Neudeutschland, German Catholic Students, 1919-1939 Neudeutschland, German Catholic Students 19 19-1939

NEUDEUTSCHLAND, GERMAN CATHOLIC STUDENTS, 1919-1939 NEUDEUTSCHLAND, GERMAN CATHOLIC STUDENTS 19 19-1939

RONALD WARLOSKI

MAR TINUS NIJHOFF I THE HAGUE I 1970 ISBN 978-94-015-0260-3 ISBN 978-94-015-0781-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-0781-3 © 1970 by Martinus NijhojJ, The Hague, Netherlands All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form Ta my wife TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABBREVIATIONS TABLE IX

INTRODUCTION XI

Preface XV

I. The Establishment ofNeudeutschland I II. Growth and Deve1opment, 1920-1922 24 III. Schism and Rupture, 1922-1924 47 IV. APeriod ofCalm, 1925-1929 87 V. Crisis and Change, 1930-1933 112 VI. The Initial Reaction to the Nazi State

VII. The Onslaught and Resistance, 1934-I 935 VIII. The Last Phase, 1936-1939

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX ABBREVIATIONS used frequently in the text and footnotes

DCAA Documents ofthe Cologne Archdiocesan Archives DJBN Dreissig Jahre Bund Neudeutschland (bibliography) EP Esch Papers (bibliography) FDJ Freie Deutsche Jugend (Free German Youth) HJ Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth) KJD Katholischer Jungmännerverband Deutschlands and later, Katholische Jugend Deutschlands (Catholic Young Men's Association ofGer• many, and Catholic YouthofGermany) NBA Neudeutschland Bund Archives (bibliography) ND Neudeutschland INTRODUCTION

This study is of a modest segment of Germany's experience in the Weimar and Nazi periods. Its purpose is to throw light on one small part of that experience in order to add it to the larger puzzle. It is a study of Neudeutschland, a German Catholic youth organization for students. The membership of the Bund, as it was known, is primarily from the German secondary schools, those which are equivalent to the last two grades of grade school, plus high school and two years of college in the United States. Two ancillary sections ofthe organization are the Jungvolk, the segment for the youngsters of pre-secondary school age, and the Älterenbund, for those who have graduated and are pur• suing careers in business, the university, and such. The organization was founded in 1919. Its course was relatively stormy until 1924, after which a short respite occurred in which an attempt was made at a unique synthesis. That synthesis can be sum• marized in the phrase, "Catholic youth movement." Neudeutschland sought to catholicize the "healthy" aspects ofthe German youth move• ment which had grown after 1900 and which had swept through the secondary schools of Protestant northern Germany prior to the First World War. After the war, the impetus towards youth movement - greatly enhanced by the shattering of the old, restricting authority - spread among the Catholic students in the secondary schools. Conse• quently, it was decided by those leaders ofCatholic life who dealt with youth that it was necessary to act to protect Catholic students from in• fluence by the undesirable aspects of the youth movement. This was accomplished by subtracting those elements of the original youth movement which were considered "healthy", and utilizing them in a synthesis with traditional Catholic practices. Those aspects of the youth movement which were judged healthy included the less ideolo• gical and idealistic forms such as wandering, camping, and naturalness XII INTRODUCTION ofyouth. However, the context in which these forms were developed was considerably different from that of the original in that this youth movement was Catholic. For Neudeutschland, this meant the utiliza• tion of Catholicism as it had deve10ped in Germany as a fundamental foundation. The accomplishment of Neudeutschland was that it sought and, in the eyes of the organization leadership, achieved a synthesis between these two: Catholicism and youth movement. The existence ofNeudeutschland as a Catholic youth movement had barely been able to consolidate itselfwhen another factor - National So• cialism - entered its history, as it entered the history ofall things German. The period 1930 to 1933 was one in which Neudeutschland sought to retain its identity and its mode ofoperation in a Germany daily becoming more polarized. After 1933, this struggle became even more difficult and ultimate1y impossible. The one-sided contest lasted officially until 1939 when the Bund Neudeutschland - by then a hollow shell, however - was officially dissolved by the triumphant National Socialist State. This study attempts to trace the development of Neudeutschland through these phases: establishment in 1919, a search for synthesis from 1919 to 1924, implementation ofthat synthesis from 1925 to 1930, the radicalization period of 1930-1933, and, finally, the Nazi era from 1933 to 1939. Although the Bund itself reappeared in 1948 and conti• nues to flourish; this study ends in 1939. Several problems present themselves in this deve1opment. The first is related to the religious expression of Catholicism - a religion that claims universality for itself - within a national setting. The author must be frank and admit that he believes it highly unlike1y, or at least very difficult, to determine which factor - Catholic or German - was more crucial in any given instance. Only a cross-cultural study com• paring religion and nationality in their influence on youth organizations would provide what the author would accept as adequate data from which to generalize. Consequently, any generalization put forward on this point is tentative. It is my opinion that, by and large, the German influence predominated in the practice of Neudeutschland, and that Catholicism predominated in the ideology. A second issue involved is the problem of the youth movement as a whole in Germany. This work makes no pretence ofhaving exhaustively studied the entire youth movement experience. However, after having made a serious effort, I have concluded that the major thrust of the youth movement did not playa primary role in the history of Neu• deutschland. This is not to suggest that it was not important. The im- INTRODUCTION XIII

portance, however, rests in the fact that the youth movement impulse was very much apart of the motives for Neudeutschland's establish• ment and deve1opment, particularly in the first years. However, the influence of clerical authority, which played such a critical role in the organization, was oriented towards the protection of Catholic youth from the errors which they saw dominant in the rest of Germany. This Kulturkampf mentality in the end proved stronger than the youth movement impulse in the creation of the dominant attitude in Neu• deutschland. The last basic issue which is involved in this study is the relationship of Neudeutschland with National Socialism. This inflammable issue is plagued by the question of German and Catholic mentioned earlier. The author, indeed, finds it difficult to think in terms of Catholicism and National Socialism. That relationship was between German Catholicism and National Socialism, which is another matter. More• over, the immediate question ofNeudeutschland involved a particular social group - Catholic students. This fact is also important in the con• c1usion which has been reached, name1y that an unbridgeable gap existed between German Catholic (including Catholic student) and National Socialist in both ends and means. I would like to suggest to those readers who are familiar with the background of 19th century Catholic experience in Germany to skip the Preface Chapter. There is nothing there that has not been said better e1sewhere. Several individuals deserve to be mentioned and given recognition for help tendered. My thanks to Pater Josef Pöppinghaus, S.]., the head of Neudeutschland in 1962-63, when the primary research was done. He opened the archives to me, offered valuable insights, and he1ped in many small ways in pIe asant conversations on Neudeutsch• land's development. The former Diocesan Director for Youth in Cologne, Pater Enge1bert I ppendorf, opened many doors for me. His kind introduction opened the Diocesan Archives ofCologne. Both Dr. Felix Raabe, ofthe central headquarters of the Catholic Youth of Germany, and Dr. Rudolf Morsey granted me of their valuable time to discuss German Catholicism and its history, as well as youth organizations. To Dr. Richard N. Hunt of the University of Pittsburgh goes the author's thanks for his patience and guidance when this was the core of a doctoral dissertation. Certainly, none of the errors or fact or in• terpretation are attributable to any ofthese people; they are exc1usive1y myown. PREFACE

Anyone utilizing Catholic youth organizations to study the history of the Catholic segment of the German population in the twentieth century must first analyze German Catholic social history prior to World War 1.1 This is due primarily to the simple fact that the bulk of Catholic youth organizations - in particular the youth organization chosen to be the focus ofthis study, Neudeutschland-deve1opedfollow• ing the war. Consequently, an adequate appreciation of the back• ground factors which were ever present in the development of Neu• deutschland requires an understanding of what attitudes and techni• ques had originally been deve10ped in the experience of organized Catholicism2 in the 19th century, and an understanding ofthe alter• ations which resulted from the experiences ofWorld War 1. Those factors affecting German history in the 19th century in general also had their impact on organized Catholicism. First and foremost among these is the political division which was characteristic of Germany from the Iniddle ages to 1870. For Catholics that political division had held peculiar ramifications, as one of the types of state that existed until the first years of the 19th century had been the ecc1esiastical state in which the ruling spiritual authority, the bishop, possessed in addition to his spiritual power, temporal power. Another general trend of German history affecting Catholics was the separation of Protestants in the north from the Catholics in the south and west, with neither understanding the other. This ex• c1usion was exacerbated by the intellectual union in the 19th century

1 For arecent general treatment of organized Catholicism in the 19th century, see: Karl Buchheim, Ultramontanismus und Demokratie. Der Weg der deutschen Katlwliken im 19. Jahrhundert (München: Koesel-Verlag, 1963). 8 For arecent treatment (jf the theoretical grounds for sodal movements organized ac• cording to Catholic principles, see: Oswald V. NelI-Bruening, S. J., "Christliche Sozial• bewegung" , Stimmen der Zeit, Vol. 173, No. I (1963), 1-g. XVI PREFACE

which combined German Protestantism, Liberalism, and Nationalism in one synthesis which viewed Catholicism as everything outdated, reactionary, and bad, while adherents to the synthesis considered them• selves as representing everything modern, progressive, and good. So convinced, adherents believed themselves justified in speeding up the inevitable process of decay of outdated Catholicism, an attitude resting behind much of the political struggle in which German Catholics were involved as Catholics. 3 The history of Prussia, which became increasingly important for Catholic social history as the history of this German state increasingly became the history ofGermany in the 19th century, provides the third background factor affecting general German history. As Prussia was the Protestant power par excellence, Prussian ascendancy meant the decline of Catholic influence, particularly since the basic Prussian political philosophy brooked little competition from an independent religious authority.4 Moreover, due to the acquisition of a considerable portion of the former church states, Prussia had gained a larger Catholic minority within its boundaries. This left Bavaria, backed by Austria, as the representative of Catholicism before 1870, and left Catholicism virtually without an official representative after 1870. The general trends of German history which affected German Catholics had suggested to their contemporaries that the tide ofhistory was flowing against the Catholic Church. The annexation of the church states had been but the opening wedge in the destruction of the Church's position in Germany. The rise of Prussia, the rise of the synthesis of German Protestantism-Liberalism-Nationalism, and the triumph of unification on the shoulders of that synthesis in the bosom of Prussia were further proof. These contemporaries, however, mis• judged the vitality of the German Catholics. Beginning with Roman• ticism, which largely ended the desertion of the intellectuals from the Church, passing through such developments as the rise of Catholic social theories which held the Catholics to the Church in the face ofthe

3 A general discussion of this synthesis in: Klaus Epstein, "Erzberger's Position in the Zentrumsstreit before World War I," Catholic Historical Review, No. 1 (April, 1958),5-6. The extent to which the synthesis was one creating a National Liberal Christianity is discussed by: Karl Kupisch, "Bürgerliche Frommigkeit im Wilhelminischen Zeitalter," Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte, No. 2 (1962), 123-143. 4 A good recent treatment of the rise of Prussia is: Otto Pflanze, Bismarck and the Develop• ment ofGerman~: The Period of Unification, 1815-1871 (Princeton: 1963). The Catholic reac• tion can be studied in: Ludwig Bergstraesser, Der Politische Katholizismus: Dokumente seiner Entwicklung, Band I: 1815-1870 (München: Drei Masken Verlag, 1921); and Kar! Buch• heim, Geschichte der Christlichen Parteien in Deutschland (München: Koesel-Verlag, 1953), 68-174. PREFACE XVII

National Liberal Christian synthesis and eventually in the face of Marxian Socialism, passing further through the tremendous rise in the prestige of the papacy and its solidification as a unifying factor in the Catholic ranks, and culminating before· 1914 in the massive structure of Catholic sodal organizations - the Catholics gained a sense of achievement and solidarity that made them a dynamic, rather than static, factor in German history. This Catholic view, achieved by 1914, proved, however, to be like a crudble in which was tested every element of their attitude, From without and from within came challenges, crises, and critical issues which challenged, shaped, and changed the Catholic struggle to achieve a status within Germany. Though the challenges which came from without have captured the most attention, the internal problems were of as much significance for the perspective with which Catholic leaders would face all of the challenges. One ofthe most enduring ofthe problems was the split which existed in the Catholic mind in the 19th century concerning the manner in which Catholic religious, ethical, and moral principles ought to structure sodal principles and apply to sodety. One wing ofthis basic division was represented by the so-called Vienna or Vogelsang school, noted for their hostility to modernity, particularly in its industrial garb. The other wing came predominantly from the western territories of Prussia. This segment did not accept modern sodety; however, it believed that it was possible to reform abuses from within the existing system. 5 This dis agreement was primarily one of tactics. There was essential agreement about the reasons why Catholics should be active in sodety as Catholics and about structures, norms, and goals of a Catholic society. The existence of such a dis agreement on tactics within Catholic ranks, however, was one cardinal aspect characterizing the response to virtually every concrete situation in which German Catholics had to respond to their environment. A second internal factor within the Catholic church which permeat• ed its nineteenth century existence was the clerical mind, which played

5 The two sehools of thought are studied by: E. K. Winter, Die Sozial-metaphysik der Scholastik (Wien: 1929); Edgar Alexander, Church and Society Part IV of: Joseph N. Moody (ed.), Church and Society (New York: 1953), 421ff; PaulJostoek, Die Katlwlisch-soziale Bewe• gung der letzten hundert Jahre in Deutschland (Köln: 1960); and Gustav GundIaeh, Zur Soziologie der katholischen Ideenwelt und des Jesuitenordens (FreiburgjBreisgau: 1927). Theextent towhich the Vogelsang sehool influeneed the anti-liberal, anti-eapitalist attitudes eharaeterizing Austrian Catholics, see: Alfred Diamant, "Austrian Catholies and the First Republie, 1918-1934: A Study in Anti-Democratie Thought," Western Political Quarterry, Vol. X, No. 3 (1957), 603-633. XVIII PREFACE such a vital role among German Catholics. To understand the clerical attitude, it is necessary to dip back deep into the nineteenth century to the Napoleonic era of change. Prior to this it had still been held by Church leaders that the Church, along with the State, must have a determining voice in society. With Napoleon, however, came secu• larization and the loss of power and status for the clergy, particularly the hierarchy, a fact which was bitterly resented at the time and contributed in a major fashion to the extended hostility of the clerical mind to modernity as being anti-church, consequently, anti-Christian. 6 Moreover, the seeming determination of modernity in a variety of guises to destroy the church was continued farther into the 19th century, rather than ending with Waterloo. Despite the resurgence of religion associated with the Vienna system, there was an increasing loss of the educated and middle classes from the Church, due partic• ularly to the uncompromising stance of the Church to the Enlighten• ment and to the unabashedly reactionary politics followed by church leaders in the first decades ofthe 19th century.7 The clergy responded by decrying the unchristian attitude that was dominant in the schools. They lamented the social behavior, drinking, and bad novels as the source of the attitude. They scored the declining attendance in church, caused, to their minds, by the declining standards of entertainment, education, and morality. They thought that what was needed to arrest the decline was areturn to the power of enforcement by church authority, (heilenden Kräfte) an enforcement power which had been stripped from it. Moreover, the Obrigkeit, the duly constituted state authority, was failing in its duty since it was dominated by attitudes inimical to the continued existence of the Catholic Church. 8 Further• more, that same Obrigkeit had effectively hamstrung the Church from attempting to do anything about the deteriorating conditions with the Erastian, bureaucratic controls which strangled the Church or• ganization. A change in the attitude of the clericalleaders - at least a portion of them - came with a considerable alteration in their ability to in• fluence conditions around them. The cause of the change was the revolution of 1848. This phenomenon revealed to clericalleaders how widespread were the errors of modernity and dramatized the imme• diate need for concrete counter-action against them. Moreover, the 8 Wilhelm Schwer, Der soziale Gedanke in der katholischen Seelsorge (Köln: 192 I), 5-9. 7 Gustav Gundlach, "Um die Soziallehre der Kirche," Stimmen der Zeit, Vol. 155, No. 6 (1955),4°1-4°8. 8 Schwer, Der Soziale Gedanke, 13-3 I. PREFACE XIX aftermath of the revolution brought some of the c1ericalleaders of the church to a realization ofhow they could proceed. As one aftermath of the revolution, the state ofPrussia was given a constitution by its ruler, Frederick William IV, a constitution which gave to the Church the right to direct its internal affairs unhampered by bureaucratic control, the right to own property, and the right to direct its institutions free from state interference. 9 Particularly in the Rhineland provinces of Prussia came a swell of organizations assodated with the Church which had as their function sodal as well as religious action. Vital to their future was a changed perspective on the role of Catholic organization. The best example of someone with this new perspective was the dynamic bishop ofMainz, Emmanuel von Ketteler. Ketteler stressed that it was neces• sary not only to practice the tradition al charity of the Church and to aid in the immediate alleviation ofindividual suffering, but even more to work for the christianization of society itself so that iustice in its Christian guise would be the possession of every German. He himself presented a program of specific goals of sodal welfare to be achieved through state action. 10 The changed attitude was partially caused and, in the future, would be conditioned by a new sodal environment which had just begun to appear in Germany on a significant scale in 1848 and which would dominate the future thinking and actions of all Germans, Catholics inc1uded, who sought to work within the society ofGermany. This new phenomenon was the industrial revolution. To the industrial revolu• tion, the reaction of the c1ergy was unfriendly and often hostile. The sodal disorientation caused by the growth of cities and emergence of the proletariat severely tested the beliefs, facilities, and staff of the Catholic Church.l1 Moreover, the perception of the fact of industrial• ism by the c1ergy was already conditioned by the writings of French Catholics such as Villerme, Buret, and Villeneuve, whose works ap• peared in the late 1830's and who had little good to say about in• dustrialism, or its capitalistic form. Also conditioning c1erical insight were the writings ofJosefvon Buss, who as early as 1837 in Germany

9 Adolphus William Ward, Germany, 1815-1890 (Cambridge, England: 1918), 34-50. Also referred to in: Henri Daniel-Rops, TM Church in an Age of Revolution, 178[t-1870 (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1965),225-228,245-246. 10 K. Bruels, Geschichte der Katholisch-sozialen Bewegung in Deutschland (Münster; 1958) 19-21. Also: Schwer, Der soziale Gedanke, 5g-80. 11 Schwer, Der soziale Gedanke, 40-4\1. A good general work on the period is: Heinrich Brueck, Geschichte der katholischen Kirche in Deutschland im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, Volume III: Von der Bischofsversammlung in Würzburg 181:8 bis zum Anfang des Culturkampfes 1870 (Mainz: 1896). xx PREFACE advocated drastic reform to meet the worsening popular conditions stemming from the capitalistic industrial system. 12 Added to the per• ception of the industrial revolution as a result of Godless capitalism, was the emergence of a force intimately a product of that revolution, the socialist movement, which alienated and frightened the Church with its anti-c1erical, anti-religious stances.13 Although the new perspective of Ketteler and his associates was startling, there was no dramatic break in the activities of the Church from 1848 to 1870. The bulk of the attention and energy of c1erical leaders was directed to solving the acute social problems that attended the increasing industrialization and urbanization. The growth of the cities and the disorientation of the traditional religious patterns of Germany made incessant demands on the activities of c1ericalleaders faced with building facilities for the new urban dwe11ers and finding a staff to fi11 them. Moreover, initial attention towards these problems was much conditioned by the emphasis placed on the maintenance of the traditional family as the basic social unit, regardless of the changed social setting of the urban metropolis. The old family life in the circ1e ofthe immediate members of one's own family, relatives, and neighbors, the sma11 community or Gemeinde existence, remained the ideal, and efforts of existing facilities and organizations such as the Vincent de Paul society were geared to protect that institution. 14 However, by 1870, the problem of the city environment could no longer be ignored. Thousands of Catholic workers were being lost to the Church because the predominant attitude of the pastors of the urban churches remained that pain, hunger, and poverty were sent by God and in the nature of human existence - a position which many would no longer accept because ofthe success ofthe socialist movement in the ranks ofthe proletariat. 15 Moreover, 1870/1871 saw the creation of an entirely new sphere of activity in which the Church had now to work, the German Empire. These two factQrs forced the development ofnew techniques.

12 Bruels, Geschichte der Katlwlisch-sozialen Bewegung, 19-21. For a sympathetic analysis of the early theories of such men as Buss, Franz von Baader, and Adam Mueller, a1l early critics of capitalism and industrialism, see: Wilhelm Schwer and Franz Mueller, Der Deutsche Katlwlizismus im Zeitalter des Kapitalismus (Augsburg: 1932),82-93' 13 Schwer, Der soziale Gedanke, 63-67. A good general work on the period in English is: Theodore S. Hamerow, Restoration, Revolution, Reaction: Economics and Politics in Germany, 18 I 5-1871 (Princeton: 1958), especially Chapter IV, "Ideological Conflict." 14 Schwer and Mueller, Der Deutsche Katlwlkismus, 9ff. 15 Vemon L. Lidtke, "August Bebel and German Social Democracy's Relation to tne Christian Churches," Journal oj the History oj ldeas, XXVII, No. 2 (April-June, 1966), 260-264. PREFACE XXI

The institution which embodied the adoption of new techniques and which would become predominant among those Catholics oriented to the emergence of the industrial, secular society, was the Volksverein. Its predecessor was the Christlich-Soziale Verein, established on March 6, 1870. It quickly assumed leadership in most phases of Catholic action in social matters. Over aperiod of twenty years, a battle was fought among the leaders in the Volksverein, who were predominantly clerics but also included some laymen, as to what the focus of the or• ganization would be. Franz Hitze, Franz Brandts, and Ludwig Windt• horst were able to swing the organization to emphasize practical educational work rather than polemics, with the purpose being to find a meaningful place in the newly founded German Empire for Catho• lics. 16 Under the leadership of the Volksverein, a change of heart and of psychological attitude took place among Catholics in Germany. The old attitude of sterile opposition was replaced by a new mood of ac• commodation with the best of existing society, a new mood which re• ceived strong support from the election of Leo XIII as Pope. 17 With such policies as the emphasis on the education and placing of Catholics in scientific fields in the schools and increasing the number of Catholic students, and on educating several generations of non-professional Catholics in social principles so as to maintain their allegiance to Catholicism, the Volksverein devoted itself to overcoming the Catholic aversion to the Prussian-Protestant dominance in Germany and to the newly developed modern Germany.18 The establishment of the Volksverein came at a point critical in the social history of German Catholics. Immediatelyon the horizon loomed the Kulturkampf, the series of conflicts which effectively cut the participation of Catholics in the public life of the new German empire. The feeling of inferiority and the consciousness of being pariahs, with which Catholics were saddled by the Kulturkampf, left an indelible mark on th~ir mentality, a mark which would last weIl into the twentieth century, a mark which many still see in existence in Catholic leaderschip in the 1960'S.19

16 Emil Ritter, Die Katlwlisch-soziale Bewegung: Deutschland im Neunzehnten Jahrhundert und der Volksverein (Köln: 1954), 6g-71. 17 E. L. Woodward, Three Studies in European Conservatism: Metternich, Guizot, the Catlwlic Church in the I9thCentury (London: 1929),337-342. 18 Ritter, Die Katholisch-soziale Bewegung, 142-149. 19 For material on the Kulturkampf, see: Georg Franz, Kulturkampf - Staat und Katholische Kirche in Mitteleuropa von der Säkularisation bis zum Abschluss des Preussischen Kulturkampfes (München: 1954); Georges Goyau, Bismarck et L' Eglise: Le Culturkampj, Volume IV (Paris, XXII PREFACE

Hardly had the Kulturkampf begun to settle when an internal struggle began to divide the Catholic leadership, particularly that group most concerned with the role ofthe Catholic Church in society. The so-called Zentromsstreit, named such because the differing attitudes were exhibited within the ranks of the Catholic party, the Zentrom, ripped Catholic opinion into two camps. One, called the Kölner-Rich• tung, argued that there were no inherent, absolute contradictions be• tween Catholicism and the modern era (Neu<:,eit) and that it was pos• sible to work within it. Moreover, the technique most advantageous in christianizing society was cooperation with alllike-minded Christians. The opposition, the Berliner-Richtung, the German version ofthe Vogel• sang school, strenuously opposed this attitude as being "modernist,"20 protesting that the existing society was inherently evil and that co• operation with non-Catholics opened the door to contamination of the Catholics. The split was represented by the two major princes of the Church at the time, Cardinal Kopp of Breslau and Cardinal Fischer of Cologne. The Berlin group stood solidly in advocating confession• alism, c1ericalism, anti-capitalism, antiliberalism, and anti-democracy. The Cologne group (or, as they were often referred to, the München• Gladbach group, for the German city which was the headquarters of the Volksverein) supported practical measures which allowed coopera• tion with the existing society.21 Although this battle was fought out mainly in the arena of the Zentrum party and the Christian Trade Unions, it was to have an impact on the deve10pment of Catholic youth work. The main issue - the struggle between exc1usive Cathol• icism and a pluralistic emphasis - was to trouble the nascent, deve1- oping Catholic youth organizations.

19II-1913) is old but still valuable. Another older work, biased in favor of the Catholic position is: Heinrich Brueck, Geschichte der katholischen Kirche in Deutschland, Volume IV: Vom Vaticanischen Concil I870 bis zur Gegenwart (Mainz: 1901). Arecent bibliographical and interpretative study is: Rudolf Morsey, "Probleme der Kulturkampf-Forschung," Histori• schesJahrbuch,Jg. 83. No. 27 (1964), 236-237. 20 The "modernist heresy" briefly flourished at the turn of the century. Advocating the proposition that the Catholic Church should accommodate itself to modernity, especially science, by adopt~g an evolutionary perspective in regard to dogma, it had but abrief career and was effectively squashed by Pius X. See: Henri Daniel-Rops, A Fight Jor God, I87O--I939,203-238. 21 Ritter, Die Katholisch-soziale Bewegung, 317-319, studies the impact of the differing opinions on the Volksverein. On the Christian Trade Unions, see: George Marshall Dill, The Christian Trade Unions and Catholic Corporatism in Germany (Harvard: Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, 1949), 52-60. For the impact on politics, see: Kar! Buchheim, Geschichte der Christlichen Parteien, Chapter IX, 296-323. Also on politics: Ludwig Bergstraesser, Der Politische Katholkismus, Documents 56-60, 361-378. For one man's role, an important one, see: Klaus Epstein, "Erzberger's Position in the Zentrumsstreit Before World War I," Catholic Historical Review, Vol. XLIV, No. 1 (1958),2-3. PREFACE XXIII

The period between 1890 and 1914 was the seedtime ofNeudeutsch• land. It was a twenty-four year period ofincreased sodal consciousness and of an increased tempo of urban growth. 22 Particularly for the Catholic sector of the German population, those changes provided an atmosphere in which old certainties were challenged. Most disquieting was a growing challenge to basic philosophy. The influx ofnew schools of thought such as those of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and Adolf Harnack, the influence of Henri Bergson and Max Scheler, the liter• ature of Stefan George and Rainer Maria Rilke - all were disquieting to the Catholic intellectuals still struggling with the older German in• heritance of Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel, and even more with Karl Marx. Among those Catholics oriented to the esthetic and cultural, the conviction grew that the modern was decadent. 23 At precisely the same time, however, Catholics oriented to a more practi• cal existence - tired of being considered second-class citizens and tired of being excluded from the core of German life and being made con• scious of that condition - began seeking ways of making a rapproche• ment with the existing German state and society so as to end their in• ferior status. That the status was inferior was obvious to any observer. In 1910, Catholics formed 36.7% of the total population of the German Reich; of sixty-five million inhabitants, twenty-three million, eight hundred thousand were Catholic. Yet in the professions, Catholic re• presentation was minimal. Of the ninety Prussian Ministers and State Secretaries - posts of prestige - who served between 1888 and 1914, four were Catholic; in the Reich bureaucracy during the same time• span there were but two Catholics. 24 In the academic world, a similar disproportion predominated. In Catholic Baden, among 41 professors at the University ofFreiburg in 1914, only four were Catholics. 25 The task seemed obvious: the Catholics must win their rightful share of the prestigious positions within the German Reich. The way seemed to require an adjustment of Catholics so as to enable their participation in and acceptance by the leading strata ofImperial Germany.

SI Data on the urb"anization and economic development in: J. H. Clapham, The Economic Development of France and Germany, 1815-1914 (Cambridge, England: 1928). For a detailed study of a portion of the period, see: J. AIden Nicols, Germaf!)' After Bismarck: The Caprivi Era, 189001894 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958),216-217. 28 Philip Funk, "Der Gang des Geistigen Lebens im Katholischen Deutschland unserer Generation," Nr. 22 aus: Wiederbegegnung von Kirche und Kultur, Festgabefür Karl Muth. 14 Heinrich Lutz, Demokratie im Zweilicht : Der Weg der deutschen Katholiken aus dem Kaiserreich in die Republik, 1914-1925 (München, 1963), 16-17. 16 Heinrich Lutz, "Die deutschen Katholiken in und nach dem ersten Weltkrieg," Hochland (February, 1963), 194. XXIV PREFACE

The change in the perspective of a large portion of the Catholic leadership was accompanied by a slow change in leadership within Catholic groups prior to 1914. From within the Zentrum Party came such men from the lower middle dass as Matthis Erzberger, from within the Christian Trade Unions came such men as Adam Steger• wald to challenge the traditional leadership that had come from the Catholic nobility in the west. Moreover, in cultural affairs, such Catholics as Carl Muth, the editor of Hochland, were attempting to implement the break from the "ghetto" condition and mentality by the development of a specifically modern Catholic culture. 26 These changes, however, had not consolidated themselves, had not captured the field undisputed as Catholic leadership turned to the formation of youth organizations as a new field of endeavor. Several youth groups and organizations which were to provide the examples and impulses for Neudeutschland and for the varied view• points which would exist within the organization were already in existence or were established during this 1890-1914 period. It was then that Catholic leaders, particularly the derical, realized the necessity for organized activity on the youth front. The realization was forced home by the threat to youth posed by socialist activity, by the need to combat the officialline of the government being taught in the schools, and by the explosion of the Wandervogel among the Protestant population. Moreover, a strong conviction among those interested in youth work - a conviction amplified by the activities and success ofthe Wandervogel - was that youth had specific needs of their own which had to be fulfilled and satisfied, preferably under adult direction so that they would be chaneled in the proper direction. The interpretation ofthe needs and requirements ofyouth depended on the interpretation of society and its functions of those who were and would become youth leaders. The usual attitude held youth to be the transition period between childhood and adulthood, the needs being thus defined as that which facilitated the transition but also that which aided in making the goal, adulthood, better than it would have been had the youth been allowed to develop with nothing beyond normal parental supervision. 27 The needs of the transition period and the type of adult product desired were thus the two criteria in the definition ofyouth needs.

26 Lutz, Die deutschen Katholiken, 195. 17 Wilhelm Roessler, Jugend im Erziehungsjeld (Düsseldorf: 1957), 92-94. This book, particularly Chapter 3: "The Breakdown ofthe Old Order," is basic for the entire period. PREFACE xxv Viewing the problem in that manner, Catholic leaders added to those two aspects a Catholic perspective on the role of religion in the life ofthe youth and on the formation ofthe adult product. Some would argue that the Catholic youth group had as its function the Catholiciza• tion of the youth as an individual; others would argue that the purpose of the youth organization would and should be to fulfill a variety of functions for youth, among which would be the important one of Catholicization. Neither attitude had c1early won the field, particularly before the war, even though the c1ergy played an all important role in Catholic youth organizations. Such organizations as the Marian Congregations, which were exc1usively devotional in nature and organized as parish units; the Kolping Gesellenverein, which was a religious and educational society for young apprentices and journeymen; the German Catholic Young Men's Association (Katholischer Jungmännerverband Deutschlands), which was a mass organization intended for all Catholic youth but which, in actuality, was composed primarily offactory youth with some salesmen; the various corporations (fraternities) at the universities, mostly social in function; the Student Social Movement, organized by an extraordinary priest, Carl Sonnenschein, which sought to bridge through Christian love the c1ass antagonisms dividing students from a majority of Germans - all had priests in the key position of decision maker and some tended to be completely religious while others saw the religious function as a vital but not the only function. All of these organizations existed before 19 I 4 and had one factor in common: they utilized the educational-devotional technique in youth activity, all under the supervision of adults, a form of youth work called by the Germans Jugendpflege, as opposed to Jugendbewegung, in which the form, activity, and purpose, as well as direction, were in the hands of the youth themselves, a tradition c10sely associated with the Wandervogel. Only one Catholic organization could be placed in the latter category, Quickborn. The German youth movement (Jugendbewegung) began its famous sweep through Protestant Germany prior to the First World War. Basically the youth movement was an attack on sham and the bogus conditions which students felt existed in the Wilhelmian sodal struc• ture. It was also a rebellion against the school, which was the primary social focus of their life and work, the school, which had been ration• alized to produce the adults required by the then existing society. The harsh discipline and plain drudgery of the school system brought the XXVI PREFACE students to revolt and to seek to return to a "natural" way oflife. This was contrasted with the "unnatural and artificial" way of life, one which the student faced daily in his struggle to educate himself for a position in Wilhelmian society.28 The youth movement was one of the most important infiuences with which Neudeutschland would struggle. However, its attitudes and program were not received directly, as these were considered tinged with attitudes and concepts wrong for Catholic students. The path to the usable portion of the youth movement experience was borrowed largely from another Catholic organization, Quickborn, which had al• ready moved onto the path of youth movement and which, enroute, had adopted the key attitudes of naturalness for youth, and youth for the sake ofyouth. The infiuence ofthe youth movement within Catholic circ1es was thus a contribution from the youth movement itselfbut even more pertinently, from Quickborn, which developed only shortly after the Wandervogel. One of the early leaders of the Quickborn movement c1aimed that its origins were to be found in the "misery, dullness, and uselessness of the schoollife." Military discipline had infiltrated everything until even the study of religion had become "dry and routine."29 The youth between the ages of 15 and 18 years of age lived two separate and distinct lives: one in school, subject to the drill-master teacher; and one outside of the school. Parents were too involved in making a living and too involved in the artificial conventions of customs to un• derstand the needs of their children or to respond. Consequently the youth were left with only the drill-master school system to help them cross the gap between adolescence and adulthood. This was particu• larly true in the great metropolitan areas, but also was true even in the smaller, provincial cities and towns. 30 To this youth came the message ofthe Wandervogel, the original groups ofthe youth movement which had their origins in the suburbs ofBerlin near the turn ofthe century. The message called for the search for a "Youth World" (Jugendreich) in nature, to be found through wandering. The same questions the Wandervogel students had asked were now proposed by small groups

18 A complete study of the original Wandervogel and its successor the Free German Youth is in: Roessler, Jugend im Erziehungsfeld, Part I. Also: Felix Raabe, Die Bündische Jugend (Stuttgart: 1961), 1-g6. Also basic is: Walter Laqueur, Toung Germanv (New York: 1962),3-83. 29 Bernard Strehler, "Aus dem Werden und Leben Quickborns," in: Richard Thum• wald (ed.), Die Neue Jugend; Forschungen zur Völkerpsychologie und Soziologie, Band IV (Leipzig: 1927),57. 30 Ibid., 58. PREFACE XXVII of Catholic students: "Is youth only apreparation for a later middle• dass profession? Was it not possible to have one's own life, activities, and Gemeinschaft, or was a Gesellschaft inevitable?" 31 Many Catholic leaders made this questioning by the youth out to be asearching form of cultural criticism. From this perspective they view• ed Quickborn (and also later Neudeutschland) as a protest against the existing culture, against such existing phenomena as the division of the Volk into dasses, the nature of the school, the meaningless mate• rialistic life, the degradation of religion, and the lonely metropolitan existence which was unnatural to the core. 32 The concept ofthe Youth Kingdom was interpreted as being a means of searching for a new type of human being and a new kind of human relationship, based on Ge• meinschaft values, to be found in the youth world in the "Heim" (youth meeting place) and also on the Heim-evening, which sym• bolized the comradeship binding the participants together. 33 However, the Wandervogel mood was not the only new movement which had influence among Catholic students. Others, movements of a purely religious nature, had also begun to be influential at approx• imately the same time, and their influence was to blend with the call of the youth revolution. These developments induded the liturgical eucharistie, retreat, congregational, and biblical movements, all of which would function within and influence Quickborn, and later Neu• deutschland. 34 In 1919, a small group of young people, mostly university students, was formed in the city of Mainz, a group which would merge with Quickborn, a group which would have much influence, not only on Quickborn, but on all future Catholic youth organizations. Its leader was one of the most creative and influential men in Catholic cirdes be• tween the wars, Romano Guardini, who effectively organized the group, named Juventus. With Juventus joining Quickborn in 1919, there came the first impact of Guardini's ideas on the Catholic youth movement, ideas which were to be of decisive importance in Quick• born's subsequent development, and more indirectly, on Neudeutsch• land's future. Guardini argued persuasively that there was no contra• diction between being Catholic and being part of the "true" youth

81 IbUl. BI R. Romuald Edenhofer, Jungmanns Seelsorge - Praktische Handreichungshefte für Jugend• seelsorge und ihre Laienhelfer (Abtei Melten: 1935), I SI. 88 Ibid. 84 Edenhofer, Jungmanns Seelsorge, 178-183. See also: Johannes Hessen, Die Geistesströ• mungender Gegenwart (Freiburg: 1937), 167. 173-174,and 176-181. xxvm PREFACE

movement. He advocated the Y outh Kingdom and sought to redefine the relationship between the sexes so that the perspective of youth would be based on honor and trust, not prudish separation. He also sought to redefine the relationship between youth and society, so as to replace the artificial (which dominated) with a natural relationship. It was Guardini who gave concrete expression to the aims of many in Quickborn, both leaders and followers. Moreover, it was he who would be considered the voice ofthe Catholic youth during the 1920'S.35 Thus, prior to the First World War, the lines offuture development for Catholic youth organizations in general were not completely clear. The question of religious orientation versus practical orientation in which religious training would be one vital, but not the sole, factor was not yet settled. Furthermore, the question of youth welfare versus youth movement was only beginning to emerge as a problem in Catholic circles. Lastly, the very classification of "youth" was uncertain. This was particularly important in the case of students. Which took pre• cedence, the fact that a youth was a student, or that he was a Catholic? If the former took precedence, then the youth organization would be structured to meet the needs of the students. If the latter prevailed, then the religious factor would have priority, and youth - regardless of whether they be students, apprentices, workers, or farmers - would be grouped together in one Catholic organization. Consequently, any new organization for Catholic students had a host of questions to which to respond, a long historical tradition within which to grow or against which to rebel, and immediate influences to accept, combat, or channel.

35 See the speech ofGuardini given in 1925 which is quoted in: Strehler, Aus dem Werden, ~3' A general interpretation ofthe impact ofGuardini is in: Wilhelm Schwarz, Versuch einer Ubersicht über die Katlwlische Jugendbewegung (Köln: 1930), 31. For a complete presentation of Guardini's ideas, see: Romano Guardini, Neue Jugend und katlwlischer Geist (Mainz: 1921).