Artaman League Artamanen-Gesellschaft | |
|---|---|
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| Leader | Georg Kenstler |
| Notable members | Heinrich Himmler Rudolf Höss Walter Granzow |
| Founded | 1923 |
| Dissolved | 7 October 1934 |
| Merged into | Hitler Youth |
| Ideology | |
| Political position | Far-right |
TheArtaman League (German language:Artamanen-Gesellschaft) was a Germanagrarian andvölkisch movement committed to aBack-to-the-land–inspired ruralism, founded in 1923. Active during the inter-war period, the League became closely linked to, and eventually absorbed by, theNazi Party.
The agrarianWillibald Hentschel (1858–1947) coined the termArtamanen before the First World War of 1914–1918. A believer inracial purity, Hentschel founded his own group, theMittgart Society, in 1906. The wordArtamanencompoundedart andmanen,Middle High German words meaning "agriculture man" and indicating Hentschell's desire to see Germans retreat from thedecadence of the city in order to return to an imagined idyllic rural past.[1]
The Artaman League had its roots in the overallLebensreform movement in late 19th-century and early 20th-century Germany. This movement encompassed hundreds of groups throughout Germany that were involved in various experiments tied to ecology, health, fitness,vegetarianism, andnaturism (Nacktkultur). These groups held positions across the political spectrum. TheAntisemitic groups ultimately gained a following among the Nazi Party members and their supporters. Publications by right wing Lebensreformists, which sold in the tens of thousands, argued that their practices were "the means by which theGerman race would regenerate itself and ultimately prevail over its neighbours and the diabolical Jews who were intent on injecting putrefying agents into the nation'sblood and soil".[2]
Although Hentschel had developed his ideas before World War I, the Artaman League first formed in 1923.[1] The Artamans formed part of theGerman Youth Movement, representing its moreright-wingback-to-the-land elements.[3] Under the leadership ofGeorg Kenstler they advocatedblood-and-soil policies with a strong undercurrent ofanti-Slavism.[4] Thisvölkisch movement believed that the decline of theAryan race could only be halted by encouraging people to abandon city life in favour of settling in the rural areas in the east.[5] Whilst members wished to perform agricultural labour as an alternative to military service, they also saw it as part of their duty to violently opposeSlavs and to drive them out of Germany.[6] The concepts were combined in the figure of theWehrbauer, or soldier-peasant.[7] Accordingly, the League sent German youth to work on the land inSaxony and inEast Prussia in an attempt to prevent these areas being settled byPoles.[5] To this end 2000 settlers were sent to Saxony in 1924 – both to work on farms and to serve as an anti-Slav militia.[4] They also gave classes on the importance of racial purity and the Nordic race, and on the corrupting influence of city living and of Jews.[8]
Like many similar right-wing youth movements in Germany, the Artaman League lost impetus as the Nazi Party grew. By 1927, 80% of its membership had become Nazis.[9] The League had disappeared by the early 1930s, with most of its membership having switched to the Nazis.[6]
As the situation deteriorated in the late 1920s, some of the Artamans were drawn deeper into politics, and engaged in a holy war against their enemies: liberals, democrats, Free-Masons and Jews.[10] Eventually many members of the Artaman League turned to Nazism.Heinrich Himmler was an early member and held the position ofGauführer inBavaria. Whilst a member of the League, Himmler metRichard Walther Darré and the two struck up a close friendship, based largely on Darré's highly developed ideological notions ofblood and soil to which Himmler was attracted.[4] The Artaman vision would continue to have a profound effect on Himmler who, throughout his time asReichsführer-SS, retained his early dreams of a racially pure peasantry.[11] Himmler was also close to his fellow memberRudolf Höss and would later advance him in theSchutzstaffel due in part to their history in the Artaman League.[12] The small league was dismantled and incorporated into theHitler Jugend in October 1934 as the Nazi youth movement gained strength.[10]
The development of a number of environmentalist groups and projects in Germany with extreme right wing politics has recently gained media attention. Since the 1990s, third-position environmentalists have taken advantage of cheap farmland made available by the post-Cold Warreunification of East and West Germany, establishing themselves inMecklenburg, "in an effort to reinvigorate the traditions of the Artaman League".[13] The state government ofRhineland-Palatinate has published a booklet titledNature Conservation vs Rightwing Extremism in an effort to assist organic farmers who may encounter rightwing extremists. Gudrun Heinrich of the University of Rostock has published a study,Brown Ecologists, in reference to both the current movement and the NaziBrownshirts. The politically extreme rightwing environmental magazineUmwelt und Aktiv (Environment and Active), is believed to receive support from Germany's third-positionNational Democratic Party (NPD).[13]Der Spiegel has covered the "organic brown fellowship" ("Braune Bio-Kameradschaft"),[14] andSüddeutsche Zeitung has published an article on the “infiltration [Unterwanderung] of organic farming by rightwing extremists,[15] noting the lineage to Nazi doctrines ofAryan supremacy and ecological harmony.
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