The Bünde vs Hitler Youth
The German youth movement arose around the turn of the century and is very similar to our own ‘hippy movement’ but with a more nationalist bent . The Bunde is an evolution of German youth culture that took place after the first world war, which saw it become more radical and right wing (the Altright would be our American equivalent). The author presents the Hitler Youth as a kind of skinhead group in comparison to the middle-class intellectuals of the German scene. I can’t say for sure if this is an accurate representation, but the class divide and the ‘optics’ debate seems to have never ended.
National Socialism came to power as the party of youth. Its cult of youth may have been less pronounced than that of Italian Fascism, whose very hymn was called ‘Giovinezza’; but Hitler lost few opportunities of declaring that his movement was inter allia a revolt of the coming generation against all that was senile and rotten with decay. Yet for all their claims to represent youth, the National Socialists never succeeded in establishing a strong youth movement of their own before 1933. All through the twenties the Hitler Youth remained a negligible force, and in 1933, when it became part of the state apparatus, it lost whatever spontaneity or independence it may ever have had.
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However, the leaders of the right wing Bunde, sympathetic though they might be to the principles of National Socialism, came to realize that the National Socialist professions of sympathy for the youth movement were not very sincere. While, in 1932, the Hitler Youth leader in Berlin was complaining that proletarian groups distrusted youth leaders with a Bundisch past, the Bunde were growing no less suspicious of the Hitler Youth, whose rowdy and brawling behavior repelled them. Even members of the National Socialist party were critical of the human material collected by the Hitler Youth. Holfelder, the first leader of the ‘Artamans’, wrote a long letter to Hitler in 1925, urging that local National Socialist leaders should be instructed to refuse membership for former members of the ‘Artamans’ who were on the ‘wanted’ list of the police for robbery, murder, or living on the earning of prostitutes. (This throws a revealing light not only upon Hitler’s party but also on the more ‘elitist’ ‘Artamans.’) Prominent members of right wing Bunde made repeated complaints of drinking orgies among the Hitler Youth and, in general, of the lack of appreciation of the youth movement shown by National Socialism. One of them wrote that if Hitler’s companions would only show a greater measure of understanding of the psychology of the youth movement, they would count many more members of the Bunde in their ranks.
As time went by, the leaders of the Hitler Youth tended to assume a more and more hostile attitude towards the youth movement, even towards the Bunde, whose ideology was closely related to their own. Gruber wrote, in the Volkischer Beobachter, that the Bunde had ‘played a dishonorable part’ and that they had ridiculed as no genuine part of the youth movement (Unjugendbewegt). Even more unfriendly was Baldur von Schirach, who said that ‘the youth movement had trained cowards and egoists to hunt after chimeras.’ ‘Empty phrases’ and ‘nationalist philistines’ were among the epithets hurled at the Bunde by spokesmen for the Hitler Youth, who attacked them as unteachable sentimentalists indulging in moonlight romanticism, aristocrats of the youth movement who would never soil their hands to support the proletariat in its struggle, indifferent to the suffering of the working class, etc. For in the early days such anti-capitalist, quasi-revolutionary language played a great part in Hitler Youth propaganda; they found it necessary in order to compete successfully with left wing groups during that decade of acute economic crisis: indeed, their official title in those days was ‘Hitler Youth, Bunde of German Working-Class Youth’. All the same, they were never very successful in left wing centers such as for instance, Berlin. Before 1933, there main strongholds were in Austria (Carinthia and Upper Austria), and in North Germany (Hanover, Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony).
The Hitler Youth leaders’ enmity towards the Bunde is easily understood, for to a certain extent they were competitors. The attitude of the party leaders (as distinct from leaders of the Hitler Youth) was more complex and ambiguous. None of those nearest the top had been members of the youth movement in their early days, though some of the second rank had belonged to the Wandervogel or the Bunde. Hitler himself had no use for the youth movement; he had the same contempt for it as for the volkische splinter groups. For him, ‘Wandervogel’ was a term of derision: he called Otto Strasser a ‘political wandervogel’ after his defection in 1930. Goebbels took more interest in the youth movement; so, did Hess and also Rosenberg, the principle ideologist at that time, who eulogized ‘beautiful romanticism’ of the Wandervogel—now to be replaced by a new romanticism ‘of steel.’ Some National Socialist spokesman used lofty terms in accommodation of the youth movement; one of them called it ‘child-like creative movement’ very much like their own party: ‘National Socialism is the forum of political struggle for all sincerely German youth Bunde.’
The Hitler Youth adopted many of the outward trappings of the youth movement but differed from the Bunde in essential respects. It adopted their uniform and organizational structure (group, tribe, gau); it had its banners, sang many of the movement’s songs (as well as some of its own), and played war games. But whereas the primary concern of the Bunde was with group life and the education of individual character, the Hitler Youth was mainly a training center for future members of the SA or SS. While the Bunde retreated into the seclusion of woodlands, or went on long and adventurous journeys abroad, the principle task of the Hitler youth was to impress the public by ostentatious parades through the streets of big cities. The youth movement engaged in mock fights and war games; a knife was part of the scout’s equipment, but it was not to be used to wound or kill. The Hitler Youth, on the other hand, took part in frequent street fights in which weapons were freely used. Opponents were attacked and sometimes killed in these brawls, which occasioned some casualties among the Hitler Youth themselves, including the twenty-one ‘martyrs’ of the ‘years of struggle.’ The overwhelming majority of Bunde members were high school students, whereas, according to their own statistics, only twelve percent of the Hitler Youth were from secondary schools; the bulk of them were of working-class origin and many were unemployed. Middle class youth who joined Hitler’s party were more likely to have belonged to the National Socialist Schulerbunde, and some of them were group leaders in the Jungvolk, the junior section of the Hitler Youth for those between ten and fourteen years of age.
The leaders of the Hitler Youth were greatly irritated by what they regarded as a patronizing attitude in those circles of the Bundische youth which professed sympathy with National Socialism. These sympathizers were always saying that the Hitler Youth were of course doing a useful and necessary work, but that it was ‘not our work.’ Other Bundische critics even deplored the Hitler Youth’s total involvement in politics and its utter submission to the party, and one of them cast doubt upon the party’s dogmatic omniscience quoting Cromwell’s remark that ‘he who knows not wither he goes, goes furthest.’ They accused Gruber and von Schirach of trying to destroy the Bunde, and blamed them for the bodily violence practiced against their members. But what infuriated the Hitler Youth most of all was the calm expectation of the right wing Bunde that they key positions in the coming Third Reich would be theirs by right, for had they not paved the way and trained an elite for the new dispensation?
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It was National Socialism, not the Hitler Youth, that made such a powerful appeal to young Germans, above all by its activist character. In vivid contrast to the interminable discussions of the Bunde, elaborating ideals that were to be realized in some indefinite future, Hitler affirmed that the hour had already struck; the day of national salvation had arrived. The Bunde had wanted their members to understand that all the different aspects and facets of the political problem had to be studied, each from its own angle, before a political judgment could be valid and comprehensive. Commendable in itself, this relativistic approach was also their weakness, and made the man easier prey to the fanaticism and one-sidedness of National Socialism. While the Bund were talking about sacrifice, their rivals were demanding, and getting, immediate action. Facing the rising tide of National Socialism, more and more of the Bundische youth feared that history would pass them by and felt incapable of remaining inactive. The cry for political engagement awakened a profound response in such a period of disarray and desperation. It must be remembered that the middle classes were hardly less seriously hit by unemployment than the working class; everything seemed undermined by the general economic decline and the specter of academic and white collar poverty was becoming a grim reality. Choosing Hitler was not an act of political decision, not the choice of a known program or ideology; it was simply joining a quasi-religious mass movement as an act of faith. Rational misgivings about the relevance of Hitler’s professions to the solution of Germany’s real problems cannot have been entirely absent from the minds of many, but they were perfectly willing to surrender their own critical judgement. It meant abandoning democracy and freedom as impotent and discredited ideas and trusting the Fuhrer who would know best what to do.
-Excerpted from “Young Germany: A History of the German Youth Movement” (1962) by Walter Laqueuer