Horst Tomalla Photo Album

[Poloberst]

I don't have much HJ/DJ material, as I had collected in police and political organization areas. But I do have this book like photo album of a young man named Horst Tomalla who came from some town in the Harz Mountains area. The photo album is divided into four parts: a record of his vacation trip as young man in civilian clothes, a family trip with the KdF, his trip with his HJ unit to Jugendburg Freusburg and other places and finally his training with a police battalion in the Ostmark. The written descriptions are in white ink on black paper. Here are a few images. Sadly, there are no close-ups of his or any uniform to determine his unit. There are several photos of other Jungendburgs. One photo shows some senior officers with an Indian youth visitor.
I apparently screwed up the thread title.

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[Poloberst]

Thank you for correcting the thread title. I should have read the text of Tomalla's album again. Here are some shots that may help or might be of interest.
In this opening paragraph, he describes the departure of his Standort Gross Bochum with 185 HJ members. I cant find my SHAEF Hitler Youth publication, so can someone add if this was a HJ unit?

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And, I found this one photo of a group of them sleeping and tried to capture an image of the sleeve triangle. It doesn't appear to read Gross Bochum. The larger word appears to be Westfalen?

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And finally, there was a death during their visit to the Jugendburg Freusburg as noted in this newspaper clipping he added to his album. Both the Freusburg commander and an Unterbannführer are named.

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[Jack]

Hi,

On the Gebietsdreieck/triangle, West stands for the Obergebiet and Westfalen/Westphalia for the Gebiet/district.
The name of the Bann, Bochum, is to be found as a number (in this case: 67) on the shoulderstraps.
Bochum was the capital of the NSDAP Gau Westfalen-Süd. However, a corresponding HJ area triangle did not exist until the division of Westfalen in November 1942.

Groß-Bochum was not an official designation, but was probably used after the incorporations of 1929. After all, the city then had 320,000 inhabitants (hence also a HJ Standortführer).

 

[Garry]

HJ-Standort Groß-Bochum was created in 1935 by order of Oberbannführer Gustav Langanke who at that time was Gebietsführer Westfalen. The Standort consisted of Bann 67 Bochum and Bann 300 Wanne-Eickel. The first Standortführer in 1935 was the Bannführer of Bann 67, Oberbannführer Hans Strube (Bann 300 was headed up by Bruno Hähnel). The Standort was an administrative structure as opposed being a unit which is why, as Jack says, it is not displayed on insignia. The Standortführer acted on behalf of the units within the Standort as liaison between the Hitler Youth and other organisations.

Unterbannführer Anton Hucketewes, mentioned in the newspaper clipping, took command of Unterbann I/67 in 1935 and still held this position at the time of this boy's death. This must mean that Gustav Schwarz was a member of one of the Gefolgschaften within Unterbann I/67. Gefolgschaft Wiemelhausen would be logical but I don't have that unit in my list currently.

 

[Poloberst]

Garry and Jack, thank you for helping me to flesh out the history of Horst Tomalla's photo album. The text in the first image I added in post #2 relates that 185 HJ youth started the trip from Standort Gross Berlin. From the size would that number of HJ have comprised the Unterbann I/67?

The SHAEF HJ book did explain that an HJ Standort was an administrative establishment apart from the HJ. Is it odd that Tomalla used that term in his photo album?

Were there many Jungendburgs located throughout Germany. Were they like HJ hostels? There is a photo of another one or two in the album.

 

[Garry]

No, an Unterbann consited of approx 5 Gefolgschaften which equates to around 700 boys. Perhaps he used "Groß-Bochum" because the participants came from Bann 67 and 300 as opposed to being from 67 or 300 only. The Jugendburgen became associated with the HJ but usually they had been youth hostels prior to 1933.