Social group work in Germany: the rise and fall of the Hanseatic Youth Association (HJB) in Hamburg

ABSTRACT

This paper presents Hanseatic Youth Association (HJB) in Hamburg as case study in the history of social group work in Germany. During the Nazi era, youth groups of the Wandervogel movement of the 1920s were assimilated by the Hitler Youth, and democratic traditions were replaced by authoritarian approaches to group work that persisted for decades after the war. In 1947, Elisabeth Sülau revived participatory social group work in Hamburg when she founded the Hanseatic Youth Association (HJB), which grew from an initial group of seven girls to social clubs and friendship groups that served up to 400 children and young adults per year. Social group work in the HJB was based on democratic principles and situational equality for all members. Following the closure of the HJB in 1967, social group work was subsumed by a clinial professional model that distinguished between social education and therapeutic group work. Implications are drawn for social group work today.

KEYWORDS:

• Social group work
• social work history
• social work in Germany
• Wandervogel movement
• youth movement
• Hanseatic Youth Association (HJB)
• Elisabeth Sülau

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).