ABSTRACT
In December 1973 anxious Thälmann Pioneers from East Berlin gathered for a special ceremony to meet their nation’s head of state, Erich Honecker. In the solemn building that housed the East German State Council (Staatsrat), Honecker bestowed a special honor on the youth. Henceforth, as part of their official uniform, Thälmann Pioneers would be allowed to wear red bandannas around their necks that symbolized the red banner of the working class. This donning of bandannas or handkerchiefs harkened back to a Weimar-era tradition among German communist youth, who modeled their uniform on the Soviet youth organizations. 2 However, the question remains whether young people considered the red bandannas around their necks to be a badge of honor or a symbol of constriction and outward conformity. Did the youth readily wear the bandannas to school and youth group functions? Former GDR teachers recall students’ aversion to their FDJ uniforms. 3 Frequently, youth group members forgot to wear their uniform shirts and bandannas for gatherings and commemorative ceremonies. 4 Female students often carried their FDJ blouses with them, putting them on at the last minute or covering up the blouse with a sweater. 5 Cases of youth burning the blue uniform shirts of the FDJ also appear in the historical record. 6 On the other hand, there are stories of younger Thälmann Pioneers who were so moved by a visit to a historical site or monument that they left their red bandannas as a symbol of their emotional tie to the antifascist cause and the sacrifices born of resistance and opposition. For example, in a Pioneer yearbook entry from 1985, a fifth grader from an East Berlin school recalls that several classmates left not only flowers but also their red bandannas at the individual graves of World War II Soviet soldiers buried at the Seelower Höhen cemetery. 7
By conferring a physical symbol of the working classes on Thälmann
and contemporary youth, passing on revolutionary fervor to yet another cohort of young socialists. 8 Similarly, FDJ leaders supported a dialogue between aging communist veterans and FDJ members through the FDJ tradition movement. 9 In this chapter I will argue that the world views of these two generations were distinct and quite distant. Nor were the efforts of memory intermediaries sufficient to bridge this inherent divide, particularly in the final years of SED rule.
