News & Updates

February 29, 2016 –

It is a great honor to have the opportunity to maintain and continue the “BDM History – A Historical Research Page and Online Archive,” originally created by Chris Crawford and Stephan Hansen. I am sincerely grateful that Chris places the highest trust in me to continue with her work.

My original interest in the BDM came about when I found my mother’s private journal four months before she passed away from bone cancer. She never spoke about her time in the BDM until she knew she was dying. It was then, that she completely opened up and shared with me intimate details about growing up in her beautiful country of Austria and her time in the BDM. It was not until after her death that I decided to take her journal entitled “Landjahr Lager – Seidorf,” and pursue writing her autobiography entitled “Through Innocent Eyes – The Chosen Girls of the Hitler Youth.”

To purchase a copy of “Through Innocent Eyes” please visit our store here: BDM History Store

My hope is that everyone who visits BDM History will be inspired to do more research on the League of German Girls.

Thank you,

Cynthia A. Sandor

October 11, 2015 –

After working on this website together with Stephan Hansen from 2003 until 2008, and on my own from 2008 until now, it’s time for me to move on and hand the reins over to someone else. That “someone else” is Cynthia A. Sandor, who will continue to maintain this website and add some new sections and information in the future. So, please welcome Cindy and wish her all the best with this endeavor.

Chris Crawford

Disclaimer

Before you start to browse this extensive website, we would like you to be aware of our disclaimer so that you don’t get the wrong idea of what this page is all about.

The purpose of this website is to serve as an accurate, non-political, and above all, objective historical resource about the League of German Girls in the Hitler Youth. Its intended audience are students, scholars, educators, collectors, historians, and living historians.

This page and its authors and supporters do in no way support, condone, or seek to glorify the politics of Nazi Germany, nor the ideals and beliefs of modern neo-Nazi groups who like to use the symbolism and imagery found in Third Reich publications. Nor do we in any way condone revisionism and holocaust denial.

We realize that symbols of the Third Reich, such as the swastika, are offensive to some people. This page’s purpose is not to offend but to objectively educate people about this time period and about the young girls and women who were members of the League of German Girls. We do not believe in censoring images because they show a swastika or other symbols associated with Nazi Germany because we don’t think you can selectively delete things from history while claiming to teach about the rest objectively. We will not remove items, nor edit or censor them for the sake of “political correctness”.

Copyright Information

First and foremost, we believe that research materials should be freely available to scholars, educators, and anyone else who may be interested in this subject. This is why we have put in long hours going through the tedious process of scanning period documents and manuals, or translating narratives from eyewitnesses of the Third Reich that were previously only available in German. This is also why many of my contributors have taken their time to do the same.

Some of the written materials on this website consist of translations of text from foreign-language books about the League of German Girls, the majority of which were originally written in German. Some are translations of personal narratives from witnesses of the times. Others are first-hand interviews we’ve done, or items from our personal collections. We have made an effort to always include an original author or copyright holder with the materials where they apply. Should you be the current copyright holder (meaning, the current owner) of any images or text that appear on this website, and you would like them to be removed, please contact us via email.

Where not otherwise noted, the contents of this website are authored by Chris Crawford and Stephan Hansen, Copyright (c) 2008 – 2015 Cynthia A. Sandor. If you use any materials from this website, we would appreciate a copyright notice, as well as a return link to our website placed with the items in a clearly visible way – not hidden away on an information page elsewhere. All translations from German were done by Chris Crawford.

At this point we would like to thank the following people who have supported this website by means of materials: Stephan Hansen, Brian Crawford, Dr. Michael Kuhn, Antik-Sammler, Photosammler, William Linsenmeyer, Sven Masch, Tony Kukkonen, Mike Reddy, Paco Crespo, Terry, George Ryley, Andreas Stanik, and Helmut Weitze Military Antiques. Should your name be here, but was accidentally left out, please contact us so that we may give you proper credit.