Boys' Uniformed Group Activities--German Camping

Figure 1.--Summer camping was popular in Germany afterWorld War I. Many youth groups had summer camps. We are not sure what group is involved here.

We believe that summer camps in Germany were primarily organized by youth groups. There may have been some private camps, but we have no information on these at this time. We note images of German boys at camp which we think were taken before World War I. We are not sure what type of camps they were. The boys mostly appear to be wearing kneepants. They appear to be camps with substantial facilities. The major German Youth group before World War I was the Wandervogel, but we are not sure that they actually had summer camps. Camping was a major aspect of Wandervogl, but they ppear to have had a more limited organizational structure than other youth groups so we do not know if they actually owned and operated camps. We do know that a vareiety of youth groups operates summer camps in the 1920s, but we have few details as to what groups operated specicific facilities. After the NAZI take over in 1933, the camps were all seized by the Hitler Youth. The NAZIs made summer camping a universal experience for nearly all German youth, regardless of their ability to pay. Summer camps were an important part of their program to mold the minds of a generaltion of German youth. Only Hitler Youth members could participate, but this came to mean virtually all healthy Aryan children. Jewsish children were excluded and the summer camps that Jewish youth organizations owned were seized by the Hitler Youth without compensation. While we do not have information on summer camps in general, we have developed ome information on Hitler Youth summer camps. We know that camping was popular for West Herman Scouts after World War II, but we have no information about Boy Scout camping at this time. We also believe that East German Young Pioneers had an extensive