Leipzig Meuten: Rebellion in Lederhosen

During the Nazi era, colorful, checked ski shirts and tight lederhosen could also be a sign of rebellion. This was the clothing worn by young people in Leipzig in the 1930s, who were physically distancing themselves from the standard brown of the Nazi uniforms. Historian Sascha Lange says that the non-conformist “uniform costume,” which sometimes included red scarves, was a thorn in the side of the Nazi state’s repressive apparatus: “The Gestapo repeatedly banned traditional costumes.”

The colorful shirts and lederhosen were identifying signs of the packs: groups of young people that existed in many Leipzig districts. They met in bars and squares, and sometimes they went together to bathing lakes or into the country. It is estimated that around 1,500 young people belonged to the packs, of which there were a very large number. 400 are known by name. Lange speaks of the “largest informal youth movement in Germany at that time.”

There were similar non-conformist youth groups in other German cities. Among the most famous were the Edelweiss Pirates in Cologne and elsewhere in the Ruhr area. While these were rather apolitical, in Leipzig they were workers and apprentices with an often “left-wing socialist” self-image, says Lange. Nevertheless, the mobs were not ostensibly political groups. In some cases, leaflets were distributed and members and homes of the Hitler Youth were attacked. At its core, however, it was more about non-conformity than explicit resistance. “The lowest common denominator was wanting to spend our free time in a self-determined way,” says Lange.

In the dictatorship aimed at conformity, this was also interpreted as a refusal that the system was not prepared to accept. From 1938 onwards there were arrests and charges, some of them for preparing to commit high treason. “We know that around 90 young people have been charged,” says Lange. Many had to go to prison or a youth home.

Despite the considerable extent of young people’s resistance to the Nazi state in Leipzig, the mobs are still little known in the city today. In the GDR they were “not part of the culture of remembrance,” says Lange. The communist resistance was the focus there. It wasn’t until 1987 that a history student from Rostock interviewed some contemporary witnesses. Later, Lange also spoke to former Meuten members and viewed Gestapo minutes and court files. His publications are now considered standard works on the topic, to which the youth book “Until the Stars Tremble” by Johannes Herwig was dedicated and which was taken up in two productions at the Schauspiel Leipzig and the Theater der Junge Welt (TDJW) in 2019.

The house is now dedicating itself to the material again: in a project called “Sounds of Resistance,” which has been running since June and is scheduled to culminate in the first Leipzig memorial site for the mobs in spring 2025. The city’s youth parliament had requested that one be created; The city council passed a corresponding resolution in 2022 and made money available. The TDJW was commissioned with the implementation and also receives financial support from the Remembrance, Responsibility, Future Foundation for the preparation of the content.

The project, in which his house is cooperating with the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Duisburg, has three goals, says dramaturg Florian Heller. On the one hand, a “memory culture music theater project” is to be developed together with a group of young people from Leipzig, for which the renowned director Schorsch Kamerun has been won. The Leipzig premiere of “Wilde Bühne: Meuten Memorial Movement” is planned for April 25, 2025 at the Lindenauer Markt. A production called “House of Resistance” will premiere as a staged concert in Duisburg on May 8, 2025. In Leipzig, the memorial site on the Lindenauer Markt directly in front of the theater is also to be inaugurated. And finally, a sound archive is to be created by May 2025, which will enable school classes and other groups to engage with the packs regardless of specific locations.

A more suitable location than the TDJW could hardly have been found for the topic. On the one hand, it is only a few meters from the theater to Georg-Schwarz-Straße, the lower end of which was known as “Reeperbahn” in the 1930s because of two cinemas, pubs and ice cream parlors. It was the meeting place for the mob of the same name, one of the largest in the city with up to 100 young people. Lange writes that with considerable self-confidence they “claimed public space in their neighborhood and stood their ground against the state youth.” Only a large-scale raid in June 1939 put an end to this.

On the other hand, the topic of mobs offers many current points of reference for the young people with whom the theater works on the project, says Florian Heller. It’s interesting, for example, how youth culture was lived out 90 years ago and in later decades and what role certain dress codes played in this: “I can remember times when you could tell your attitude by the color of your shoelaces.” What’s also exciting is how important that is public space was for the packs and how that has changed since then: “Today it has perhaps largely shifted to the digital space.”

Ronja Kindler, a theater teacher in the Meuten project, finds the question of “what it takes to have the courage to stand up” and what role groups play when it comes to showing a political stance interesting. This is also a “very contemporary” question for today’s young people. Of course, people rebel for very different reasons; The spectrum ranges from climate activists to young Nazis who see themselves as resisting the hated system. However, the theater makers are not afraid that they could take over the Meuten project. “We represent a political stance that focuses on democracy and human rights,” says Kindler. The TDJW, Heller adds, is “not a place where people with a solid right-wing worldview would feel comfortable.”

The project presents some challenges for the dramaturg and his colleagues. So the story of the packs is hardly suitable to be told about individual protagonists. It is a group phenomenon with very different actors, many of whom are not yet known in detail. “I don’t think it’s possible or advisable to depict this in individual biographies,” says Lange. Heller is convinced that the future production will focus more on “diversity of voices”: “That’s what Schorsch Kamerun is known for anyway.”

Another exciting question is what the future “memorial” for the packs could look like. Neither the historian nor the theater people thought a classic memorial site with a stele and inscription would be appropriate. Ronja Kindler hopes for a “living place of remembrance that invites young people and residents to participate.” And Sascha Lange says that he would “very much welcome” it if the packs were “more anchored in Leipzig’s collective memory.” But this doesn’t necessarily require “visualization in the cityscape”. The fall of 1989 is commemorated with an annual walk around the ring. The youth opposition during the Nazi era could possibly also be commemorated with an annual festival. Colorful ski shirts and leather pants don’t necessarily have to be worn.