A Northern Federation? Henry Rolf Gardiner and British and European Youth

This article is concerned with a variety of aspects of youth movements in Britain and Europe in the early decades of the twentieth century. Against this background it seeks to highlight the link between the English "Kibbo Kift" and its originator, John Hargrave (1894-1982) and youth movements in Germany. Concurrently it reviews the relationship between Hargrave and the English youth leader Henry Rolf Gardiner (1902-1971) who was involved with a number of British and European youth organisations in the 1920s and 1930s. Gardiner's equivocal stance over Nazi Germany has recently been the subject of widespread debate, while his efforts to promote the concepts of organic élite leadership and to foster a northern European political-cultural alliance have been widely construed as an ill-concealed attempt to usher in an obscurantist political system carrying undertones of National Socialism. While this question cannot be fully resolved without careful analysis of his papers in the library of the University of Cambridge, the present article implies that the roots of his later thought and activities were located in his early association with youth activities of various descriptions.