Intro
Key questions:
- Could BDM members understand that they were being influenced?
- Did the BDM give girls more freedom, or did it control their lives?
- Why might girls from poorer families have found the BDM especially attractive?
The League of German Girls, called the Bund Deutscher Mädel or BDM, was the female section of the Hitler Youth. The original Hitler Youth organisation was only for boys. Under Nazi rule, the BDM became the only legal youth organisation for girls in Germany.
The organisation had different age groups:
- The Jungmädelbund, or Young Girls’ League, was for girls aged 10 to 14.
- The BDM was mainly for girls aged 14 to 18.
- In 1938, a third group called Faith and Beauty was created for young women aged 17 to 21. Membership in this group was voluntary.
After the Nazis came to power in 1933, they strongly encouraged young people to join their organisations. Membership became legally compulsory in 1936, although not every young person participated in practice.
Activities in the BDM
BDM activities could seem attractive to many girls. Members took part in:
- sports and gymnastics,
- swimming, running and long jumps,
- hiking and route marches,
- summer camps and winter trips,
- singing around campfires,
- traditional celebrations,
- first aid and community work,
- lessons in cooking, sewing and childcare.
Holiday trips were often inexpensive, and girls from poorer families could receive financial support. For some members, this was their first opportunity to travel, practise sports or spend time away from home. Saturday was normally a school day in Nazi Germany. BDM and Hitler Youth activities could replace some Saturday lessons.
Weekly meetings were called home evenings. During these meetings, girls learned practical skills, but they also received political education. Local leaders used materials prepared by the Nazi Party.
Physical fitness and Nazi ideology
The BDM promoted health, discipline and physical strength. However, these activities had a political purpose. The organisation wanted to prepare girls to serve Nazi Germany.
Girls were taught that their main future roles were to become:
- wives,
- mothers,
- homemakers,
- supporters of the Nazi state.
They were also taught Nazi racial ideas, antisemitism and loyalty to Adolf Hitler. The organisation presented obedience and personal sacrifice as important values.
This means that enjoyable activities, such as sport, travel and friendship, were also tools of propaganda. The BDM tried to influence how girls thought, behaved and understood their place in society.
Female leadership
The first national leader of the BDM was Trude Mohr, appointed in 1934. She wanted BDM members to be healthy, confident and practical. However, this confidence had limits. Girls were still expected to accept the traditional roles chosen for them by Nazi ideology.
Female leaders were usually young. They were also expected to leave their positions after marriage. Trude Mohr resigned after getting married and becoming pregnant in 1937.
Her successor was Jutta Rüdiger, a trained psychologist who led the BDM from 1937 until the end of Nazi Germany in 1945. After the war, she spent about two and a half years in American and British internment. Jutta Rüdiger never clearly rejected her former beliefs. She later worked in psychology. She died in Bad Reichenhall on 13 March 2001.
Exercise 1
Scan the clothing and equipment. Categorise the element 1: useful, 2: decorative, 3: other purpose.
Exercise 2
Focus on the pictures and describe how the girls are depicted. Can you see any similarities or differences? What would the girls feel you about their hopes and dreams? Speculate!
Exercise 3
Before the mebership in the HJ or BDM became a legal obligation, many parents or students refused the membership. For some students their parents’ resistance became a stigma they suffered from. In this taks students should focus on elements like peer pressure and being an outsider.
Task 1: Outline Mariannas situation in school before she joined the BDM
Task 2. Imagine you were the other girl in the class who was no BDM member. Would you have felt the same as Marianna? Explain why (not).
The Munich citizen Marianne Auer was not allowed to join the BDM because her father was Catholic-conservative and in opposition to the nationalsocialistic ideology. She felt outcasted and was very happy when her father finally gave in.
Marianne Auer: „I had to leave school at a specific age, with 15 or 16 years I had to quit, because I was member of the BDM. Thta was an extraordinary case. My father simply did not buy me a BDM uniform and said: “You do not go to BDM.“
Question by the interviewer: „“And you would have gone happily?“
Marianne Auer: “I would have gone, it was a youth movement, that enthused all of us, we had learned of no other ideology. Yes, we were drilled to: You are the future of our people, with you we will conquer the world, you are the blond race, we will keep the other races out.
Well, we didn’t want in person, it was this ideology, the race ideology. By coincidence I was a blond girl … with blond braids… well, anyway that was very difficult for me, because I was isolated in the class. We were only two girls in a class of 25 girls who were not allowed to join the BDM. So, I was always penalized wenn the other girls, my classmaids, went to a parade or something like that. I was not allowed to join this, because I was not in the BDM, then I had to go to school and had to work.”