Stormtroop Boy Scouts
The Association of Storm Troop Scouts, a German knighthood of the forest , was founded in 1926 as a scout organization based on the International Organization of Good Templars (IOGT) . The association never had more than 500 members and was the first co-educational scout association in Germany. The name was supposed to express that he saw himself at the head of a renewal movement in the German youth movement . The federal government was characterized by a very intensive federal life.
Creation of the storm troop scouts
From 1923 onwards, young members of the non-alcoholic movement of the International Order of Good Templars spontaneously founded free scout groups. These groups were strongly influenced by the Wandervogel and were in close contact with the New Pathfinders , whose elements and style they continued even after they were absorbed into the German Freischar in 1925 . In the Netherlands , Sweden , Norway and Great Britain there were similar developments in the IOGT , which aimed for a contemporary renewal of youth work and looked for new forms and possibilities.
In 1927 the tribes Jukkasjärvi (Stuttgart), Rüppurr (Karlsruhe) and Wölfe (Mannheim) formed the “Sturmtrupp Süd” within the military lodge. After that , new tribes were founded in many other places in the German Reich , so that “Sturmtrupp Nord” and “Sturmtrupp Mitte” were added to the federal camp on the Hohe Meissner . Other groups were joined by Wandervogel or Boy Scout groups, which were closely related to the Woodcraft movement and who strived for “primeval scouting”. The basis of the “primal scouting” were the books by John Hargrave (The White Fox, Art Solitude, Kibbo Kift , Tribal Education, etc.). After a federal thing in Roßlau an der Elbe, the new association "Storm Troop Scouts, a German Knighthood of the Forest" was founded. Dr. Helmut Hövetborn ( boy scout name : Doctor) and chief field master Erich Mönch (boy scout name: Schnauz).
This federation maintained numerous contacts with scout groups of the IOGT in Scandinavia and the Netherlands and at times there were even efforts to found a transnational Northern European scout association.
Work content
The federal government worked on the basis of Ernest Thompson Seton 's “Doctrine of simple and spiritual life ”. In his ranks he united rough journeymen in the sense of old vagantes and mercenaries , but also sensitive, artistic and intellectual people. Every federal member was required to produce an annual work that was exhibited at the federal camps. In addition, the groups undertook several large trips , mainly to Sweden and Norway. A natural selection took place through the demand for great performance and iron discipline.
The federal government was interdenominational and politically neutral. He was supported by the "Ring of Friends of the Storm Troop", to which parents of the members and the elders of the Federation belonged. The federal font was called Jugendland. 24 issues appeared between Easter 1929 and the end of 1933. Issues 25–27 appeared between 1946 and 1948.
Spread of the federal government
The federal groups were distributed throughout what was then the German Empire , but the focus was on southern Germany . The tribe of the “foxes” in Tübingen and the “gray riders” from Soldin in Neumark are particularly worthy of mention, as they were used as models for Erich Mönch's post-war work. The intellectual sponsor and Reichsfeldmeister of the federal government was the graphic artist Dr. Helmut Hövetborn, who gave the federal government musical impulses from the start. There were no written federal regulations, but the members had to know the core sentences of the federal government. The form of coexistence was a kind of grassroots democracy . In the Bundesthing all tribal leaders were entitled to vote; the tribes held their own things. Based on their example, the leaders demanded absolute allegiance. The storm troop made large trips abroad and also took part in international tent camps with IOGT scout groups from Scandinavia, Great Britain and the USA. In 1927, the federal government acquired a large heather area on a mountain near Döffingen in the Böblingen district . Here, on the so-called “ Jugendland ”, the federal home was built in the log house style.
On May 1, 1932, the federation finally separated from the military lodges after their management rejected the request that the "Storm Troop Scouts" form an independent branch in the Order of Good Templars. Thereupon the groups took off the good templar badge and were an independent scout association.
List of known groups
Founding tribes of the "Sturmtrupp-Süd":
- Tribe Wolves - Mannheim
- Jukkasjärvi tribe - Stuttgart
- Rüppurr tribe - Karlsruhe
Further groups of Sturmtrupp-Süd:
- Girl tribe wild cats - Stuttgart
- Wölfling tribe siskins - Karlsruhe
- Tribe Füchse - Tübingen
- Girl tribe Burg - Tübingen
- Tribe Adler - Rottenburg
Stormtroop North:
- Stamm Grad dör - Bremen
- Widukind tribe - Oldenburg
- Tribe Wiking - Düsseldorf
Stormtroop middle
- Tribe Brown Bears - Berlin
- Tribe of Grauer Reiter - Soldin
- Tribe of Goths - Dessau
Prohibited time
In August 1934, the last federal meeting, already illegally, took place in the youth country, in which almost all federal members took part. Shortly afterwards the last federal order came out, which ordered the self-dissolution; the entire federal inventory was destroyed, the homes burned to forestall integration into the Hitler Youth . But secret meetings and trips continued to take place. After the dissolution of the covenant, the fate of the tribes varied greatly and depended on local conditions. The Karlsruhe groups joined the Reichsschaft Deutscher Scouts , which became a reservoir for the battered youth of the Bund and was soon dissolved. A planned federal trip to North Africa was temporarily converted into a Germany rally with a meeting point in Leipzig in 1934 because of the travel ban.
Dr. Helmut Hövetborn was offered in Stuttgart to join the ban leadership of the Hitler Youth and to bring his tribe to it. He rejected this, pointing out that the covenant had been dissolved and that he had no way of doing anything. This was followed by several arrests and interrogations by the Gestapo . The youth country was transferred to him by the club, assuming all debts, and thus escaped the forced dissolution and confiscation just in time.
The members of the mounted tribe "Grauer Reiter" in Soldin refused to disband and continued to ride through the town in broad daylight in their scout uniform. After being drafted into the military, they fell one by one on the Eastern Front . From these gray riders the name of the later gray rider scouts is derived .
The "Brown Bear Tribe", founded by Erich Mönch (Schnauz) in Berlin in 1928, decided to camouflage itself and joined the youth ban 155 of the young people in Berlin-Kreuzberg as a staff youth group under the name of "Technical Readiness". Their group symbol was the halved arrow lily of the storm troop, which was issued as a Viking grappling hook. Until 1939 the boy scout promise was taken away from the most reliable boys , then this cell of secret alliance work also dissolved on a prepared cue. With that, the Storm Troop Boy Scout Association ceased to exist.
New beginning
After 1945, Dr. Helmut Hövetborn again the remaining members of the federal government and there were considerations of a new association. As early as 1946, the surviving members of the Rüppur tribe met under Ernst Kurzenberger in Ettlingen. In the spring of 1947, the North Baden regional mark was proclaimed with groups in Mannheim, Heidelberg and Karlsruhe. In the same year, the "Tübinger Bund" was founded by Erich Mönch (Schnauz) in Tübingen and licensed by the French military government. On March 14, 1948, the federal field master Dr. Helmut Hövetborn (Dr.) of a heart attack. Richard König (old man) from the Rüppurr founding tribe was elected to succeed him.
The groups maintained connections to Hessian and Bavarian scouts and the secretariat of Dr. Alexander Lion in Bad Aibling , who tried to create a pool for all scouts in Germany with a circular. There were numerous camps and in order to maintain cohesion, the newsletter “Jugendland” was published by the Friends of Former Storm Troop Scouts. In these issues, issue 25–27, the founding of the federal government was discussed very intensively. However, this idea was decided in favor of the commitment in the newly founded " Bund Deutscher Pfadfinder ", into which all youth groups were transferred. It was believed that the federal statutes, in whose creation Erich Mönch was also involved, allowed enough freedom for the groups to have a life of their own, that a musical and artistic development in the spirit of the storm troop scouts appeared possible. In addition, they did not want to stand in the way of the unity of the German scout movement and the acceptance of the International Bureau . Only if the unity of the entire scout movement is not possible should a separate alliance be created.
The further history of the Stormtroop Boy Scouts is closely linked to the history of the Gray Riders . There is still a group of friends of former storm troop scouts within the “Fördergemeinschaft Grauer Reiter eV”, an alliance group of friends and parents to maintain Hohenkrähen Castle for youth work .