League of German Girls

Pennant of the Bund Deutscher Mädel

A young girl of the BDM in 1933

The League of German Girls or League of German Maidens (Template:Lang-de), was the female branch of the overall Nazi party youth movement, the Hitler Youth. It was the only female youth organization in Nazi Germany.

At first, the League consisted of two sections: the Jungmädel, or Young Girls League, for girls ages 10 to 14, and the League proper for girls ages 14 to 18. In 1938, a third section was introduced, the Belief and Beauty Society (BDM-Werk Glaube und Schönheit), which was voluntary and open to girls between the ages of 17 and 21.

History

The Bund Deutscher Mädel had its origins already in the 1920s, in the first "Mädchenschaften" or "Mädchengruppen", also known as "Schwesternschaften der Hitler-Jugend", Sisterhood of the Hitler Youth. In 1930 it was founded as the female branch of the Hitler Youth movement. Its full title was "Bund Deutscher Mädel in der Hitler-Jugend" (League of German Girls in the Hitler Youth). It did not attract a mass following until the Nazis came to power in January 1933, but grew rapidly thereafter, until membership was made compulsory for eligible girls between 10 and 18 in 1939. Members had to be ethnic Germans, German citizens, and free of hereditary diseases.

The BDM was run directly by HJ leader and Reichsjugendführer Baldur von Schirach until 1934, when Trude Mohr, a former postal worker, was appointed to the position of BDM-Reichsreferentin, or National Speaker of the BDM and direct report to the Reichsjugendführer. After Mohr married in 1937, she was required to resign her position (the BDM required members to be unmarried and without children in order to remain in leadership positions), and was succeeded by Dr. Jutta Rüdiger, a doctor of psychology from Düsseldorf, who was a more assertive leader than Mohr but nevertheless a close ally of Schirach, and also of his successor from 1940 as HJ leader, Artur Axmann. She joined Schirach in resisting efforts by the head of the NS-Frauenschaft (Nazi Woman's League), Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, to gain control of the BDM. Rüdiger led the BDM until its dissolution in 1945.

As in the HJ, separate sections of the BDM existed, according to the age of participants. Girls between the ages of 10 and 14 years old were members of the Young Girl's League (Jungmädelbund, JM), and girls between the ages of 14 and 18 were members of the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM) proper. In 1938, a third section was added, known as Belief and Beauty (Glaube und Schönheit), which was voluntary and open to girls between 17 and 21 and was intended to groom them for marriage, domestic life, and future career goals. Ideally, girls were to be married and have children once they were of age, but importance was also placed on job training and education.

While these ages are general guidelines, there were exceptions for members holding higher (salaried) leadership positions, starting at the organizational level of "Untergau". As regards lower (honorary) positions, even members of the JM could apply for them after two years of membership and would then obtain such a position typically at the age of 13. The higher leadership, however, was recruited from members over 18 and was expected to maintain salaried office for no more than 10 years, and to leave the BDM at the age of 30 by the latest.. As a general rule, members had to leave when they married and especially when they had children.

Jutta Rüdiger (b. 1910) was a special case. She joined the BDM only in 1933, at the age of 23 and after having finished her doctorate. She obtained honorary positions instantly in 1933 and early 1934, was promoted to her first salaried position (leader of Untergau) in June 1935 and was appointed Reichsreferentin for the BDM (head of the BDM) in November 1937, at the age of 27, keeping this position even until the German defeat, when she had reached the age of 34. Clementine zu Castell-Rüdenhausen (b. 1912), a countess and member of the higher Frankish aristocracy, was appointed lead of Gau Unterfranken in 1933, at the age of 21, which also seems to have been the age when she joined the BDM, as no earlier date of membership nor any previous lower positions are recorded in her case. She was appointed head of "Belief and Beauty" in January 1938, a few days before her 26 birthday, and was discharged in September 1939 because of her marriage with Wilhelm "Utz" Utermann in October 1939. She was followed by an Austrian member, Annemarie Kaspar (b. 1917), who had been appointed Untergauführerin at the age of 20 in March 1938 and became head of B&B two weeks before her 22nd birthday. She too married and was discharged in May 1941, to be replaced in June 1941 by Martha Middendorf (b. 1914), who was 27 at the time of her appointment and was discharged already in February 1942, as she too had married. From this time on, Jutta Rüdiger, who was no candidate for marriage but living in live-long partnership with her comrade Hedy Böhmer, took over to lead the B&B directly, thus holding both leadership positions until 1945.

Training and activities

Badges of the Bund Deutscher Mädel

The BDM used campfire romanticism, summer camps, folklorism, tradition, and sports to educate girls within the National Socialist belief system, and to train them for their roles in German society: wife, mother, and homemaker. Their Home Evenings revolved about domestic training, but Saturdays involved strenuous outdoor training. Jungmadel were only taught, but the BDM was involved in community service, political activities and other useful activities.

Before entering any occupation or advanced studies, the girls, like the boys in Hitler Youth, had to complete a year of land service. Although working on a farm was not the only approved form of service, it was a common one; the aim was to bring young people back from the cities, in the hope that they would then stay "on the land" in service of Nazi blood and soil beliefs.

The Belief and Beauty organizations offered groups where girls could receive further education and training in fields that interested them. Some of the works groups that were available were arts and sculpture, clothing design and sewing, general home economics, and music.

Wartime Service

The outbreak of war altered the role of the BDM, though not as radically as it did the role of the boys in the HJ, who were to be fed into the German Wehrmacht (armed forces) or the National Labor Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst, RAD) as soon as they turned 18. The BDM helped the war effort in many ways. Younger girls collected donations of money, as well as goods such as clothing or old newspapers for the Winter Relief and other Nazi charitable organizations. Many groups, particularly BDM choirs and musical groups, visited wounded soldiers at hospitals or sent care packages to the front. Girls knitted socks, grew gardens, and engaged in similar tasks.

The older girls volunteered as nurses' aides at hospitals, or to help at train stations where wounded soldiers or refugees needed a hand. After 1943, as Allied air attacks on German cities increased, many BDM girls went into para-military and military services where they served as Flak Helpers, signals auxiliaries, searchlight operators, and office staff. Unlike male HJs, BDM girls took little part in the actual fighting or operation of weaponry, although some Flak Helferinnen operated anti-aircraft guns.

Many older girls, with Hitler Youth were sent to Poland as part of the Germanisation efforts. These girls, along with Hitler Youth, were first to oversee the eviction of Poles to make room for new settlers and ensure they did not take much from their homes, as furniture and the like were to be left there for the settlers. Their task were then to educate ethnic Germans, either living in Poland or resettled there from the Baltic states, according to German ways, and to organize the younger ones into the League. This included instruction in the German language, as many spoke only Polish or Russian. As the only contact with German authorities, they were often requested to help with the occupation authorities., and they put on various entertainments such as songfests to encourage the down-spirited new settlers. Some members were sent to the colony of Hegewald for such efforts even when they had to receive gas masks and soldier escorts.

In the last days of the war, some BDM girls, just like some boys of the male Hitler Youth (although not nearly as many), joined with the Volkssturm (the last-ditch defense) in Berlin and other cities in fighting the invading Allied armies. Officially, this was not sanctioned by the BDM's leadership which opposed an armed use of its girls even though some BDM leaders had received training in the use of hand-held weapons (about 200 leaders went on a shooting course which was to be used for self-defense purposes). After the war, Dr. Jutta Rüdiger denied that she had approved BDM girls using weapons, and this appears to have been the truth.

Some BDM girls were recruited into the Werwolf groups which were intended to wage guerrilla war in Allied-occupied areas. A former BDM leader, Ilse Hirsch was part of the team who assassinated Franz Oppenhoff, the Allied-appointed mayor of Aachen, in March 1945.

One should note that by the time they joined the Red Cross, Luftwaffe Helferinnen, Volkssturm or Werwolf, they were no longer BDM members, but members of those respective organizations.

See also

• Saxon Greeting

Further reading

• "Nazi Germany: Women's Rights"
• "The Hitler Youth" - David Littlejohn
• "Ein Leben für die Jugend" - Dr. Jutta Ruediger
• "Deutsche Frauen und Mädchen" - Norbert Westenrieder
• "Brauner Alltag" - Klaus-Joerg Ruhl
• "Alltag im 3. Reich" - Frank Grube & Gerhard Richter
• period 1930s/1940s publication of the BDM from www.bdmhistory.com digital archives
• "The Shame of Survival: Working Through a Nazi Childhood" - account of Ursula Mahlendorf's childhood in the LGG
• "They Come From Dachau" nthWORD Magazine Issue #7, August 2010

External links

• Extensive English language website on the BDM
• Hitler Youth Forum
• Hitler Youth: Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM)