Bündisch Youth mouvement and Nationalsocialism - the example of Werner Laß

• Applicant: Dr. Ina Schmidt
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2011 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 200757446

Werner Laß was the leader of the german branch of the Schilljugend, which was founded by Gerhard Roßbach in 1926. In 1927, Laß and his followers split from this organization and founded a new one called Freischar Schill. At the same time, he and Ernst Jünger published Der Vormarsch, which stood for the Bund Wiking, an organization founded and led by Kapitän Ehrhardt. In 1928/29 Laß and Baldur von Schirach planned to combine the Bündische Jugend with the Hitlerjugend under the leadership of Laß, but this was prevented by Kurt Gruber, the actual leader of the Hitlerjugend. From 1930 to 1931, Laß published, again in cooperation with Ernst Jünger, Die Kommenden, a weekly review that aimed at the whole Bündische Jugend. After his break with the editor, he decided to publish his own journal Der Umsturz, which usually is seen as a document of german national bolshevism. The journal was written mainly by former members of the Freischar Schill, now united in a new organization called Die Eidgenossen. During the Third Reich Laß became a regional leader of the Hitlerjugend and worked from 1939 on until 1945 in the Reichspressestelle in Berlin. My project aims at a biography of Werner Laß and at the same time at a history of the groups he led and the diverse journals he published. I also try to identify as many members of these groups as possible.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants