Creating Conformity: The Training of Girls in theBund Deutscher Mädel

In: European history quarterly, Band 33, Heft 3, S. 367-385

Abstract

This article examines the role played by the BDM in the Nazis’ training and socialization of girls. It analyses training manuals and guidelines, the BDM’s magazine and other sources to demonstrate the norms and values of the organization and the way in which it imbued German girls with Nazi ideology. It considers the extent to which the organization had a modernizing impact on German girls. It examines the racial and behavioural expectations of the girls within the movement and their role in Nazi society, for example as ‘culture bearers’ to the next generation. Future motherhood was an important aspect of girls’ training, but girls were also expected to serve their nation in other ways, especially during the wartime period, when pragmatic concerns created a tendency towards modernity in the roles given to girls.