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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Kevin Morrison of Glasgow Caledonian University.

The League of German Maidens (the Bund Deutscher Madel or BDM) was the girls branch of the Hitler Youth. Girls were initiated into the BDM from the ‘Young Girls’ organisation at the age of 14. This took place on Hitler’s birthday, April 20th. Membership became compulsory in late 1936. Girls between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one were taught that their role was to be ‘mothers of Hitler’s future soldiers’. BDM members undertook a wide range of activities including a compulsory land year, domestic science courses,field exercises, physical exercise, parades and marches. This photograph is taken from a photograph album that is housed in the Kevin Morrison Collection (a special collection in Research Collections at Glasgow Caledonian University) the activities of the BDM are well represented in this unique album of photographs. The owner attended a BDM School in Bad Orb between 1937-1938. She attended local Party rally’s, undertook farming, gardening and domestic work, attended parades and camps alongside the Hitler Youth and visited Munich the capital of the ‘Movement’ and also Nuremberg home to the annual Nazi Party rally.

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