The National Socialist German Students' League (in German, Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund; abbreviated NSDStB) was founded in 1926 as a division of the NSDAP with the mission of integrating University-level education and academic life within the framework of the National Socialist

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 worldview. Organized (as with other departments of the NSDAP) strictly in accord with the Führerprinzip

Führerprinzip

The Führerprinzip , German for "leader principle", prescribes the fundamental basis of political authority in the governmental structures of the Third Reich...

(or "leader principle") as well as the principle of Machtdistanz (or "power distance"), the NSDStB housed its members in so-called Kameradschaftshäusern (or "Fellowship Houses"), and (from 1930) had its members decked out in classic brown shirts and its own distinctive Swastika

Swastika

The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...

 emblems.

After Germany's defeat in World War II, the NSDAP along with its divisions and affiliated organisations were declared "criminal organizations" and banned by the Allied Control Council

Allied Control Council

The Allied Control Council or Allied Control Authority, known in the German language as the Alliierter Kontrollrat and also referred to as the Four Powers , was a military occupation governing body of the Allied Occupation Zones in Germany after the end of World War II in Europe...

 on September 10, 1945.

Bundes- and Reichsführer of the NSDStB, 1926-1945

• 1926-28 Wilhelm Tempel
• 1928-32 Baldur von Schirach
  Baldur von Schirach
  Baldur Benedikt von Schirach was a Nazi youth leader later convicted of being a war criminal. Schirach was the head of the Hitler-Jugend and Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of Vienna....
  
   (from 1931 also Reichsjugendführer
  Reichsjugendführer
  Reichsjugendführer was the highest paramilitary rank of the Hitler Youth. It was held first by Baldur von Schirach and later Artur Axmann. Originally, there was no insignia for the rank, and von Schirach can be seen in documentary evidence as wearing a Nazi Party brown jacket with Hitler Youth...
  
  )
• 1932-33 Gerd Rühle
• 1933-34 Oskar Stäbel
• 1934-36 Albert Derichsweiler
• 1936-45 Gustav Adolf Scheel
  Gustav Adolf Scheel
  Gustav Adolf Scheel was a German physician and "multifunctionary" in the time of the Third Reich...
  
   (as Reichsstudentenführer Scheel was also Führer of the Deutschen Studentenschaft)

Other notable members

• Kurt Waldheim
  Kurt Waldheim
  Kurt Josef Waldheim was an Austrian diplomat and politician. Waldheim was the fourth Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981, and the ninth President of Austria, from 1986 to 1992...
  
  , later Secretary General of the United Nations, President of Austria

Further reading

• Anselm Faust: Der Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund. Studenten und Nationalsozialismus in der Weimarer Republik, 2. Bde. Schwann Düsseldorf 1973 ISBN 3-7895-0153-0 and ISBN 3-7895-0152-2
• Michael Grüttner: Studenten im Dritten Reich, Schöningh Paderborn 1995 ISBN 3-506-77492-1