Socialist workers' youth

The Socialist Workers' Youth (SAJ) was a socialist youth association in the vicinity of the social democratic parties in Germany and Austria.

Austria

In Austria it existed from 1919 to 1934 as a political youth organization within the framework of the Austrian social democracy . It emerged from the “ Association of Young Workers ”, in 1934 it was banned by the Austro-fascist dictatorship, and the “ Revolutionary Socialist Youth ” (RSJ) continued to operate in illegality until 1938 . The successor organization of the SAJ or the RSJ has been the Socialist Youth Austria (SJÖ) since 1945 .

Germany

It was founded in the Weimar Republic after the merger of the SPD and USPD in 1922 from their youth associations. The Association of German Workers' Youth Associations (VAJV), which is close to the SPD, and the Socialist Proletarian Youth (SPJ), which is close to the USPD , merged to form the SAJ on October 29, 1922. The VAJV with 90,000 members was far larger than the SPJ with 20,000 members. Max Westphal became chairman of the SAJ, and Erich Ollenhauer was his successor in 1928 .

In the second half of 1931 the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAPD) split off from the SPD, with around 5000 members leaving the SAJ and joining the Socialist Youth Association (SJVD) of the SAPD, including Willy Brandt .

On February 28, 1933, all of the SAJ's national newspapers were banned; on June 22, 1933, the SPD and all its subsidiary organizations were banned, including the SAJ, which at that time still had around 50,000 members. Abroad, groups of former SAJ members and SJVD members in exile were formed, where in some cases - as in Prague and Paris - they joined forces with representatives of the former Communist Youth.

After 1945 activists of the SAJ united in West Germany with those of the Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft der Kinderfreunde (both organizations formed falcon groups, such as Jungfalken or Rote Falken ) to form the Socialist Youth of Germany - Die Falken (SJD - Die Falken), which are children, youth and Educators Association understands. The East German SAJ became part of the FDJ .

archive

The archive of the workers' youth movement in Oer-Erkenschwick also collects the estate of the SAJ from Germany, Austria and other European and non-European countries.

literature

• Heinrich Eppe : Socialist Youth in the 20th Century - Studies on the Development and Political Practice of the Worker Youth Movement in Germany. Weinheim-Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-7799-1136-4 .
• Roland Gröschel: The involvement in youth workers' organizations in the Weimar Republic - part of life stories. In: Year Book for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Volume III / 2007.
• Gisela Notz : "and then it was the young workers who shaped me". Women from the SAJ in the German Bundestag. In: Year Book for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Volume II / 2008.

Known members

Other well-known members were:

Etkar André Wilhelm Aron Kurt Barthel Willy Brandt Otto Brenner Ernst Busch Ria Deeg Fritz Erler Walter Fabian Walter Faller Karl mistake Egon Franke Viktor Frankl Wilhelm Grosskopf Walter Haenisch Wilhelm Hahn junior Fritz Huser

Heinz Kühn Bruno Kreisky Fritz Lamm Erwin Lange Erich Lindstaedt Walter Menzel Erich Mückenberger Franz Neumann Paul Nevermann Leonard Nelson Fritz Riwotzki Anton Schmaus Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler Herbert Wehner Fritz Weitzel Eleonore Wolf

Web links

• Overview of the development of the youth associations ( Memento of March 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
• Archives of the workers' youth movement
• Young workers in Germany 1918 to 1945 (NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alexander Schwitanski: The archive of the workers' youth movement . In: Franz-Josef Jelich (Red.): Childhood in the Ruhr area . Klartext-Verlag, Essen 2012, pp. 32–33.
2. ^ Klaus Mlynek : Hahn, (3) Wilhelm, jun. In: Dirk Böttcher , Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein, Hugo Thielen : Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2002, ISBN 3-87706-706-9 , p. 147; online through google books