Below you will find a small sampling of documents, certificates, and general paperwork that were used by the League of German Girls, the Jungmaedel and the Belief and Beauty society. This section only represents a small amount of paperwork used by the BDM, but I have tried to include the most common items such as ID booklets and sports award certificates.
If you have any graphics or scans of other documents and certificates used by the League of German Girls, please consider contributing them to this research database by emailing them to the webmaster using the address provided in the left-hand menu. Thank you.
→ Identification Cards
→ Membership Documents
→ Sports Documents
→ Sports Awards
→ Foreign Documents
→ Miscellaneous Documents
Membership Identification Cards
This is an original example of a Hitler Youth service card. These were of regional issue, as you can see by the Gebiet Baden marking in the document’s upper right corner, and only carried the most essential information such as name, date and place of birth, home address, and the date she joined the League of German Girls.
Above are two separate examples of the Dienstkarte der Hitlerjugend, the service ID of the Hitler Youth.
This is another good example of a Hitler Youth membership card, this time for a member of the Jungmaedel. In the first image, you can see a pink sticker which says, “This document is only valid under the following conditions: 1) contains the Obergaustamp; 2) contains a photo of the bearer; 3) with the signature of the bearer; 4) with the signature of the group leader; 5) with a current membership dues sticker.
Hitler Youth membership certificate. The text states, “I promise to always do my duty with love and loyalty to our Fuehrer and our flag.”
New members in the League of German Girls received this certificate after being sworn in during one of the official membership ceremonies, which were held once a year on April 20th, Hitler’s birthday.
Sports Documents
This is a very nice example for a Jungmaedel sports achievement book for a girl named Elisabeth Ackermann.
This National Sports Awards book was sent in by a reader and BDM collector who has this piece in his collection. The first page is the outside cover with an embossed image of what the award itself looks like.
Inside the document, the first few pages contain the owner’s photo and personal information. The pages following describe who is eligible to take the tests to earn the National Sports Award, how the tests are to be administered, and which categories are to be included. The last few pages include the dates and locations where she passed the five different parts of the test, and the last page is the certificate for the award itself.
This particular document was issued for her award of the Sports Award in bronze, as well as the accompanying sew-on badge that was issued with it. In the back of this document, she requested that a new, blank book be sent to her so that she can test again and try to earn a higher award than bronze.
Program for the BDM sports festival held in Leipzig on 13 June, 1937. The program booklet gives the address of the sports festival, a small quote by the BDM leader Trude Mohr, and a listing of events.
On the left: Awards certificate from the 1934 Hitler Youth Sports Festival. Such sporting events usually had separate parts boys and girls competed in. Each participant had to compete in the different tasks, each of it was scored by points. Those with the highest point scores at the end of the event, were able to win either an Ehrenurkunde (honors certificate) or a Siegerurkunde (victory certificate).
On the right: Ehrenurkunde from the 1939 Untergau Sports Festival. This particular award was given only for one part of the competition, rather than for an overall point score at the festival like the certificate above. It was awarded for first place.
A grouping of two awards certificates earned by BDM member Margot Ritter who placed first during two swimming competitions with the Post-Sport-Verein (postal service sports club) in Leipzig.
Another great grouping of awards certificates, this time for a member of the Jungmadel by the name of Hella Weschke, which were submitted by my colleague in Germany, Stephan Hansen. The certificate on the far left was given for first place in the 50 meter breast stroke and, as you can see, was not a printed certificate like the others seen on this website, but handwritten. The two to the right of it are for first place (gold) and third place (bronze). The leaves on these awards were are metal. (Full size images are very large, please give them some time to load!)
Foreign Documents
This grouping of documents was submitted to the website by Martin Terry from the UK. This group of documents is from the Deutscher Maedelbund, or DMB, which was an organization similar to the BDM for ethnic German girls who lived in the Banat and Serbia, regions that traditionally had a large population of ethnic Germans.
As you can tell from the documents, they are nearly identical in style and layout to those of the League of German Girls, with the exception of the type font used and the logo DMB instead of BDM.
Miscellaneous
On the left: A certificate authorizing a girl named Alice Harscheid to wear the traditions bar on her Gaudreieck.
In the center: While this one isn’t an actual certificate of the League of German Girls, it is still relevant for the purposes of this website. It is a certificate for a young lady from Berlin to prove that she has completed an air raid warden- and firefighting course in 1940.
On the right: A letter sent from the personnel office of Obergau 12 (Westmark) in regards to a girl by the name of Elisabeth Mueller who joined the BDM on March 1, 1936. The letter states that since Elisabeth shows no interest in the BDM at all, she is to be relieved from service as of July 15, 1937, and needs to turn in her ID card immediately.