Abstract Résumé

Strata Miranda Brethour

“WER DIE JUGEND HAT, HAT DIE ZUKUNFT”1: RAISING GLOBAL COLD WARRIORS THROUGH THE JUGENDWEIHE IN THE FORMER GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC2

MIRANDA BRETHOUR MA student, University of Ottawa

Abstract

In recent years, scholars have begun to re-conceptualize the Cold War as a global conflict in which states in Africa, Latin America, and Asia played a key role. Building on such new developments in the historiography, this article considers a part of East Germany’s youth policy, the Jugendweihe coming-of-age ceremony, in the context of the state’s international goals. It argues that through the process of undertaking the Jugendweihe ceremony and preparatory hours, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) strove to forge close links between East German youth and socialist or burgeoning socialist states internationally. Significantly, this article confirms that the domestic policy of the GDR cannot be considered in a vacuum, and further emphasizes the importance attributed to youth and socialist states abroad by the East German state during the Cold War.

Résumé

Depuis quelques années, plusieurs chercheurs ont cherché à reconceptualiser la Guerre froide en tant que conflit global au sein duquel les États d’Afrique, d’Amérique latine et d’Asie ont joué un rôle déterminant. En s’appuyant sur de tels développements historiographiques, cet article entend replacer un aspect de la politique jeunesse est-allemande dans le contexte des politiques internationales, à savoir la Jugendweihe, une cérémonie du passage à l’âge adulte. Nous soutenons que la République démocratique allemande (RDA), à travers la tenue de cette cérémonie, ainsi que des heures préparatoires devant y être consacrées, avaient notamment comme objectif de forger des liens plus étroits entre la jeunesse est-allemande et les États socialistes ou à tendance socialiste. Par cet article, nous réaffirmons

1 “Whoever has the youth, has the future.” This was a saying commonly expressed by leaders of East Germany. Sandrine Kott, Communism Day-To-Day: State Enterprises in East German Society (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014), 153. 2 The author must credit translation assistance to Dani Carron and Nicole Minkova. However, all final translation decisions and any errors are the responsibility of the author alone. The author also wishes to thank Dr. Eric Allina for his guidance and detailed feedback throughout the research and writing process of this paper.

55 Strata Miranda Brethour que la politique intérieure de la RDA ne peut pas être étudiée en vase clos, en soulignant davantage l’importance accordée à la jeunesse et aux États durant la Guerre froide.

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In March 1955, after months of preparation, thousands of thirteen and fourteen year-olds across East Germany confirmed their solemn pledge to “serve world peace, the unity of our fatherland, and the build up of Socialism,” to fight “for a united, peace-loving, democratic, and independent Germany,” and to exercise “strength for the building of a happy life, for progress in the economy, science, and art.”3 After reciting this oath, they received a gift book, Weltall, Erde, Mensch, and returned home to collect presents and celebrate their achievement of becoming full members of socialist society, bearing all of the responsibilities encompassed in the pledge. These young East Germans were the first to undergo this socialist coming-of-age ceremony, known as the Jugendweihe. Though the ceremony itself lasted only a few hours, the preparatory lessons were spread over months, during which Jugendliche were immersed in socialist values through excursions to factories, museums and often, one of the Nationale Mahn- und Gedenkstätten4 of Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, and Sachsenhausen. By the 1960s, the former concentration camps became a routine location for the swearing of the solemn oath. This article illustrates that through the Jugendweihe youth lessons and oath- taking ceremonies, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) attempted to mobilize active involvement in international solidarity amongst youth of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The program of the Jugendweihe introduced young students to ideas of international resistance against fascism, capitalism, and imperialism in a way that ultimately facilitated youth engagement with socialist states in the Third World, which were often embedded in their own resistance struggles. Although these connections are, in many ways, implicit in the documents, and require an appraisal of the Jugendweihe as a part of a larger youth policy in the GDR, this analysis conveys much about the role and importance attributed to youth by the East German

3 “Two Pledges for the Jugendweihe (1955/1958),” German History in Documents and Images, accessed April 1, 2018, http://germanhistorydocs.ghidc.org/sub _document.cfm?document_id=4573. 4 The German Nationale Mahn- und Gedenkstätten translates to a memorial, with further connotations as a site of warning.

56 Strata Miranda Brethour state, particularly during the leadership of Erich Honecker, 1971-1989. The argument is divided into three main parts, and considers a number of different elements of the Jugendweihe: A deconstruction of the Jugendweihe excursions to the national memorials and former concentration camps, a consideration of the significance of the Jugendweihe as a moment of transition between the Thälmann Pioneers and the Freie Deutsche Jugend (FDJ), and a reflection on international solidarity in the 1970s and 1980s. Youth policy, in the context of this paper, refers to SED-directed activities, organizations, and education for youth that were promoted to accomplish the domestic and international goals of the state. Supporting primary documents include state reports and surveys of the Jugendweihe conducted by the Zentralinstitut für Jugendforschung, a state body founded in 1966 to monitor youth sentiments about the FDJ, the contents of Jugendweihe Geschenkbücher, and overall youth engagement with socialism.5 Speeches by leaders of the SED, and books published by state companies, such as Grafischer Großbetrieb Völkerfreundschaft Dresden and Verlag Zeit im Bild, provide insight into changing perceptions of youth and the goals of youth education. The most valuable primary sources are the collection of photographs from the Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrichtendienst (ADN), the central press agency of the GDR, now contained in the picture database of the Bundesarchiv in Berlin. Although the photographs themselves are not always illuminating, the original ADN captions attached to them are rich in detail. The notion of a coming-of-age ceremony for young people was, of course, not unique to the GDR. The details of the ceremony were rooted in nineteenth-century German Protestant confirmations, after which youth would adopt more responsibility in society. In 1954, the SED created a committee for the Jugendweihe, and prepared for its introduction into the GDR in 1955.6 Although the Jugendweihe was initially framed as optional, many report that participation was indeed necessary to avoid facing barriers in one’s education and career.7 Perhaps in part due to coercion, participation increased

5 Kott, Communism Day-To-Day, 159; Arnold Pinther and Hans-George Mehlhorn, SDW-Studie 1975: eine Effektanalyse des Geschenkbuches zur Jugendweihe ‘Der Sozialismus – Deine Welt (Leipzig: Zentralinstitut für Jugendforschung, 1975). 6 Marina Chauliac, “La ‘Jugendweihe’: Continuités et Changements d’un Rite Hérité de la RDA,” Revue française de science politique 53, no. 3 (2003): 386-388. 7 Barbara Wolbert, “Jugendweihe: Revitalizing a Socialist Coming-Of-Age Ceremony in Unified Berlin,” in The German Wall: Fallout in Europe, ed. Marc Silberman (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 124.

57 Strata Miranda Brethour significantly in the 1960s: while 51.5% of eligible young East Germans partook in the ceremony in 1959, the percentage had risen to 90.7% by 1962, and this level of popularity was maintained until the reunification of Germany in 1989.8 Formal education on the Jugendweihe began many years before students planned to undergo the ceremony, affirming that the state placed great value on this event.9 Students remember eagerly awaiting their Jugendweihe: Jana Hensel, who took her oath in the 1980s, affirmed that “The Jugendweihe was the high point of our young lives, the point at which we were officially accepted as trained Socialists into the great community of the working class.”10 Despite overwhelming evidence confirming the significance of the Jugendweihe (both to the East German state and to the Jugendweiheteilnehmer themselves), English-language historiography on the topic is limited.11 Existing work on the Jugendweihe tends to oscillate around a few major themes: the clash of the church and state in East Germany, the revival of the Jugendweihe in post- unification Germany, and the notion of “socializing” youth into ideal East German citizens.12 This third approach is most relevant for this paper.13

8 Gregory Wegner, “In the Shadow of the Third Reich: The ‘Jugendstunde’ and the Legitimation of Anti-Fascist Heroes for East German Youth,” German Studies Review 19, no. 1 (1996): 131; Paul Betts, Within Walls: Private Life in the German Democratic Republic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 72-73. 9 The formal Jugendstunden lessons were commenced a few months before the ceremony itself however, school programs in years leading up to the Jugendweihe would further teach students about the significance of this event. For instance, third graders were already learning about the Jugendweihe, which would take place in 7th or 8th grade. Catherine Plum, Antifascism After Hitler: East German Youth and Socialist Memory, 1949-1989 (New York: Routledge, 2015). 10 Jana Hensel, After the Wall: Confessions from an East German Childhood and the Life that Came Next (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004), 92. 11 GDR youth as a whole remain understudied. Studies of youth in a socialist state tend to emphasize the ways in which young people resisted state ideology, and marginalize the state’s perspectives on youth. See Mark Fenemore, “The limits of repression and reform: youth policy in the early 1960s,” in The Workers’ and Peasants’ State: Communism and society in East Germany under Ulbricht 1945-71, ed. Patrick Major and Jonathan Osmond (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012); Timothy S. Brown, “1968” East and West: Divided Germany as a Case Study in Transnational History,” The American Historical Review 114, no. 1 (2009): 69-96. 12 A few pieces that focus on the church-state confrontation are as follows: Nikolai Vukor, “Secular Rituals and Political Commemorations in the GDR, 1945-1956,” in Religion and the Secular in Eastern Germany, 1945 to the present, ed. Esther Peperkamp and Małgorzata Rajtar (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2010); Mary Fulbrook, The People’s State: East German Society from Hitler to Honecker (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005). 13 Wolbert, “Jugendweihe,” 126; Peter W. Sperlich, Oppression and Scarcity: The History and Institutional Structure of the Marxist-Leninist Government of East Germany and Some Perspectives on Life in a Socialist System (Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2006), 189; Emmanuel Droit, “L’Éducation en RDA: ou la quête de l’homme socialiste nouveau (1949-1990),” Histoire de l’éducation 101 (2004): 3-33.

58 Strata Miranda Brethour

What is often missing from this facet of the historiography, however, is a discussion of which qualities form this “socialist personality.” In other words: What did the state intend the result of this “socialization” process to be? This paper will contribute to this discussion by drawing attention to one goal of the Jugendweihe ceremony: Mobilizing international socialist solidarity. Although the above arguments are valuable, the contents of the Jugendweihe preparatory lessons and ceremony are often ignored. Mainly, few authors consider the significance of performing the Jugendweihe at the national memorials if these excursions are mentioned at all. This relegation of the former camps to the peripheries of the historiography would be justified if the evidence likewise confirmed they were marginal to this rite-of-passage. On the contrary, according to the literature, nearly twenty-five percent of all visitors to the Ettersberg Memorial (a memorial site visited as part of Buchenwald) between the years 1959 and 1985 were students preparing for their Jugendweihe.14 Itineraries for the Jugendstunden (a series of ‘youth lessons’ meant to prepare the students for the ceremony itself) confirm that such excursions were regularly included as part of three-day visits to East Berlin or other major East German cities.15 While existing literature addresses the Jugendweihe and state perceptions of youth, very little scholarly attention has been directed particularly at the educational contents of the Jugendstunden and Jugendweihe as a tool to mobilize international solidarity. Often, such ideas are mentioned but not subject to rigorous analysis. The most pertinent example is Gregory Wegner’s claim that through the Jugendweihe, youth were to prepare “to defend the country from imperialist aggression while, as true patriots, strengthen ties with the Soviet Union and the larger brotherhood of socialist nations.”16 This notion that the Jugendweihe was intended to build and support relationships between the GDR and socialist states internationally is thought-provoking, yet Wegner does not expand on this idea beyond this sentence. Thus, in many ways, this paper responds to Wegner’s omission and systematically investigates this claim, asking how, exactly, did the state intend to forge links with socialist states internationally through the Jugendweihe?

14 Wegner, “In the Shadow of the Third Reich,” 135. 15 See Bundesarchiv, bild 183-P1119-0013, photo: Wolfgang Kluge, November 19, 1975; Bundesarchiv, bild 183-1986-0205-017, photo: Thomas Lehmann, February 5, 1986. 16 Wegner, “In the Shadow of the Third Reich,” 131.

59 Strata Miranda Brethour

This question is timely, due to the ongoing shift in the literature on the GDR towards a focus on the transnational links between East Germany and other socialist states in the so-called Third World. This body of work has highlighted dynamic exchanges between the Second and Third Worlds, forcing a reconsideration of the Cold War as a multipolar conflict. Further, in the case of GDR-Third World relations, the nature of these interactions was not wholly directed by East Germany. Rather, due to the pressure imposed on the GDR by the Hallstein doctrine17, Third World states could often exert demands and mould these exchanges to benefit their own interests.18 Likewise, this paper will draw attention to the key role the Third World occupied in the domestic and international affairs of the GDR through a deconstruction of the Jugendweihe. As the most comprehensive literature on the Jugendweihe was published largely in the 1990s, there has yet to be a piece that approaches the Jugendweihe ceremony from a Global Cold War lens.

Cold War Youth

Of the many questions initiated by this study, one remains most integral to consider: Why youth? After the national memorials of Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, and Ravensbrück were established around the late 1950s and early 1960s, many groups took cultural excursions to the sites and important political functions were performed at these locations; youth lessons and ceremonies were not the only notable events that took place at the former concentration camps.19 Although perhaps obvious, solidarity campaigns for the Third World were not only directed at youth, either. Thus, the use of GDR youth as the unit of analysis for this paper demands justification, which can be found in a number of documents that expose the anxieties surrounding youth in the context of the Cold War.

17 The Hallstein doctrine stipulated that West Germany would break diplomatic relations with any state that recognized the statehood of East Germany. It remained in place from 1955 until 1970. 18 Sara Pugach, “African Students and the Politics of Race and Gender in the German Democratic Republic,” in Comrades of Color: East Germany in the Cold War World, ed. Quinn Slobodian (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2015), 134; Young-sun Hong, Cold War Germany, the Third World, and the Global Humanitarian Regime (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 7, 133, 177. 19 Visiting workers also toured these sites as part of “cultural excursions.” Eric Allina, “Bearing a message from Maputo to Karl-Marx-Stadt: African workers and the socialist politics of labour,” Unpublished paper, 13.

60 Strata Miranda Brethour

As Mary Fulbrook reminds us, youth is “not merely an age category imposed by an outside observer, but is also a social construct at a specific historical time and place.”20 According to the revised youth law of 1974, individuals from fifteen to twenty-five were categorized as youth.21 As a social construct from the perspective of the state, youth were imperative for the success of socialism – both within the GDR, and internationally. “The young generation that is growing up in Germany today will become the carrier and shaper of life in a unified, socialist Germany,” a 1961 book on the Jugendweihe declared.22 As this quote suggests, the mobilization of youth was understood to be necessary to build a strong socialist future; the youth represented the future party leaders and workers. Honecker’s speeches further affirmed the importance accorded to youth in the GDR. In a speech titled, “Our socialist state is a state of youth,” Honecker emphasized the need for solidarity between GDR youth who “have the privilege of growing up in that part of the globe where the future of mankind is being worked out even now”, and the “young people in the imperialist states [who] are confronted with an historically anachronistic social system.”23 Saturated with Cold War rhetoric of the red threat and a fear of communist infiltration, Western media expressed concern about young GDR citizens. An article on the 1953 World Festival of Students and Youth in East Berlin in The New York Times titled “The Crucial Battle for the World’s Youth,” warned that the festival was evidence of the communist “drive to

20 Fulbrook, The People’s State, 117. 21 Office for Youth Affairs under the Council of Ministers of the GDR, Youth in the socialist state: Youth Act of the GDR, Law on the Participation of Young People in the Organization of an Advanced Socialist Society and on Their All-Round Promotion in the German Democratic Republic (Berlin: Panorama DDR), 15. 22 “Die junge Generation, die heute in Deutschland heranwächst, wird Träger und Gestalter des gesellschaftlichen Lebens in einem einheitlichen sozialistischen Deutschland sein.” Herbert Steininger, Mein Kind and unsere Welt: Uber den Sinn der Jugendweihe in der DDR (Berlin: Dietz Berlag, 1961), 16. 23 Erich Honecker, Constructive GDR Policy for Peace and Security: Speech delivered by Erich Honecker, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the SED, to mark the constitution of the National Festival Committee of the GDR for the Tenth World Festival of Youth and Students (Grafischer Grossbetrieb Völkerfreundschaft Dresden, 1972), 3; Erich Honecker, Youth in the German Democratic Republic and the tasks of our time: Speech by Comrade Erich Honecker, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, to the National Conference of the Free German Youth hold [sic] on 20 October 1972 (Dresden: Verlag Zeit im Bild, 1972), 19.

61 Strata Miranda Brethour capture the mind of youth.”24 Youth, it seems, could be mobilized as a weapon of the Cold War.

The Jugendstunden and Jugendweihe at the Nationale Mahn- und Gedenkstätten

In fall and winter months leading up to the Jugendweihe ceremony, young students would often spend a day touring a former Nazi concentration camp as part of their youth lessons. Buchenwald seemed to be the most popular site for the lessons, as it was common for students from smaller towns to visit the site as part of a three-day Berlin tour. From their establishment as national memorials, these topographies of terror were framed as powerful spaces for educating new generations of GDR citizens. As written by Otto Grotewohl, a politician involved in the early governance of the GDR, in 1954, these spaces were meant “to place the shame and disgrace of the past before the young generation so that they can draw lessons from it.”25 Additionally, considerable emphasis was placed on the histories of anti-fascist resistance and international solidarity at the camps. According to Thomas Hofmann, a past director of the Buchenwald memorial, this space was intended to convey, among other themes, “the antifascist resistance in the years 1933-1945 in Germany and other European countries,” and “the particular significance of international solidarity in this struggle and the measures that led to the liberation of the camp.”26 Upon their visits to the camps, the students were taught about international solidarity and anti-fascist resistance in great detail through a number of different media. The exhibits that the students visited at the camps brought the international character of the prisoners into focus, promoting narratives of the “unity of the oppressed,” and the powerful solidarity that

24 Barbara Ward, “The Crucial Battle for the World’s Youth: The West must surpass the totalitarian drive to capture the minds of the new generation,” The New York Times, November 18, 1951, SM7. For other examples see Drew Middleton, “Parade Closes Berlin Rally; West Ponders Youth Threat,” The New York Times, May 3, 1950, 1; Beryl R. McClaskey, The Free German Youth and the Deutschlandtreffen: A Case Study of Soviet Tactics, Research Project No. 101, (Office of the U.S High Commissioner for Germany, 1950). 25Jeffrey Herf, Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 176. 26 Peter Monteath, “The Politics of Memory: Germany and its Concentration Camp Memorials,” The European Legacy 1, no. 1 (1996): 14.

62 Strata Miranda Brethour resulted.27 The guides who led the students through the memorials built upon these narratives; in 1986 a worker at the Sachsenhausen memorial informed a youth group, “about the inhumane treatment of the prisoners from forty-seven countries, of which 100,000 died.”28 Similarly, in her article on Ravensbrück, a concentration camp only for women, Insa Eschebach describes a book presented to visiting school children from the time of the memorial’s opening until 1989 which depicted the “anti-fascist prisoners of all nations” as the heroines of Ravensbrück.29 Buchenwald necessitates special mention due to its considerable number of political prisoners and distinct history: The camp was technically self- liberated by “comrades of the camp police” before the Americans arrived.30 “The oath of Buchenwald,” which was written by the prisoners, was reproduced liberally by the SED. It reads: “We, the inmates of Buchenwald – Russians, French, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Germans, Spaniards, Italians [etc.] […] We were inspired [to fight against the Nazis for liberation] by one and the same idea […] We waged a common, hard and sacrificing struggle in many languages.”31 The state recognized the potential power of this self- liberation narrative driven by international unity. By erecting sculptures of resistance leaders and by reproducing the oath, it moulded Buchenwald into a commemorative shrine for anti-fascist resistance and international solidarity. From the perspective of the state, this narrative could support the portrayal of the GDR as the natural successor to the anti-fascist movement, and convey to the population (notably, young generations) the strength of international resistance and thus, the inherent value in the solidarity activities encouraged by the state.

27 Alan L. Nothnagle, Building the East German Myth: Historical Mythology and Youth Propaganda in the German Democratic Republic, 1945-1989 (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1999), 99. See also Mary Fulbrook, German National Identity after the Holocaust (Malden: Blackwell Publishers, Inc., 1999), 31. 28 “Siegfried Brüchner, wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter der Gedenkstätte, informierte die Jugendlichen in der Baracke 38 auf dem Gelände des kleinen Lagers über die menschenunwürdige Unterbringun der Häftlinge aus 47 Ländern, von denen über 100.000 den Tod fanden.” Bundesarchiv, bild 183-1986-0218-036, photo: Thomas Uhlemann, February 18, 1986. 29 In her article, Eschebach does not specify if these visits were part of the Jugendweihe program. Insa Eschebach, “Soil, Ashes, Commemoration: Processes of Sacralization at the Ravensbrück Former Concentration Camp,” History & Memory 23, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2011): 142. 30Russel Lemmons, Hitler’s Rival: Ernst Thälmann in Myth and Memory (Kentucky Scholarship Online, 2012), 192. 31 Fulbrook, German National Identity after the Holocaust, 30-31.

63 Strata Miranda Brethour

During their visits to Buchenwald, the Jugendweiheteilnehmer were flooded with information about the anti-fascist resistance and the international solidarity that helped liberate the camp.32 In a study on the impact of visits to the memorials among youth, which was conducted in 1990, many students asserted that their visit to Buchenwald was part of the Jugendweihefahrt, a trip that was part of the Jugendweihe process. The authors of the survey write that, during these visits, students were expected to learn about the unity of the anti- fascist struggle. Although the survey showed that students were most interested in narratives of the “fascist terror,” the history of the anti-fascist struggle was nevertheless prominent during these visits. In response to the question, “To what extent did you receive information about the following areas during your Buchenwald visit?” 65% of students responded with “completely” (“vollkommen”) to the resistance struggle of the prisoners and 55% responded the same to solidarity amongst the prisoners.33 It is important to note that in East German state rhetoric and education materials for youth, distinctions between fascism, imperialism, and capitalism were blurred to forge temporal continuities between the past and the present: The struggle of the resistance fighters against fascism during the Second World War, and the current fight against Western capitalism and imperialism in the Third World. State documents emphasize that these ‘three evils’ originated within one another or were otherwise intrinsically linked. For instance, the Deputy Chairman of the GDR Committee for the Decade of Action to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination asserted that, “[i]mperialism generates fascism as inevitably as it breeds colonialism, fascism as inevitably as it breeds colonialism, fascism and war.”34 When covering current events, such

32 Ibid. 33 “Inwieweit hast Du beim heutigen Buchenwaldbesuch über die folgenden Bereiche Informationen erhalten?” Wilfried Schubarth, Wirkungen eines Gedenkstättenbesuches bei Jugendlichen: Ergebnisse einer Wirkungsanalyse von Besuchen in der Nationalen Mahn-und Gedenkstätte Buchenwald (Leipzig: Zentralinstitut für Jugendforschung, 1990), 14-15. 34 Speech given by the Deputy Chairman of the Christian Democratic Union and President of the Supreme Court of the GDR, Dr. Heinrich Toeplitz, on the occasion of the founding of the GDR Committee for the Decade of Action to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination and his appointment as Chairman of this Committee, 25 June 1974, in the GDR Institute for International Politics and Economies and GDR Committee for the Decade of Action to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination, Against Racism, Apartheid and Colonialism: Documents published by the GDR 1949-1977 (Berlin: Staatsverlag der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1978), 345.

64 Strata Miranda Brethour as the Vietnam War, newspapers drew explicit parallels between the actions of the United States to those of Hitler.35 In terms of youth education, the atrocities of Nazism and the millions of dead in the concentration camps were framed in a 1952 textbook as the result of the Wehrmacht, the SS, and capitalist corporations.36 History textbooks similarly linked Hitler’s rise to power with “his fated alliance with the monopoly capitalism of the West.”37 This trend continued throughout the GDR’s existence; in the late 1980s, fascism was defined in a grade 9 textbook as “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, chauvinist and imperialistic elements of finance capital.”38 Nazism became equated with fascism and closely linked with imperialism, both of which were branded as a natural result of a capitalist system.39 Thus, the Nazi past was externalized to the GDR and the responsibility for the millions of deaths and destruction under Nazism could be placed entirely on the GDR’s capitalist enemies – particularly West Germany. An early camp guide for Buchenwald, for instance, outlines that, “What you see here [at the camp] … depicts the enormity of the crimes committed by the capitalist monopolists who brought fascism to Germany. The same monopolists are still running West Germany.”40 Such rhetorical strategies were designed as mobilization tools to garner support for East Germany’s ideological battle against American capitalism and West Germany, and further demonstrate the need for continuing international solidarity in the present – as the system that enabled the rise of fascism had not yet been defeated. Perhaps since the exhibits at the memorials were discovered to be insufficiently persuasive of the power of international solidarity, direct encounters between the students and former anti-fascist resistance fighters were planned. In certain cases, a former participant in the anti-fascist struggle accompanied the young Jugendweiheteilnehmer around the memorials. In 1976, a

35 Gerd Horten, “Sailing in the Shadow of the Vietnam War: The GDR Government and the ‘Vietnam Bonus’ of the Early 1970s,” German Studies Review 36, no. 3 (2013): 564. 36 Daniela R. P. Weiner, “Tendentious Texts: Holocaust Representations and Nation- Rebuilding in East German, Italian, and West German Schoolbooks, 1949-1989,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 17, no. 3 (2018): 345. 37 Wegner, “In the Shadow of the Third Reich,” 128-129. 38 Robin Ostrow, “Reimaging Ravensbrück,” Journal of European Area Studies 9, no. 1 (2001): 121. 39 Monteath, “Narratives of Fascism in the GDR,” 99. 40 Philip Shabecoff, “East Germans Turn Buchenwald into Museum and Vehicle for Propaganda,” The New York Times, April 21, 1966, 16.

65 Strata Miranda Brethour group of students from the Dr. Richard Sorge School in Eilsleben visited the Sachsenhausen memorial as preparation for their upcoming Jugendweihe. Karl Pioch, a participant in the Spanish Civil War and a prisoner in Sachsenhausen from 1942 to 1945, toured the group around the memorial.41 Similarly, in 1970, when a group of Jugendweiheteilnehmer had a youth lesson at Buchenwald, they met with the director of the memorial, Klaus Trostorff, who also had “experienced the self-liberation of prisoners in the KZ Buchenwald.”42 This visit notably occurred on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the self-liberation of Buchenwald, which was commemorated with a 15,000-person rally, including the students. Interaction between youth and anti-fascist resistance fighters was meant to act as a space of transference, wherein youth would be mobilized to pick up the struggle in defence of the ideals represented by the resistance fighters, living and dead: International solidarity, a vehement opposition to fascism and imperialism, the desire for peace, and freedom. “Out of your sacrificial death grows our socialist deed,” reads the title of Russel Lemmons’ chapter on the Ernst Thälmann myth, referring to the leader of German Communist Party who was executed by the Nazis at Buchenwald.43 Although Lemmons does not apply this quote to GDR youth, it aptly encapsulates these visits to the camps and youth interactions with anti-fascist resistance leaders. In the 1980s, the Jugendstunden were divided in themes that the youth had to complete in order to receive the Jugendweihe. Under the first theme, “we fulfill the Revolutionary Legacy”, youth would visit the former concentration camps.44 As the second section of this paper will display, fulfilling this legacy could take many forms – one of which being participation in solidarity programs. The state’s intent to mobilize youth in defence of international socialism was made explicit in state documents, though not in the context of such camp visits. In a speech from 1972, in reference to the “Growing international position of the GDR,” Honecker declared: “We can take pride in the fact that

41 Bundesarchiv, bild 183-R0324-0001, photo: Klaus Franke, March 24, 1976. 42 “Der Direktor der Nationalen Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Buchenwald, Klaus Trostorff, erlebte die Selbstbefreiung als Häftling im KZ Buchenwald mit.” Bundesarchiv, bild 183-J0404-0005-001, photo: Dieter Demme, April 4, 1970. 43 Lemmons, Hitler’s Rival, 187. 44 “Wir erfüllen das revoluntionäre Vermächtnis.” Joachim Chowanski and Rolf Dreier, Die Jugendweihe: Eine Kulturgeschichte seit 1852 (Berlin: Edition Ost, 2000), 100; Marko Schubert, “Jugendweihe in der DDR: Reifeprüfund für Weltveräderer,” Spiegel Online, February 2, 2010, http://www.spiegel.de/einestages/jugendweihe-in-der-ddr-a-949880.html.

66 Strata Miranda Brethour today’s young generation is joining the revolutionary movement of their fathers, taking up and intensifying their battle in a courageous and principled manner.”45 In reference to the legacy of Ernst Thälmann, the youth act of 1974 professes that youth, “continue the revolutionary work of preceding generations with great seriousness and do everything in their power to meet the demands made on them in our day.”46 If they so took up the cause, it was suggested that they would become state martyrs and heroes just as the anti-fascist resistance fighters were. This mobilization was cemented through the physical and symbolic journey participants took through the former concentration camps. Although this journey varied slightly depending on the camp, the overall structure was the same: Jugendweiheteilnehmer would become witnesses to fascist terror and its legacy, pay their respects to the murdered anti-fascist fighters, and finally end at a sculpture or memorial that was meant to symbolize the bright future – the grounds for which had been initiated by the sacrifice of the resistance fighters, and had to be continued by the next generations. Insa Eschebach describes the “experience trail” undertaken by visitors to Ravensbrück as follows: After passing through [the crematoria and camp prison], visitors were supposed to proceed to the mass grave, where the ashes found at the crematorium, along with 283 bodies found in the area of the camp, had been buried. The tour finished at the statue entitled Burdened Woman by Will Lammert, which is set on a pedestal projecting into the lake: a female bronze figure carrying another slumped woman stands on a plinth around twenty-five feet high […] The figure’s left foot seems to step forward, giving the impression that she is striding across the lake. The statue thus points to new beginnings and the defeat of death.47

Although Eschebach provides no evidence that the students performed this route while visiting the camp for their Jugendweihe preparation (she does not discuss the Jugendweihe in her article), other sources suggest that they would have taken a similar path, if not exactly the one described above. The ADN offers a description of the exhibits at Ravensbrück as, “containing photographs and other tangible witnesses [which] make this part of history [of

45 Youth in the German Democratic Republic and the tasks of our time, 19. 46 Youth in the socialist state, 12. 47 Eschebach, “Soil, Ashes, Commemoration,” 137.

67 Strata Miranda Brethour the camp] clear to the students.”48 After completing their trip to the camp for their Jugendstunden, a group of students placed flowers at another memorial, “Two Women Standing,” “in honor of the murdered anti-fascist resistance fighters.”49 Far less evidence exists documenting the path visitors took through the Nationalen Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Sachsenhausen. During the outing, youth were known to visit an installation of a room where resistance fighters were “tortured and martyred post-mortem,” as well as the “infamous shooting gallery in which thousands of patriots were murdered.”50 A photo from 1970 confirms that the main sculpture featured in the camp was a tall, obelisk structure labelled “freedom,” suggesting that Sachsenhausen visits could end at this sculpture.51 The path through the Buchenwald camp was extremely structured. In her book Geboren im Jahr Eins: Der Jahrgang 1949 in der DDR Versuch einer Kollektivbiographie, Dorothee Wierling outlines in detail the journey through Buchenwald that Jugendweihe participants took in the year 1963. Beginning in the 1960s, the visit would open with a screening of a documentary-style film, showing horrific images of how the camp looked upon liberation by the Americans. After this film, the youth would visit SS offices where prisoners were tortured, which included descriptions of the torture tools. Later, they would pay homage at the “alter scene” of the Thälmann memorial, which featured a portrait of Thälmann and the words “Immortal victim, you lie within” (“Unsterbliche Opfer, Ihr sanket dahin”), significant for its use of the word “Opfer,” which has connotations of both victimhood and sacrifice. Finally, near the end of the visit, they would walk through the grounds past the mass graves until both the sculpture of the freed prisoners and the bell tower could be seen.52

48 “In einer Ausstellung machen zahlreiche Fotos und andere Sachzeugen diesen Teil deutscher Geschichte den Schülern anschaulich.” Bundesarchiv, bild 183-1988-0519-030, photo: Peter Grimm, May 19, 1988. 49 “Mit dem Niederlegen eines Blumengebindes ehrten sie die ermordeten antifaschistischen Widerstandskämpfer.” Bundesarchiv, bild 183-R0318-0023, photo: Benno Bartocha, March 28, 1976. 50 “Widerstandskämpfer gequält und zu Tode gemartert wurden” […] “den berüchtigten Erschließungsgang in dem tausende Patrioten meuchlings ermordet wurden.” Bundesarchiv, bild 183-88839-0002, photo: Krueger, December 13, 1961. 51 Bundesarchiv, bild 183-J0409-0301-004, photo: Sturm Horst, April 9, 1970. 52 Dorothee Wierling, Geboren im Jahr Eins: Der Jahrgang 1949 in der DDR Versuch einer Kollektivbiographie (Berlin: Ch.Links Verlag, 2002), 250-251.

68 Strata Miranda Brethour

This journey exposed youth to the horrors of fascism, but ended with the possibility of an optimistic future secured by socialism; a future that they, as members of the new generation, were responsible to maintain. The Fritz Cremer memorial sculpture, built in 1958, which appeared near the end of the Buchenwald “experience trail,” cemented the power of youth in securing this future. It depicts a young boy featured alongside ten men, representing the new generation of anti-fascist resistance fighters.53 All the figures stand stoically, looking out at the landscape. This sculpture was included in the Jugendstunden even before it was officially created; in 1955, a group of Jugendweiheteilnehmer visited Prof. Cremer himself in his studio, where he spoke with them about the sculpture.54 Other scholars, such as Peter Monteath, have argued that the journey through the camps would start in the “depths of fascist barbarism,” and end with a glorification of “working class triumph.” 55 Yet, the significance of this journey has yet to be connected with GDR youth. To summarize this experience at the camps as part of the Jugendweihe, youth were meant to learn in depth about the horrors of fascist brutality, often alongside an anti-fascist resistance fighter. The exhibits at the memorials, as well as the presence of the resistance fighters, intended to convey the power of international solidarity and unity in the struggle against oppression for a better, socialist future. The youth groups would end their visit by paying homage to the anti-fascist martyrs of the GDR, and visiting memorials that conveyed themes of unity, glory, and the future. In conjunction with the explicit links made between past and present, it can be preliminarily concluded that the state aimed to mobilize youth to participate in international socialist solidarity through these visits. In Jugendweihe documents from 1955 to 1989, one can track this focus on mobilizing youth for the future, specifically for the support and building of socialism internationally. In the Jugendweihe pledge from 1958, Jugendliche were asked if they were “ready to use all [their] strength […] for the great and noble cause of Socialism,” and if they were “ready to stand up for friendship among the nations and with the Soviet nation, and to secure and defend peace along with all peace-loving people of the world”, to which they responded, “Yes, we pledge.”56 The solemn oath of 1986/87 similarly called on youth to “protect

53 For further analysis of this sculpture, see Nothnagle, Building the East German Myth, 109-110. 54 Bundesarchiv, bild 183-29675-0004, photo: Horst Sturm and Heinz Junge, March 30, 1955. 55 Monteath, “Narratives of Fascism in the GDR,” 108. 56 “Two Pledges for the Jugendweihe (1955/1958).”

69 Strata Miranda Brethour the peace and defend socialism against all attacks by the imperialists.”57 This mobilization was boasted as successful by the state; the revised youth act of 1974 confirms that youth “rise for the anti-imperialist struggle which is now declared to be a crisis of youth” and “continue to oppose imperialist forces.”58 Solidarity efforts performed at home and abroad were encouraged and seen as a way of participating in this anti-imperialist struggle in support of Third World states. As spoken by Honecker on the occasion of the National Conference of the Free German Youth in 1972, “[Partnership] means resolute struggle against imperialism, humanity’s No. 1 enemy. It means showing solidarity shoulder to shoulder with all peoples struggling for peace and independence, democracy and socialism.”59 Solidarity could take a number of forms, such as raising money, forging connections with visiting students and other youth groups, as well as participating in solidarity rallies, friendship camps, and travelling abroad through brigades or tourist programs.60 Importantly, greater responsibility in regards to participation in solidarity efforts was introduced upon undertaking the Jugendweihe, as the young socialists left the Thälmann Pioneers to join the FDJ.

The Thälmann Pioneers, the Freie Deutsche Jugend and Third World Solidarity

The Jugendweihe marked the transition from the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organization (ages 6 to 14) to the Freie Deutsche Jugend (ages 14 to 25). The Pioneer Organization was further divided into the Young Pioneers and the Thälmann Pioneers: directly before their Jugendweihe, students would usually be members of the Thälmann Pioneers.61 Although both groups were voluntary,

57 Manfred Grote and Barbara Kienbaum, “East German Youth Policy,” East European Quarterly 24, no. 4 (1991): 463. 58 Youth in the socialist state, 13, 22. 59 Youth in the German Democratic Republic and the tasks of our time, 9. 60 Committed to Peace, Socialism and Solidarity: Erich Honecker His role in world affairs (Dresden: Verlag Zeit im Bild, 1987), 188; Free German Youth: The GDR’s all-embracing youth organization (Grafischer Grossbetrieb Völkerfreundschaft Dresden, 1985), 42. 61 There is no clear consensus in the literature as to the age groups of the Young Pioneers and Thälmann Pioneers. Generally, it seems that the former was for ages 6 to 9 and the latter for those 9 to 14.

70 Strata Miranda Brethour membership rates were high: in 1986, the peak year of FDJ membership, 86.6% of youth were registered in the FDJ.62 Upon its inauguration in 1946, the goals and purpose of the FDJ were rooted in overcoming the fascist past, and building the socialist future. Its founding resolution reads as follows: “We boys and girls of the Free German Youth commit ourselves, in Germany’s most dire hour of need, to rebuilding our homeland on an antifascist-democratic basis. We are united by the sacred desire to help overcome, through joint exertions, the guilt of our nation caused by Nazism.”63 At the foundational congress of the same year, the responsibility of FDJ members to secure the future, to become “master builders of a new epoch,” was again emphasized.64 After the Jugendweihe oath was performed, students could immediately be inducted into the FDJ. Considering the students took the Jugendweihe oath at the former concentration camps, the process of joining the FDJ at times took place at this location as well. In 1968, students from Berlin had their first Jugendweihe lesson at Buchenwald, after which 93 out of the 130 students became members of the FDJ.65 Despite a lack of primary sources surrounding these dual ceremonies, many scholars have confirmed that they did in fact take place at the Nationale Mahn- und Gedenkstätten.66 According to Gregory Wegner, the FDJ ritual commonly took place around the Cremer sculpture and bell tower at Buchenwald and, similarly, Jenny Wüstenberg asserted that Buchenwald itself was known among GDR youth as the location of Jugendweihe and FDJ inductions.67 However, since the authors ended their analyses at that, this section will consider the significance of the Jugendweihe as marking a shift between the Thälmann Pioneers and FDJ. The symbolism of the FDJ emblem, a yellow rising sun, mirrors the path taken through the camps, which would conclude at a bell tower, memorial or

62 Alan McDougall, Youth Politics in East Germany: The Free German Youth Movement 1946-1968 (Oxford University Press, 2017), 234. 63 “Founding Resolution of the Free German Youth [Freie Deutsche Jugend] (February 26, 1946),” German History in Documents and Images, accessed April 1, 2018, http://germanhistorydocs.ghidc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=4484. 64 Free German Youth, 44. 65 Bundesarchiv, bild 183-G1011-0024-001, photo: Dieter Demme, October 11, 1968. 66 See Catherine Plum, “The Children of Antifascism: Exploring Young Historians Clubs in the GDR,” German Politics and Society 26, no. 1 (2008): 1; Eschebach, “Soil, Ashes, Commemoration,” 143. 67 Wegner, “In the Shadow of the Third Reich,” 135; Jenny Wüstenberg, Civil Society and Memory in Postwar Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 40.

71 Strata Miranda Brethour sculpture representing themes of victory over fascist oppression, and solidarity. In his memoirs, Honecker confirmed that the FDJ’s rising sun was similarly meant to symbolize that, “after the pitch-dark night of fascism a new day was dawning for the German youth.”68 The use of such imagery for a youth organization suggests the responsibility placed on youth, by the state, to defend socialism from attacks by imperialism, which “wages an offensive against democratic rights and liberties […] tramples underfoot human dignity and cultivates racialism.”69 The choice to use a rising sun for the FDJ emblem, rather than a fully uncovered sun, was perhaps to convince youth that, while positive developments had been made towards the socialist future by the former resistance fighters and the established East German state, the youth were responsible for bringing socialism into the full light of day.70 In striving to maintain and advance this sunny, socialist future, part of the FDJ’s responsibility was to help further develop the infrastructure of burgeoning or newly established socialist states in the Third World. A book from 1963 on GDR youth confirmed that, in the international arena, the FDJ “practices solidarity with people struggling for freedom and independence, and gives them support in their struggle to throw off the yoke of imperialism and colonialism,” as was its designated role.71 Although international solidarity with the “socialist brotherlands” was at the heart of both the Thälmann Pioneers and FDJ’s goals, key differences sustained in the practice of solidarity between the two groups.72 A common means of practising solidarity in the Thälmann Pioneers was through visiting exhibits. In 1974, one group of Thälmann Pioneers from the Berlin neighbourhood Prenzlauer Berg visited an exhibit on GDR solidarity with

68 McDougall, Youth Politics in East Germany, 2. 69 From the main document adopted by the International Conference of Communist and Workers’ Parties in Moscow, ‘Tasks at the Present Stage of the Struggle against Imperialism and United Action of the Communist and Workers’ Parties and All Anti-Imperialist Forces,’ 17 June 1969, in Against Racism, Apartheid and Colonialism, 14. 70 Thank you to a reviewer for pointing out this added symbolic significance of the FDJ’s rising sun emblem. 71 “Sie übt Solidarität mit den um ihre Freiheit und Unabhängigkeit kämpfenden Völkern und gibt ihnen Unterstützung ini ihrem gerechten Kampf zur Befreiung vom Joch des Imperialismus und Kolonialismus.” Gerolf Schönfelder and Herbert Thur, Jugend im Jungen Staat: Die junge Generation der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik Menschen, Meinungen, Tatsachen (Berlin: VEB Graphische Werkstätten Berlin, 1963), 84. 72 John Rodden, Textbook Reds: Schoolbooks, Ideology, and Eastern German Identity (Penn State Press, 2010), 34-35.

72 Strata Miranda Brethour

Chile.73 Another popular strategy was fundraising campaigns, under the title a “week of socialist pioneer aid.”74 For example, on International Children’s Day in 1966, the Thälmann Pioneers gave a representative from North Vietnam the result of their efforts during their fundraising week: 61,102 marks.75 Artwork, for instance simple drawings, was another means by which the Pioneers could express solidarity and their knowledge of the struggle “of their Vietnamese brothers” against “the crimes of the USA.”76 Other elements of the Thälmann Pioneers’ solidarity program included International Summer Camps, involving youth participants and speakers from around the world.77 At the end of the nineteenth international summer camp of the Thälmann Pioneers, during which “girls and boys from forty-one countries spent an eventful vacation […] in the name of freedom, friendship, and anti-imperialist solidarity,” a young boy from the People’s Republic of the Congo spoke to a group of Thälmann Pioneers and other international guests.78 Most of these activities, including the opening of new Pioneer Solidarity Centres, took place during the Honecker-era, which featured increased attention to solidarity within the international socialist camp.79 Once they joined the FDJ, youth became increasingly involved in solidarity campaigns through travel to Third World socialist states, and countries where resistance fighters were struggling for the establishment of socialism.80 The Freundschaft Brigaden are the most pertinent example of the FDJ as actively involved in the construction and support of socialism abroad, as

73 Bundesarchiv, bild 183-N0801-0026, photo: Sigrid Kutscher, August 1, 1974. 74 Bundesarchiv, bild 183-M0201-029, photo: Rainer Mittelstädt, February 1, 1973. 75 Bundesarchiv, bild 183-E0601-0004-002, photo: Preuß, June 1, 1966. 76 “Die Kinder aus dem Kreis Gadebusch berichteten in Wort und Bild über den Kampf des vietnamesischen Brudervolkes und protestierten gegen die USA-Verbrechen in diesem Land.” Bundesarchiv, bild 183-L0818-0022, photo: Ihde, August 18, 1972. See also Bundesarchiv, bild 183-P0601-0015, photo: Manfred Siebahn, June 1, 1975. 77 See Bundesarchiv, bild 183-1989-0712-029, photo: Bernd Settnik, 1989; Bundesarchiv, bild 183-W0718-0300, photo: Manfred Siebahn, July 23, 1980. 78 “Mädchen und Jungen aus 41 Länder hatten hier in den vergangenen Wochen im Zeichen des Friedens, der Freundschaft und der antiimperialistischen Solidarität erlebnisreiche Ferien verbracht.” Bundesarchiv, bild 183-R0809-0034, photo: Hubert Link, August 9, 1976. 79 Bundesarchiv, bild 183-1988-0817-118, photo: Thomas Uhlemann, August 19, 1988. 80 Elite members of the Thälmann Pioneers could travel on the “Friendship trains” to the Soviet Union. The Jungen Touristen program seemed to involve only trips within East Germany or to socialist allies around Europe. No evidence could be found that the pioneers were involved in travel to the Third World. Anna Saunders, Honecker’s Children: Youth and Patriotism in East(ern) Germany, 1972-2002 (Manchester University Press, 2017), 79.

73 Strata Miranda Brethour well as a testament to the substantial differences between the solidarity activities of the Thälmann Pioneers and FDJ. A small booklet on the FDJ, published in 1985, describes the intention of the Friendship Brigades as follows: “One particular way in which the FDJ shows its international solidarity is by dispatching what they call Friendship Brigades to nationally liberated countries […] thus assisting these peoples to shake off the legacy of colonialism and neo-colonialism.”81 They were meant to support liberation movements in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, mainly by building infrastructure and training workers. The first FDJ Friendship Brigade embarked for Mali in 1964, where it worked on developing a crop and stock farming system in Somo.82 In 1964, another brigade left for Les Ouadhia, Algeria, to build homes for the “families of the 160 fallen resistance fighters.”83 There are many examples of brigade work in Algeria; for example, in 1969, a FDJ Brigade built a farm in Kabylie, after which it trained apprentices on various farming tasks for a number of years. The photo description specifies that many of these Algerian trainees were “orphans whose parents fell in the liberation struggle,” framing the GDR youth as quasi-parental figures who actualized this role through teaching.84 This imposed dynamic of child and parent was a common theme in state rhetoric on relationships between the Second and Third Worlds during the Cold War.85 Finally, around the years 1976 to 1978, another brigade worked in Yemen, where it was tasked with building a vocational training centre.86 Although the Thälmann Pioneers were likewise involved in solidarity, there were significant differences in its practice compared to the FDJ. For the Pioneers, solidarity activities, though intrinsically international in concept,

81 Free German Youth: The GDR’s all-embracing youth organization (Grafischer Grossbetrieb Völkerfreundschaft Dresden, 1985), 42. 82 Ulrich van der Heyden, GDR International Development Policy Involvement: Doctrine and Strategies between Illusions and Reality 1960-1990, The example (South) Africa (Berlin: Lit Verlag Dr. W. Hopf, 2013), 88-89. 83 “Eine der ersten FDJ-Freundschaftsbrigaden in Les Ouadias, Algerien, beim Bau von Wohnhäusern für Familien von 160 gefallenen Befreiungskämpfern.” Bundesarchiv, bild 183-1984-0803-305, photo: Schulze, November 1964. 84 “Viele der Lehrlinge sind Waisen, deren Eltern im Befreiungskampf gefallen sind.” Bundesarchiv, bild 183-J1228-1001-005, photo: Ulrich Kohls, September 1970. 85 Despite being a state that declared all forms of discrimination as eradicated from its borders, notions of superiority/inferiority and development/underdevelopment based on race nevertheless persisted in the GDR. 86 Bundesarchiv, bild 183-T0109-008, photo: Michel, January 1978.

74 Strata Miranda Brethour were usually physically bounded within the East German state, while FDJ members were able to travel abroad more regularly. While the Thälmann Pioneers met and interacted with socialist allies at events such as the International Summer Festivals, they were not yet given the important duty of building and supporting socialism and socialist allies abroad. The FDJ, through the Friendship Brigades, did just that: They travelled to countries such as Algeria, Mali, and Yemen, and supported the construction of local infrastructure and thus supported the revolution itself. These distinctions add explanatory power to the notion of the Jugendweihe ceremony as a mobilization or encouragement towards greater international solidarity: After the Jugendweihe, youth would often join the FDJ, whose members were actively expected to help build socialism abroad and forge close friendships with Third World allies.

The Honecker-Era and International Solidarity

Although the overall argument was not guided by chronology, it is important to mention how these ideas of international solidarity and the importance of youth in the GDR developed over time. Walter Ulbrich did frame international solidarity and youth as imperative to a successful socialist state: His “Ten Commandments for the New Socialist Man,” which were featured around schools in the GDR, directed the population to “campaign for the international solidarity of the working class and all working people and for the unbreakable bond of all socialist countries,” and to “show solidarity with those who fight for their national liberation and for those who defend their national independence.”87 However, under Honecker’s leadership from 1971 to 1989, international solidarity and the role of youth in forging connections with socialist allies abroad became increasingly central. It is difficult to balance whether these shifts originated within international developments, or were spearheaded by Honecker’s leadership itself. Particularly in the early 1970s, American losses in the Vietnam War resulted in a “Vietnam Bonus”: Socialism appeared to be in ascent thus, providing

87 “Ten Commandments for the New Socialist Man” (1963), German History in Documents and Images, accessed April 1, 2018, http://germanhistorydocs.ghidc.org/sub_image.cfm?image_id=1113; Hester Vaizey, Born in the GDR: Living in the Shadow of the Wall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 14.

75 Strata Miranda Brethour socialist states such as the GDR with greater domestic and international legitimacy.88 When Honecker came to power, he dedicated much focus to youth internationalism and solidarity. In 1974 the youth law was revised and focused explicitly on the need to raise internationalist sentiment among youth.89 Under his leadership of the SED, anti-fascist education and solidarity activities directed at youth expanded in prominence.90 More solidarity centres were created for the Pioneer Organization, student and worker exchanges were established and, significantly, the 1973 World Festival of Youth and Students took place in East Berlin.91 According to a poster advertising the festival, it was based on “anti-imperialist solidarity, freedom, and friendship”. To depict this international solidarity, the poster features a common socialist representation of the “racial rainbow;” a triad of racial diversity, which, antithetically, usually presented the white man in the foreground.92

***

To summarize, the performance of the Jugendweihe oath and the Jugendstunden can be seen as an attempt by the state to mobilize youth support for socialist allies abroad, through a variety of solidarity activities. In terms of the camp visits as part of the Jugendweihe, the exhibits blurred the boundaries between Nazism, fascism, imperialism, and capitalism, to frame the struggle against the enemy as an ongoing process and thus conveyed the need for continued support, “to the cause of all revolutionary, democratic and anti- imperialist forces and all peoples fighting for their national and social liberation.”93 The experience of youth at the camps was focused on the glorious struggle of the anti-fascist resistance, encouraging them to pick up the

88 Karen Henderson, “The Search for Ideological Conformity: Sociological Research on Youth in the GDR under Honecker,” German History 10, no. 3 (1992): 322. 89 Ibid., 318. 90 For instance, the number of Young Historian’s clubs, dedicated to research on anti-fascist resistance, increased. Plum, “The Children of Antifascism,” 15. 91 For a description of these activities and related photos, see Committed to Peace, Socialism and Solidarity. 92 Bundesarchiv, plak 100-052-028, poster: Dewag Berlin; Arnold, 1973; Quinn Slobodian, “Socialist Chromatism: Race, Racism, and the Racial Rainbow,” in Comrades of Color: East Germany in the Cold War World, ed. Quinn Slobodian (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2015), 134. 93 Speech given by the Deputy Chairman of the Christian Democratic Union and President of the Supreme Court of the GDR in Against Racism, Apartheid and Colonialism, 346.

76 Strata Miranda Brethour legacy and join the ongoing struggle. Finally, we see that after performing the Jugendweihe oath, youth were able to join the FDJ, and concrete changes occurred in their ability to become involved in international solidarity. They could finally “fulfill the revolutionary legacy,” by travelling to the Third World and assisting in the revolutionary struggle through activities such as building infrastructure.94 This analysis also revealed hints of the moral structure of the East German state. Ideals of anti-fascism, anti-imperialism, peace, and international friendship were central to the upbringing of “well-rounded people with strong characters”, “a difficult, yet beautiful task” to which the Jugendweihe made a key contribution.95 In many ways, this moral structure was hypocritical, as the state promoted anti-fascist resistance fighters as the main victims of the Third Reich, while marginalizing, at best, the persecution and murder of the Jews and other victims of the Nazi regime.96 As this mention of socialist morality suggests, many different approaches can be taken towards the Jugendweihe, and as research is lacking, many potential avenues remain to be explored.97 To evaluate the significance of youth in the GDR, it is necessary to consider events such as the Jugendweihe in the context of the state’s overall aims. Great responsibility was placed on youth to forge friendships and provide support for allies internationally, particularly those in the Third World. Not only does this emphasize the key place socialist or burgeoning socialist states in the Third World occupied in the state policy of the GDR, but it also demonstrates the extent to which youth were seen to represent the future of the country. In order to accomplish this goal of building international connections, the mobilization of the GDR’s young population was seen as nothing less than imperative.

94 Chowanski and Dreier, Die Jugendweihe, 100. 95 “Das Leben in der sozialistischen Gesellschaft erfordert kluge, allseitig gebildete und charakterilich starke Menschen. Sie zue erziehen ist eine schwere und zugleich schöne Aufgabe. Die Jugendweihe ist ein Beitrag der ganzen Gesellschaft, um diese Aufgabe zu lösen.” Steininger, Mein Kind und unsere Welt, 4. 96 Much literature has been published on this topic, including Jeffrey Herf’s Divided Memory. 97 The revitalization of the Jugendweihe in post-unification Germany is one of such possibilities. The new post-unification version of the Jugendweihe, known now as the Jugendfeier, includes preparation activities such as restoring Jewish cemeteries and synagogues, suggesting that this youth ceremony has a distinct role in processes of post-unification Vergangenheitsbewältigung. Stephen Kinzer, “German rite of passage,” The Globe and Mail, June 13, 1994, A10.

77 Strata Miranda Brethour

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