German Fire Brigades: Youth Auxillery (Jugendfeuerwehr)

Figure 1.--This German image is undated, but it looks like the early 1950s showing that the junior fire auxilleries were still active. I think that this is Rückblicke.

The members included youths and teenagers. We have also noted quite young boys in fire brigade uniforms. This seems to have been the junior division of the voluntary town and village fire brigades. The German term is Jugendfeuerwehr which I think means "young fire war" . I suspect that many of the younger boys involved wete the children or younger brother of the adult volunteers. A German reader tells us, "It is common that the voluntarien fire brigades of villages/towns have a youth group (not the professional fire brigades in the big towns and community centres." Many of these groups are very elabirately uniformed. Our German reader tells us, "Such a youth group participates in official ceremonies of voluntarian fire brigades in community events, e.g., annual celebration and the like. It has no relation to military organisations." The boys as shown here are clearly too young to engage in fire fighting. As sons or younger brothers of the fire fighters the youth auxillery gets them involved un the program. And they have meetings like other youth groups. In the case of a local event, annual parish fair or so, they take part in the parade together with the adult groups.