Original Items: Only one Set Available. AH believed German youth to be the future of his 3rd Reich, and as such there were various youth organizations formed throughout the country, which were eventually unified under NSDAP leadership. Here we have a lovely set of two of the harder to find membership pins from those groups. Many were absorbed by the larger HJ National Youth Organization later in the NSDAP period, and were no longer allowed to use their own insignia.

The first pin in this set is from the NSDStB, National Sozialistische Deutscher Studentenbund (National Socialist German Students’-league), which was originally formed as a semi-autonomous organization in 1926. It then infiltrated the majority of school institutions by 1930, and was under full control of the NSDAP by 1934. It was folded into the larger HJ National Youth Organization, and adopted similar insignia, though it was never organized in the same paramilitary fashion.

The membership pin is the same diamond shape as the HJ pin, however it has a large black swas taking up most of the pin, which is compressed horizontally to fit on the diamond shaped pin. The areas between the arms are painted red on the top and bottom, and white on the left and right. It features a very nice safety pin attachment on the back, and we were not able to see any maker markings.

The second pin is an HJ Membership pin from the Austrian branch of the HJ, specifically the southern mountainous region called Steiermark (Styria). It is a shield shaped pin, with a central black mobile swas inside a white diamone, with a green and white striped field behind, the colors of the Styrian region. It is missing some of the paint from the front, but is other wise in great shape, with a functional safety pin attachment on the back. We were not able to see any maker markings.

A lovely set of two German WWII youth organization pins, ready to research and display!

In 1922, the Munich-based NSDAP established its official youth organization called Jugendbund der NSDAP. It was announced on 8 March 1922 in the Völkischer Beobachter, and its inaugural meeting took place on 13 May the same year. Another youth group was established in 1922 as the Jungsturm Adolf “AH”. Based in Munich, Bavaria, it served to train and recruit future members of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the main paramilitary wing of the NSDAP Party at that time.

One reason the HJ so easily developed was that regimented organizations, often focused on politics, for young people and particularly adolescent boys were a familiar concept to German society in the Weimar Republic. Numerous youth movements existed across Germany prior to and especially after World War I. They were created for various purposes. Some were religious and others were ideological, but the more prominent ones were formed for political reasons, like the Young Conservatives and the Young Protestants. Once AH came onto the revolutionary scene, the transition from seemingly innocuous youth movements to political entities focused on AH was swift.

Following the abortive Beer Hall Putsch (in November 1923), NSDAP youth groups ostensibly disbanded, but many elements simply went underground, operating clandestinely in small units under assumed names. In April 1924, the Jugendbund der NSDAP was renamed Grossdeutsche Jugendbewegung (Greater German Youth Movement). On 4 July 1926, the Grossdeutsche Jugendbewegung was officially renamed HJ Bund der deutschen Arbeiterjugend (HJ League of German Worker Youth). This event took place a year after the NSDAP Party was reorganised. The architect of the re-organization was Kurt Gruber, a law student from Plauen in Saxony.

After a short power struggle with a rival organization—Gerhard Roßbach's Schilljugend—Gruber prevailed and his "Greater German Youth Movement" became the NSDAP Party's official youth organisation. In July 1926, it was renamed H -Jugend, Bund deutscher Arbeiterjugend ("H” Youth, League of German Worker Youth") and, for the first time, it officially became an integral part of the SA. The name H -Jugend was taken up on the suggestion of Hans Severus Ziegler. By 1930, the Hjugend (HJ) had enlisted over 25,000 boys aged 14 and upward. They also set up a junior branch, the Deutsches Jungvolk (DJ), for boys aged 10 to 14. Girls from 10 to 18 were given their own parallel organization, the League of German Girls (BDM).

In April 1932, Chancellor Heinrich Brüning banned the H Youth movement in an attempt to stop widespread political violence. However, in June, Brüning's successor as Chancellor, Franz von Papen, lifted the ban as a way of appeasing “AH”, the rapidly ascending political star. A further significant expansion drive started in 1933, after Baldur von Schirach was appointed by H as the first Reichsjugendführer (Reich Youth Leader). All youth organizations were brought under Schirach's control.