"Jugend voran im Kampf um die Einheit Deutschlands": FDJ torchlight march, Berlin
Young women in uniform blouses march at night behind two wide banners, torches glowing in the crowd behind them. The left banner claims the lead for youth 'in the struggle for the unity of Germany'. The right one, cut off at the frame edge, reads 'Die Bonner Spal-', 'opfert die deutsch-' and 'für einen n...en Kr-', a charge against Bonn that fits 'splitting' and 'a new war'. Both banners speak in absolutes, one with a virtue word and one with a label.
- Date
- October 11, 1949
- Period
- Cold War
- Made by
- Freie Deutsche Jugend (FDJ, the SED's youth organisation), marchers at an evening mass rally; ADN-Zentralbild (GDR state news agency), photographer not named
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- East Germany
- Medium
- Photograph
- Issuer type
- Party
- Regime
- German Democratic Republic
- Leader
- Otto Grotewohl
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- Elections and party politics, War and the military
- Event
- Gdr Founding 1949
- Techniques
- Name-callingGlittering generalities
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive), Bild 183-S88829, via Wikimedia Commons, retrieved September 29, 2026
- Rights
- CC BY-SA 3.0 de (Bundesarchiv release via Wikimedia Commons; file page states licence and attribution)
Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S88829 / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Text on the object
[Left banner:] Jugend voran im Kampf um die Einheit Deutschlands [Right banner, cut off by the frame edge:] Die Bonner Spal[...] opfert die deutsch[...] für einen n[...]en Kr[...]
[Left banner:] Youth in the lead in the struggle for the unity of Germany [Right banner, cut off by the frame edge:] The Bonn split[...] sacrifices the German [...] for a new [...]
Read from the committed image and a magnified crop. The right banner runs out of frame after 'Spal', 'deutsch' and 'Kr'; the missing letters are not seen, so nothing is completed in the transcription and the translation keeps the brackets. Line breaks are as printed. 'opfert' is read from a partly shadowed second line.
