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Faith and Beauty Society

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Emblem of the BDM-Werk Glaube und Schönheit

The BDM-Werk Glaube und Schönheit (German for BDM Faith and Beauty Society) was founded in 1938 to serve as a tie-in between the work of the League of German Girls (BDM) and that of the National Socialist Women's League. Membership was voluntary and open to girls aged 17 to 21.

Purpose

BDM girls dancing the Saxon Greeting in 1941

Nazi Germany's Reichsjugendführer (RJF; "National Youth Leader") Baldur von Schirach established the Faith and Beauty Society in 1938[1] to act as a link between the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM) and the Nationalsozialistische Frauenschaft. The general idea was that "girls" should take part in working for the whole Volksgemeinschaft (German community) before they either went on to jobs or – ideally – to marry and have children.

The Society, initially run by Clementine zu Castell-Rüdenhausen [de], mainly aimed towards priming the young women for their future tasks as wives and mothers, and while courses offered ranged from fashion design to healthy living, the overall idea was to teach them home economics so they would "properly" run their households, cook well for their families, and care properly for their children.

According to Dr. Jutta Rüdiger, who had taken over as the leader of the League of German Girls in 1937:

The task of our Girls League is to raise our girls as torch bearers of the national-socialist world. We need girls who are at harmony between their bodies, souls, and spirits. And we need girls who, through healthy bodies and balanced minds, embody the beauty of divine creation. We want to raise girls who believe in Germany and our leader, and who will pass these beliefs on to their future children.[2]

See also

References

  1. ^ Rempel, Gerhard (15 July 2015). "The Formation of a Generational Alliance". Hitler's Children: The Hitler Youth and the SS. Chapel Hill: UNC Press Books. p. 21. ISBN 9781469620619. Retrieved 9 January 2023. Schirach's creation of the "Faith and Beauty" program in 1938, for BDM girls up to the age of twentyone, was designed to keep young women under RJF control, away from the cantankerous matrons of the Frauenschaft (NSF).
  2. ^ Dr. Rüdiger interview footage published on the DVD "Glaube und Schoenheit" by German Zeitreisen-Verlag

Sources

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