ABSTRACT

Rainer Maria Rilke's famous line had a peculiar ring of truth in a country that had suffered total defeat. The struggle for survival was the sole preoccupation of those who had escaped more or less unscathed from the war. As life grew more normal and economic reconstruction got under way—that is, in years between the currency reform of 1948 and the 'economic miracle' some years later—the new Freideutsche became more active externally but lost much of their immediate post-war impetus. The Freideutsche was by no means the only group of youth that reassembled after the war. The Freie Deutsche Jugend (FDJ) has endeavoured to infiltrate, and if possible to win over, both left-and right-wing youth organizations in West Germany, and also some of the revived Bunde. The partition of Germany, and the establishment of a 'People's Democracy' in the eastern portion of the country, had portentous consequences for the younger generation in what is now officially the 'German Democratic Republic'.