National Socialist German Students' League

Emblem of the NSDStB

Marching flag of the NSDStB

The National Socialist German Students' League (in German, Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund; abbreviated NSDStB) was founded in 1926 as a division of the NSDAP with the mission of integrating University-level education and academic life within the framework of the National Socialist worldview. Organized (as with other departments of the NSDAP) strictly in accord with the Führerprinzip (or "leader principle") as well as the principle of Machtdistanz (or "power distance"), the NSDStB housed its members in so-called Kameradschaftshäusern (or "Fellowship Houses"), and (from 1930) had its members decked out in classic brown shirts and its own distinctive Swastika emblems.

After Germany's defeat in World War II, the NSDAP along with its divisions and affiliated organisations were declared "criminal organizations" and banned by the Allied Control Council on September 10, 1945.^[1]

Bundes- and Reichsführer of the NSDStB, 1926-1945

• 1926-28 Wilhelm Tempel
• 1928-32 Baldur von Schirach (from 1931 also Reichsjugendführer)
• 1932-33 Gerd Rühle
• 1933-34 Oskar Stäbel
• 1934-36 Albert Derichsweiler
• 1936-45 Gustav Adolf Scheel (as Reichsstudentenführer Scheel was also Führer of the Deutschen Studentenschaft)

Other notable members

• Kurt Waldheim, later Secretary General of the United Nations, President of Austria

References

1. ^ Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) 1933-1945

See also

• German Student Union

Further reading

• Anselm Faust: Der Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund. Studenten und Nationalsozialismus in der Weimarer Republik, 2. Bde. Schwann Düsseldorf 1973 ISBN 3-7895-0153-0 and ISBN 3-7895-0152-2
• Michael Grüttner: Studenten im Dritten Reich, Schöningh Paderborn 1995 ISBN 3-506-77492-1