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Picture 20:
The picture shows member of the children’s organization „Junge Pioniere“ (young pioneers)
taking part in a parade on 13th March 1960 in East Berlin. This was the only children’s
organization allowed in the GDR, accepting children from age 6 to age 14. It had been founded
in 1948, and orginally membership did not entail a commitment to socialism. But from 1952,
when the older section of the „Junge Pioniere“ was given the name of Ernst Thälmann, a Communist
leader who had been killed by the Nazis, the children had to make a vow to fight for socialism.
In 1958, the Politburo introduced a new formula which was repeated by the group leader almost
every day: „For peace and socialism – be prepared!“, to which the children replied, „Always
prepared!“. Although membership was not compulsory, children who did not join and their parents
began to experience disadvantages once it had become a mass organization in the late 1950s
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