of the youth movement , but was primarily intended to serve as military training. At the beginning of the 1920s, the union had around 35,000 members and was hierarchically led by civil dignitaries and former officers. Some members of the DNJ oriented themselves differently. Some of them had already been influenced by the Wandervogel , some belonged to the Young German Confederation or were close to the German National Action Aid Association (DHV). The folk-national Neufichteanism of the Fichte Society of 1914 around Wilhelm Stapel and Hans Gerber was also powerful . At the beginning of October 1920, Alfred Diller (DHV) and Heinz Rocholl presented a corresponding new program at the 2nd Bundestag of the DNJ. Under the condition that youth are “conservative and revolutionary at the same time”, they coined the term “young national”.

The tensions culminated at the 3rd Bundestag of the DNJ in Nuremberg on August 8, 1921. The north-west German state associations in particular undertook a reorientation. Following the appeal of Heinz Dähnhardt from Hamburg , the Jungnationale Bund was founded . At the same time, the young German land drivers under Edmund Neuendorff broke away from the DNJ, parts of which were later to join the Junabu . Initially under the leadership of Admiral Reinhard Scheer , 250 groups joined the Junabu by 1923. The number of members between the ages of 12 and 25 is estimated at 7,000. At the first federal chapter in June 1922, Heinz Dähnhardt was appointed federal leader.

Boys and girls were organized in the federal government. Junabu 's image of women was ambivalent with regard to political orientation. The aim of the girls should be “the future wife and mother”. While politics should be reserved for men, the task of women was given as “national education”, which was understood to mean “grasping and understanding our national fate”.

The wolf angel was chosen as the symbol of the covenant, and blue and silver were chosen as the colors of the “ cord ” that should be worn as a distinguishing mark with the blue-gray driving shirt. The federal magazine was Der Bannerträger .

The split of the Young National Federation in 1923

At the leadership conference held in Marburg on Easter 1923 , Dähnhardt handed over the leadership to the national revolutionary Hans Ebeling , who appointed a new leadership. Ebeling, who came from Krefeld , took the Ruhr occupation as an opportunity to force Junabu to participate in the active resistance against the French occupation, with the aim of revising the Versailles Peace Treaty , which was perceived as "servitude" . He worked towards transforming the Junabu into a "boys' union", which would act as a preliminary stage to the military-friendly "team". Ebeling received support from all parts of Junabu for his project ; But there was also strong opposition, especially Hamburg bundlers in Junabu . This opposition relied on "internal renewal" instead of violent resistance and sabotage .

The alienation, which was already evident at the Marburg Bundestag in May 1923, manifested itself in August 1923, when Ebeling wanted to reassign the federal leadership at the Führer conference in Plauen . A minority under Kurt Niemann (1901-?) Refused to recognize this new leadership. Ebeling then laid down the federal leadership on December 21, 1923 and converted the Gau Westmark, which he directed, into a pure boys' union. The opposition declared on April 7, 1924, that they wanted to maintain the character of the community union of boys and girls. Dähnhardt was elected as interim federal leader and a new Bundestag convened for Pentecost 1924 in Goslar . The old federal administration around Ebeling set a camp for this time . In this way, the division of Junabu into a Junabu - Bund deutscher Jugend and a JuNaBu - Deutsche Jungenschaft became official. Ebeling also took over the federal magazine Der Bannerträger as a sheet of the Jungschaft , while Junabu published the magazines Das Banner , Wehrwolf , Mädel im Bunde and Jungnational Voices .

The Jungnationale Bund - Bund deutscher Jugend (1924–1930)

At the beginning of 1925, Dähnhardt handed over the federal management of the Junabu - Bund deutscher Jugend to the Silesian engineering student Fritz Zühl. Under his leadership, the first cross-border trips were organized, such as a trip to Hohenstein in East Prussia together with the successor to the DNJ, the Greater German Youth Association (GDJ), and the German Scout Association . These trips served not only to establish a covenant way of life and the initiation of a possible large alliance, but also set a political signal for a German claim to the so-called Ostland and against the provisions of the Peace Treaty of Versailles, especially against the Polish corridor . In addition, the Junabu - Association of German Youths attached particular importance to youth work and founded groups of chicks and young girls in addition to Pimpfen and Wölflings groups.

The Junabu promoted trips abroad, especially in border areas and areas with settlements of so-called " ethnic Germans ", and set up a "border and foreign office". Particularly close contacts existed in the Sudeten area . In 1926 the Sudeten German Jungvölkische Bund , to which Josef Mühlberger and Wilhelm Pleyer belonged, joined the Junabu as an independent district .

In March 1926, due to illness, Zühl handed over the federal management to the geologist Karl Rode . He appointed the theology and history student Paul Hövel as Federal Chancellor and Berthaluise von Müller as Federal Girl Leader . A year later, Hermann Schwemer became federal leader. Schwemer began negotiations about the formation of a large alliance, especially with the GDJ. But it was only under Federal Leader Walther Kayser , appointed in 1928, who felt particularly close to the GDJ, that the negotiations made decisive progress. As early as 1929, the Deutschwandervogel joined the JuNaBu - Association of German Youth .

The GDJ had meanwhile united on May 4, 1930 with the German Freischar under the name Deutsche Freischar and under the leadership of Admiral Adolf von Trothas . The Junabu - Association of German Youth under Hövel, the new federal leader since 1929, also joined the new German Freischar on June 18 . But due to various content-related, not least political, differences, the old German Freischar broke this connection after a few months. GDJ and JuNaBu - Bund deutscher Jugend (Bund deutscher Jugend) formed the group of young nationals on October 2, 1930 . Trotha took over the federal leadership, Hövel the chancellorship and von Müller the joint girls' organization. The organ of the Junabu - Association of German Youth for the Elderly, the Young National Voices , founded in 1926 , was continued under the same name.

The Jungnationale Bund - Deutsche Jungenschaft

In the meantime, Hans Ebeling continued his Junabu - German Young Society. This union was limited almost exclusively to the former Gau Westmark and had around 300 members. Ebeling mainly worked as a journalist and from December 1929 to January 1933 published the magazine Der Vordampf with a strictly social and national revolutionary attitude. Above all, he turned against the West and what he saw as the "integration of Germany into the West". In the autumn of 1928 he and the Freischar Schill under Werner Lass issued a corresponding young national declaration as a “challenge”. Ebeling accused the youth movement of having become a reaction , while the German youth could only decide in favor of the German revolution.

While the Freischar Junge Nation in 1933 was transferred to the Greater German Confederation , which was dissolved on June 17, 1933 , Ebeling again used the simple name of the Jungnationaler Bund for its Krefeld-based Bund Whitsun 1932 . At the beginning of 1934, this union dissolved itself. Ebeling went into exile in August 1934 and, together with Theo Hespers , who came from the church youth movement, organized the resistance of some now illegal alliance groups in the Netherlands .

As early as the fall of 1935, the Secret State Police arrested 30 to 40 members of the Junabu community . In June 1937 twelve federal leaders were tried before the People's Court in Essen . This so-called “Junabu trial” did not have the desired deterrent effect on the illegal alliance groups, because the accused used the opportunity to aggressively attack the state. One of the accused, Karl Wegerhoff, died in unexplained circumstances, allegedly by suicide while in custody. The process ended with high prison sentences. Ebeling meanwhile organized a protest campaign abroad and tried to bring together all emigrants of the youth movement, including the church and political youth movement. For the Secret State Police, this made Ebeling one of “the greatest enemies of National Socialism”.

Political orientation of the young national federation

The Junabu saw itself as a decidedly political youth league and moved within the spectrum of the radical right without wanting to join any particular party. In its early days, the Junabu was financially supported by the DVP politician Katharina von Oheimb . About Dähnhardt and the theologian Friedrich Brunstad , who as "spiritual patron" of Junabu was, standing Junabu the Christian Socialist wing of the German National People's Party and the Conservative People's Party close. There were also close ties to the German National Sales Aid Association , while Ebeling's Jungnationaler Bund - Deutsche Jungenschaft is counted as part of National Bolshevism .

The aim of Junabu was a “state of youth” with a covenant spirit. The democracy of the Weimar Republic was rejected as destructive and hostile to the people. The Junabu instead propagated the idea of a " national community " in which the workers should be integrated into state and society. In terms of foreign policy, the federal government advocated "overcoming the Versailles Treaty". Under Kayser, for example, from 1928 onwards, on the tenth anniversary of the armistice, the raising of a black flag at all meetings and camps in Junabu was proclaimed as a sign of "resistance and the struggle for freedom". The Junabu also participated in charge at the "Protest of German youth" against the Young Plan . Domestically, the Junabu rejected parliamentary democracy and represented ideas that were based on Arthur Moeller van den Bruck's conception of a “ Third Reich ”. Contrary to the description in Werner Kindt's influential collective work , the Junabu adopted a racial anti-Semitism and rejected membership of Jews who were viewed as “not of German blood” on principle.

At the same time, the Junabu, together with other groups of the youth movement , endeavored to establish a political union. Dähnhardt suggested the formation of a contact committee with representatives of other youth groups, the so-called Spandauer Kreis. This circle dissolved when the Junabu took part in the protests against the Young Plan.

In the work ring Junge Front , initiated in autumn 1928 by Karl Otto Paetel , members of the Junabu were represented as well as representatives of such diverse groups as the German Freischar , the Artam Federation and the Federation of Free Socialist Youth . The Arbeitsring Junge Front found sympathy with Hans Zehrer and Ernst Niekisch . The aim was to achieve an " anti-capitalist union from right to left ". The definition of “socialism” developed by the working group in 1929 was: “Socialism is an attitude , a human attitude that thinks in terms of us instead of self. We became socialists as members of the Bundische Jugend, whose attitude towards life is collectivist- socialist. ”But although the working ring continued to exist in various forms until 1933 and became part of Paetel's group of Social Revolutionary Nationalists , the attempted bridge between the extreme left and the extreme right failed.

The anti-capitalist rhetoric of " Prussian socialism " also found an echo in the Hitler Youth . Towards the end of the 1920s, some members of the Junabu also saw the political future in the emergence of National Socialism . Within the Bundische Jugend, the Junabu kept losing members to the Hitler movement; In 1929 and 1930 there were even mass crossovers, in which entire districts switched to the NS youth associations. Artur Axmann, for example, transferred the Berlin-Brandenburg district of Junabu to the Hitler Youth in 1929 . Other leading members of the Hitler Youth from the ranks of Junabu were Gotthart Ammerlahn , Friedrich Kopp and Artur Grosse . On the other hand, the Junabu distanced itself from National Socialism as a political mass movement that ran counter to Junabu's elitist self- image. Walther Kayser told Hermann Schwemer in 1929:

“In many parts of the National Socialist movement there is a certain tendency towards optimism for progress and the like. to improve the world, to iconoclasm and the like to witch madness, to superstition u. to the lust for destruction, which is no less impious u. is unhistorical, uprooted and corrosive than the hostile [sic] powers of liberalism and the like. of Marxism . The German future, however, does not need a new liberalism with a National Socialist sign, etc. not an overturned Marxism, but a conservative revolution carried by deeply rooted, essential forces out of awe and Faith, from tradition and Reality, out of bond and Responsibility."

- Walther Kayser : Letter to Hermenn Schwemer (October 1929)

In 1929, Dähnhardt formulated programmatically about the so-called "Young Right":

“Those are serious about the young political front, they are already quietly serving in it. They entered the work of the Reichswehr , the state administration, the foreign service , the economic and professional corporations , and they are united in one spirit and one conviction. Nobody yet knows who the leaders of this front will be, nobody knows the success of their struggle. Nothing else counts than listening to time, fulfilling the meaning given up in it and thereby challenging fate. "

- Heinz Dähnhardt : Young Rights , (October 1929)

Representatives of Junabu joined the political network that Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher tried to socialize. Under Schleicher, the Reichswehr Ministry not only dealt increasingly with questions that went far beyond the actual departmental tasks, but also sought close relationships with the youth movement. Walter Kayser was employed as an employee of the Wehrmacht department. Via Dähnhardt, the Reichswehr Ministry maintained a constant connection to the umbrella organization of the youth associations, the Reich Committee of German Youth Associations . At the beginning of October 1932, through the Reich Committee, Schleicher's “young people” made contact with the Left, through the managing director of the Reich Committee, the Social Democrat Hermann Maass . On December 24, 1932, the Schleicher government also established an emergency work for German youth with the aim of employing unemployed young people and preventing them from further political radicalization.

Leading members of Junabu made careers during National Socialism , Dähnhardt and Hövel, for example, as ministerial officials. Also members of Junabu were Karl Nabersberg , Karl Heinz Pfeffer , Werner Koeppen and Werner Best . Later resistance fighters such as Hans-Alexander von Voss also came from the ranks of Junabu .

Positions of the young national voices

In the association journal Jungnationaleimmen, founded in 1926 in cooperation with the German Academic Guild , various intellectuals such as Heinz-Dietrich and Wieland Wendland , Karl Bernhard Ritter , Hans published under the editorship of Rudolf Craemer and Heinrich Freiherr von Stackelberg (1932) Joachim Iwand , Hans Dombois , Albrecht Erich Günther , Theodor Schieder , Karl Brandi and Arnold Bergstraesser .

The Spiritus rector of Junabu , Friedrich Brunstäd, took the view that in England , France and America a materialistic, individualistic and rationalistic way of thinking was practically reflected in the propagation of parliamentary democracy. On the other hand, he set a “German state idea”, by which he understood the “preservation of the moral community of the Volkstum as the soil” in which every individual existence is rooted. Heinz-Dietrich Wendland also turned against an allegedly advancing Americanization by adopting the guiding principle of democracy and instead wanted to see state thinking on the basis of the Lutheran Reformation . In his essay “The young national movement in the context of the social history of the youth movement” he formulated that the federal government was only “a model of a last one, a spiritual-religious community, the coming 'third' or 'new' kingdom, a divine kingdom on earth. The social ideal of the youth movement, whether it knows it or not, is ultimately religiously colored. ”“ The innermost unity of politics and religion ”is“ the essence of young national people ”.

Wendland also agreed with Carl Schmitt's criticism of parliamentarism , while Albrecht Erich Günther postulated in an essay “Putsch and Revolution” in the Young National Voices in 1928 that the youth movement was “not facing the Weimar Republic as a young force”, but “as the powerless and the present reality completely inadequate shaping of a formerly venerable, but now sinking state idea ”. Giselher Wirsing also formulated the first principles of a völkisch-revisionist understanding of history in the East Political Issue of the Young National Voices in 1930. In recourse to Karl Haushofer's racial borderline doctrine and the idea of German colonization in the East in the Middle Ages, he called for a German irredenta in the inter-European area, which should encompass large parts of the Polish state and the Baltic States .

literature

  • Hans-Christian Brandenburg: The History of the HJ. Paths and aberrations of a generation. Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1982 (2nd edition). ISBN 3-8046-8609-5
  • Michael H. Kater: Bourgeois Youth Movement and Hitler Youth in Germany from 1926 to 1939. In: Archive for Social History 17 (1977), 127–174 online
  • Werner Kindt (Hrsg.): The German youth movement 1920 to 1933. The Bundische Zeit. Source writings. Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1974. ISBN 3-424-00527-4
  • Wolfgang R. Krabbe: Critical followers - uncomfortable disturbers. Studies on the politicization of German youth in the 20th century. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin 2010. ISBN 978-3-8305-1815-0
  • Marion EP de Ras: Body, Eros and Female Culture. Girls in the Wandervogel and in the Bündische Jugend, 1900–1933. Centaurus, Pfaffenweiler 1988, ISBN 3-89085-286-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Wolfgang R. Krabbe: Critical followers - uncomfortable troublemakers. Studies on the politicization of German youth in the 20th century . Berlin 2010, pp. 20f.
  2. ↑ a b c d e The presentation follows Heinz Rautenberg u. Willi Walter Puls: The Young National Federation. Short chronicle . In: Werner Kindt (Hrsg.): The German youth movement 1920 to 1933. The Bundische Zeit. Source writings. Düsseldorf 1974, pp. 489-496.
  3. ↑ de Ras, Body, p. 228.
  4. ↑ Werner Kindt (ed.): The German youth movement 1920 to 1933. The Bundische Zeit. Source writings. Düsseldorf 1974, p. 239.
  5. ^ Michael Jovy: Youth Movement and National Socialism . Münster 1984, p. 24.
  6. ↑ Kindt (Ed.): The German Youth Movement 1920 to 1933, pp. 993–1001, quoted. 993.
  7. ↑ Kindt, youth movement , p. 994.
  8. ^ Arno Klönne: Youth in the Third Reich. The Hitler Youth and their opponents. Düsseldorf 1982, pp. 217-224.
  9. ^ Hellfeld: Bündische Jugend , p. 184. Hans-Christian Brandenburg: The history of the HJ , p. 215-217.
  10. ^ Susanne Rocholz: Hans Eberling [sic and the Weimar Republic. ]
  11. ^ Heinz-Dietrich Wendland: Ways and detours. 50 years of experienced theology 1919–1970. Gütersloh 1977, p. 68.
  12. ↑ Hans-Christian Brandenburg: The history of the HJ. Paths and aberrations of a generation. 2nd ed., Cologne 1982, pp. 82-84.
  13. ↑ Kindt, youth movement , p. 494.
  14. ↑ Cf. “The German Student Union to the Reich Chancellor. Statement on the Young Plan ”, October 16, 1929, in: Files of the Reich Chancellery. Weimar Republic. Edition. The Müller II cabinet, Volume 2, Documents, No. 320. online
  15. ↑ Rautenberg and Puls highlight an article published in the Mädel im Bunde in autumn 1929 , which declared the “Jewish question” to be outdated. Kindt German Youth Movement , p. 495. However, no mention is made of the fact that federal leader Paul Hövel then stated in the Wehrwolf for Junabu that the Jews poisoned the “German blood” and therefore could never “feel young national”. de Ras, Body , p. 228f.
  16. ^ Otto-Ernst Schüddekopf : Left people from the right. The national revolutionary minorities and communism in the Weimar Republic . Stuttgart 1960, p. 334.
  17. ^ Matthias von Hellfeld , Bündische Jugend and Hitlerjugend. The History of Adaptation and Resistance 1930-1939. Cologne 1987, p. 63f.
  18. ^ Walter Laqueur: The German youth movement. A historical study. Cologne 1978, p. 176.
  19. ^ Peter D. Stachura : Nazi Youth in the Weimar Republic . Oxford 1975, p. 209.
  20. ↑ Hans-Christian Brandenburg: The history of the HJ. Paths and wrong turns of a generation . 2nd edition, Cologne 1982, p. 70.
  21. ↑ de Ras, Body , p. 231.
  22. ^ Ascan Gossler: Journalism and Conservative Revolution. The “German Volkstum” as an organ of right-wing intellectualism 1918 - 1933. Münster 2001, p. 196.
  23. ^ Henning Kohler: Labor Service in Germany. Berlin 1967. pp. 203, 210ff.
  24. ↑ Klaus Tanner: The pious nationalization of conscience. On the debate about the legitimacy of the Weimar constitution in constitutional law and theology of the twenties. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1989, ISBN 3-525-55715-9 , p. 210f.
  25. ^ Tanner, Nationalization , p. 195.
  26. ↑ Tanner, Nationalization , pp. 98f., Cited above. 99
  27. ^ Ingo Haar : Historians in National Socialism. German history and the 'national struggle' in the east. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-525-35942-X , p. 83.