Jutta Rüdiger (14 June 1910 – 13 March 2001) was a German psychologist and head of the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
's female youth organisation, the
League of German Girls
The League of German Girls or the Band of German Maidens (german: Bund Deutscher Mädel, abbreviated as BDM) was the girls' wing of the Nazi Party youth movement, the Hitler Youth. It was the only legal female youth organization in Nazi Germany. ...
(Bund Deutscher Mädel, BDM), from 1937 to 1945.
Early career
Born in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
but brought up in
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian language, Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second- ...
where her father was an engineer, Rüdiger was trained as a psychologist. While a student at
Würzburg
Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is a city in the region of Franconia in the north of the German state of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the ''Regierungsbezirk'' Lower Franconia. It spans the banks of the Main River.
Würzburg ...
in the 1920s, she became a convinced Nazi and joined the
National Socialist German Students' League
The National Socialist German Students' Union (German: ''Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund'', abbreviated NSDStB) was founded in 1926 as a division of the Nazi Party with the mission of integrating University-level education and aca ...
(Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund). From 1933 she was an assistant psychologist at the Institute for Occupational Research in Düsseldorf. She also became active in the leadership of the BDM, which had been started in 1930 as a girls' auxiliary to the male-only
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. ...
, but which grew rapidly after the Nazis came to power in January 1933. In 1935 she became BDM Leader in the Ruhr-Lower Rhine region. In November 1937 she became Leader of the BDM, at which time she joined the Nazi Party, succeeding
Trude Mohr
Trude Mohr (later Trude Bürkner-Mohr) (1902–1989) was the first Reichsreferentin of the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM).
Early life
She was born in 1902 to a German nationalist family. She never completed gymnasium,Baldur von Schirach (and his successor from 1940,
Artur Axmann
Artur Axmann (18 February 1913 – 24 October 1996) was the German Nazi national leader (''Reichsjugendführer'') of the Hitler Youth (''Hitlerjugend'') from 1940 to 1945, when the war ended. He was the last living Nazi with a rank equivalent t ...
). This was in accordance with Nazi policy that women and their organisations must always be subordinate to male leadership. Schirach was zealous in preventing the BDM becoming autonomous, or coming under the control of the Nazi Women's Organisation (Nationalsozialistische Frauenschaft, NSF), whose Leader
Gertrud Scholtz-Klink
Gertrud Emma Scholtz-Klink, ''née'' Treusch, later known as Maria Stuckebrock (9 February 1902 – 24 March 1999), was a Nazi Party member and leader of the National Socialist Women's League (''NS-Frauenschaft'') in Nazi Germany.
Nazi activities
...
he regarded as a rival.
Membership of the BDM became compulsory for girls between 10 and 18 in 1936, and the law was strengthened in 1939, but membership was never as universal as membership of the Hitler Youth was for boys. The destiny of BDM girls under the Nazi state was to become wives and mothers to Nazi men, bearing many children to increase the strength of the Aryan race.
According to Rüdiger, leader of the League of German Girls in 1937:
The task of our Girls League is to bring up our girls as torch bearers of the national-socialist world. We need girls who are at harmony between their bodies, souls and spirits. And we need girls who, through healthy bodies and balanced minds, embody the beauty of divine creation. We want to bring up girls who believe in Germany and our leader, and who will pass these beliefs on to their future children.
By 1941, however, there was an acute labour shortage in Germany as some men were conscripted and sent to the front, and the BDM girls were increasingly pressed into compulsory labour service, usually either on farms or in munitions factories, with girls from upper or middle-class families going into office jobs. Rüdiger came to preside over a female work force of several millions, directing them as the economic ministries requested additional labour.
From 1943 onwards, the BDM also supplied thousands of girls for work in
flak
Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based ...
(anti-aircraft) batteries guarding German cities. By means of this, the Nazi system would allow young women to come to combat service. Girls as young as 13 operated flak batteries, fired guns and shot down Allied planes. Many were killed when their batteries were hit by bombs or machine-gun fire from Allied fighters. Later in the war, BDM girls fought against the advancing Allied armies.Interview with Jutta Rüdiger (in German) /ref>
Arrest and later life
Rüdiger was arrested by American forces in 1945, and spent two and a half years in detention. Rüdiger was not charged with any specific offence, and was never brought to trial. Upon her release, she resumed her career as a paediatric psychologist in Düsseldorf. According to a recent historian, she remained "an unreconstructed Nazi". In a 2000 interview she said: "National Socialism is not repeatable. One can take over only the values which we espoused: comradeship, readiness to support one another, bravery, self-discipline and not least honour and loyalty. Apart from these, each young person must find their way alone." From 1940 to 1991, she lived with her cooperator Hedy Böhmer.Horst Gundlach: Die Psychologin Dr. Jutta Rüdiger: Eine Karriere Report Psychologie
38 (6), 254-258 2013. She died in 2001 at
Bad Reichenhall
Bad Reichenhall ( Central Bavarian: ''Reichahoi'') is a spa town, and administrative center of the Berchtesgadener Land district in Upper Bavaria, Germany. It is located near Salzburg in a basin encircled by the Chiemgau Alps (including Mount Stau ...
,
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
.
Publications
*Jutta Rüdiger ''Der Bund Deutscher Mädel: eine Richtigstellung'', Lindhorst: Askania, c1984
abridged electronic version *''Der Bund Deutscher Mädel in Dokumenten: Materialsammlung zur Richtigstellung''; Hrsg.: Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Jugendforschung GBR, Lindhorst. Zsgest. von Jutta Rüdiger. Lindhorst: Askania