Neulandbund

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The Neulandbund (also Neulandbewegung ) was a right-wing, evangelical organization of the women's movement in Germany in the first half of the 20th century with up to 10,000 members.

history

Background and foundation

The teacher Guida Diehl founded in 1912 as a travel secretary of the Evangelical Association for the female youth of Germany various study groups for young women from the educated middle class and led regular "Neuland camps " by. So she wanted to introduce the participants to the evangelical faith and get them excited about it. After her transfer from Frankfurt (Main) to Rotenburg ad Fulda , she was given leave of absence for a year at the beginning of 1914 and continued her efforts to achieve the “inner renewal of the people's core” under the slogan “Struggle for new territory”.

At the beginning of 1916 the magazine “Neuland. A sheet for the intellectually higher aspiring female youth ”, which soon reached a circulation of 10,000. At the end of 1916 Diehl founded the Neulandbund. Functionaries were predominantly educated women from the teaching staff , e.g. B. Student Councilors and Headmasters.

After the First World War

The Neulandbund was initially characterized by the unconditional recognition of the German war aims in the First World War . After the end of the war, the Neulandbund propagated the so-called stab -in-the-back legend , according to which Germany had not lost the war, but had been forced to surrender because of the November Revolution. As a result, an anti-democratic stance emerged, which manifested itself in the consistent rejection of the Weimar Republic . When Diehl joined the German National People's Party (DNVP) in 1918, the Neulandbund moved closer to the right-wing conservative camp. Diehl saw the political goals of the organization in the foreign policy solution of the "national question" by correcting the peace treaty of Versailles and the establishment of a new national consciousness.

In 1920 the headquarters of the Neulandbund was established in the Eisenach "Neulandhaus". Every year a “Neulandtag” was held, at which Wilhelm Kotzde-Kottenrodt from the organization Adler und Falken gave a lecture on the topic of “Unity of the People” as early as 1923 . In the same year the magazine “Neuland” was renamed “Neulandblatt. Renamed for renewed Christianity, for social sentiment, for true Germanness, for courageous action ”.

Under the influence of National Socialism

When leading members of the DNVP approved the Dawes Plan in 1924, the break with the right-wing conservatives and the continued turn to the Völkisch movement came about . On the following new days, more and more people from the Volkish camp appeared. In 1925 the writer Marie Diers gave a lecture on the Völkische movement, in 1927 Max Maurenbrecher appeared for the first time, who in 1929 headed the Neulandtag. In the same year, the Neuland movement supported a referendum against the Young Plan and thus approached the goals of the NSDAP . Contacts existed on the German-Christian Association Greater Germany and the German Bund . In addition to the Neulandbund, Diehl founded a German women's fight against degeneration in popular life in 1926, which had up to 200,000 members at peak times and was controlled by the top management of the Neulandbund around Diehl.

Under the impression of the NSDAP's electoral successes in the Reichstag election in 1930 , Diehl became a member of the party, which resulted in the loss of numerous supporters. In 1931 the Neulandbund withdrew from the union of evangelical women's associations . But the desire for more influence of the Neulandbund on women's and social policy in the National Socialist German Reich was not fulfilled. At the end of 1933 the Neulandbund was rejected as a political force by Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller and leading NSDAP functionaries.

As a result, the federal government increasingly lost its political importance and increasingly turned to religious issues. Under the impression of the November pogroms in 1938, Diehl distanced himself from the persecution of the Jews by the National Socialists and published an article in the “Neulandblatt” entitled “The inviolability of God's laws”. As a result, the Gestapo banned the magazine in mid-1940, a little later the 25th Neulandtag and finally the Neulandbund itself.

After the Second World War

After the end of the Second World War , Diehl decided to continue the Neulandbund on an informal level. At the urging of the regional bishop of Thuringia , she sold the new country house to the Protestant Church to protect it from being confiscated by the Allies . She then leased it back to revive the Neulandbund there. After this lease was terminated in 1956, Diehl moved the secretariat of the Neulandbund into her private home. However, after the Second World War, the Neulandbund no longer acquired any significant political or religious significance.

Programmatic orientation

The original idea of ​​the Neulandbund was in the tradition of the Christian-social wing of Protestantism . Under the influence of the events during and after the First World War, the movement increasingly turned to the teachings of the theologian Adolf Stoecker . In one of her programmatic writings from 1916, Diehl demanded:

“You are called to this struggle, German female youth, especially you educated youth, whom you bear particularly great responsibility due to your preferred situation. You should fight for the renewal of your soul [...] You should fight for the renewal of the educated world of girls [...] You should fight for the emergence of the true god-fearing Germanness in the whole people [...] "

In the 1920s, various program publications appeared in which Diehl accused the bourgeois and evangelical women's associations of lacking national awareness. She developed “national Protestant” ideas and called for a race-specific German Christianity because of the “historical cohesion of true Germanness and Reformation Christianity”. Associated with this was the hope of a re-Christianization of society.

In 1930 the guidelines for the German fight for freedom appeared, in which a racist Christianity was called for.

"" Each of you, dear newcomers, should now follow the remarkable growth of National Socialism with the greatest interest. Something of that turning point is taking place there in the depths of the people's soul that we have always expected. ”[Diehl] A few months later, the supporters of the NLB [Neulandbewegung] committed themselves to National Socialism (NS) in the“ Guidelines for the German Struggle for Freedom ”. . In the same »guidelines« it can be read that »the main racial component« of the Germans is the » Nordic-Germanic race«. "

- Silvia Lange : Protestant women on the way to National Socialism

“Women complain that Hitler said about the fourfold 'K' for women, and they worry that they will be banished to the kitchen, chamber, church and children again. Oh, how grateful we would be if there came a time when the woman was not dragged into the party quarrel, when she would be free again for her most own woman's task, being the man's enthusiast, guardian of custom, mother and priestess. Well, let's start immediately and each of us to exercise these offices: vigorously into the people's kitchen, stir the boiling porridge so that what is fermenting and seething does not evaporate in foam and steam, but remains a good principle. And we know what kind of work we women have to do in secret. As a priestess to strengthen the pious courage in the people, to awaken the pious will in spite of slavery, the pious thirst for freedom, pious anger against dishonor! Oh and how much there is to work in every corner as a motherly woman, to educate, to heal, to enlighten, to teach! Truly, the 4 K call us to serve public life. "

- Helene Meyer : October 1930

Diehl assumed that Adolf Hitler was sent by God. In addition, the program of the Neulandbund was always characterized by an anti-democratic attitude. Although the movement turned away from the National Socialists at the end of the 1930s, it retained its right-wing conservative attitude. In her book “Christians, awake!” Published in 1939, Diehl called for a fundamental renewal of the church and the continuation of the Reformation on behalf of the movement . In her autobiography “To be a Christian means to be a fighter. DieHL sees the guilt for the failure of the Neulandbund with the National Socialists.

Audio

literature

  • Silvia Lange: Guida Diehl's new land movement in the 'fight' against Weimar democracy . In: Traugott Jähnichen , Norbert Friedrich with the collaboration of Christian Illian (Ed.): Protestantism and social question. Profiles in the time of the Weimar Republic (=  Bochum Forum for the History of Social Protestantism . Volume 1 ). Lit Verlag, Münster / Hamburg / London 2000, ISBN 3-8258-3569-3 , p. 217–229 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  • Silvia Lange: Protestant women on the way to National Socialism . Guida Diehl's “Neulandbewegung” 1916–1935 (=  results of women's research . Volume 47 ). J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1998, ISBN 3-476-01596-3 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-476-03738-1 ( limited preview in the Google book search - also separately published appendix, p. 236 ff., with a chronology, detailed list of literature, conferences, publications of the association: "Kampfblätter" and "Schriftenreihe", allied groups, PDF; 8.4 MB [accessed on September 11, 2018]).
  • Geraldine Theresa Horan: Mothers, Warriors, Guardians of the Soul . Female Discourse in National Socialism 1924–1934 (=  Studia Linguistica Germanica . Volume 68 ). de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-017232-1 , chap. 4: Textual analysis, p. 269 ff. (English, German, limited preview in the Google book search [accessed on September 11, 2018] Diehl passim).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Doris L. Bergen: The German Christians 1934-1939 . In: Gerhard Besier with the collaboration of Elisabeth Müller-Luckner (Ed.): Between “national revolution” and military aggression. Transformations in church and society during the consolidated Nazi tyranny (1934–1939) (=  Writings of the Historisches Kolleg (Munich) / Colloquia . Volume 48 ). Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-486-56543-5 , p. 74 .
  2. ↑ a b c Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz:  DIEHL, Guida. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 1, Bautz, Hamm 1975. 2nd, unchanged edition Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-013-1 , Sp. 1286–1289, last change: June 16, 2001.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive  on 30. June 2007 archived memento, accessed June 28, 2016)
  3. ↑ Guida Diehl: German Youth . In: new territory . No. 1 , 1916.
  4. ↑ Gerda Diehl: New territory and politics. In: Treufest. 23/1930, p. 151 (on the guidelines. March 1930).
  5. ↑ Silvia Lange: Protestant women on the way to National Socialism . Guida Diehl's “Neulandbewegung” 1916–1935 (=  results of women's research . Volume 47 ). J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1998, ISBN 3-476-01596-3 , introduction, p. 9 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-476-03738-1 ( limited preview in the Google book search - additions as brackets).
  6. ↑ Silvia Lange: Protestant women on the way to National Socialism . Guida Diehl's “Neulandbewegung” 1916–1935 (=  results of women's research . Volume 47 ). J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1998, ISBN 3-476-01596-3 , introduction, p. 9 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-476-03738-1 ( limited preview in Google book search).