Bündisch Children’s and Youth Literature on the National Socialist Book Market : Analysis and Classification of a Forbidden Genre

Bündisch literature as a genre of youth literature that emerged in the context of the Bündische Jugend in interwar Germany, has so far received little attention in scholarly research. What is known, however, is that the genre was forbidden during the National Socialist era. Research assumes that bündisch titles from before 1933 were therefore banned without exception, while bündisch literature after 1933 became NS-affine in order to avoid a ban. This thesis seeks to verify or falsify these theses about the reception and development of the genre in Nazi Germany, which are posited without being evidenced by research. Since it is necessary to know the characteristics of bündisch literature, which are not provided by existing research either, the first part of this thesis will be devoted to the features of bündisch literature. This will allow us to address the questions of NS reception and development in the second part. The materials and methods used in this work can be divided into exemplarily selected bündisch titles, which are analysed in terms of form, plot, motifs, themes, vocabulary, symbolism, figures and target audience, and secondary literature and (archival) primary sources on exemplarily selected bündisch publishers and authors as well as on the youth and literary political context, which are collected and evaluated. By examining the fate of a genre of youth literature in a fascist regime, this thesis aims to shed light on how children’s and youth literature was dealt with in an autocratic system