The Artaman League (German language:Artamanen-Gesellschaft) was a German agrarian and völkisch movement dedicated to a Blut und Boden-inspired ruralism. Active during the inter-war period, the League became closely linked to, and eventually absorbed by, the Nazi Party.
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The term Artamanen had been coined before the First World War by Dr. Willibald Hentschel, a believer in racial purity who had founded his own group, the Mittgart Society, in 1906. The term was a portmanteau word of art and manen, Middle High German words meaning 'agriculture man' and indicating Hentschell's desire to see Germans retreat from the decadence of the city in order to return to an idyllic rural past.[1]
The society itself was not formed until 1923, even though Willibald's ideas were somewhat older.[1] The Artamans were part of the German Youth Movement, representing its more right-wing back to the land elements.[2] Under the leadership of Georg Kenstler they advocated blood and soil policies with a strong undercurrent of Anti-Slavism.[3] This völkisch movement believed that the decline of the Aryan race could only be halted by encouraging people to abandon city life in favour of settling in the rural areas in the east.[4] Whilst members wished to perform agricultural labour as an alternative to military service they also saw it as part of their duty to violently oppose Slavs and to drive them out of Germany.[5] The concepts were combined in the figure of the Wehrbauer, or soldier-peasant.[6] As such the League sent German youth to work on the land in Saxony and East Prussia in an attempt to prevent these areas being settled by Poles.[4] To this end 2000 settlers were sent to Saxony in 1924 to both work on farms and serve as an anti-Slav militia.[3] They also gave classes on importance of racial purity and the Nordic race, and the corrupting influence of city living and Jews.[7]
Like many similar right-wing youth movements in Germany the Artaman League lost impetus as the Nazi Party grew. By 1927, 80% of its membership had become Nazis.[8] As such the League had disappeared by the early 1930s with most of its membership having switched to the Nazis.[5]
Heinrich Himmler was an early member and held the position of Gauführer in Bavaria. Whilst a member of the League Himmler met Richard Walther Darré and the two struck up a close friendship, based largely on Darré's highly developed ideological notions of blood and soil to which Himmler was attracted.[3] The Artaman vision would continue to have a profound effect on Himmler who, throughout his time as Reichsführer-SS, retained his early dreams of a racially pure peasantry.[9] Himmler was also close to his fellow member Rudolf Höss and would later advance him in the Schutzstaffel due in part to their history in the Artaman League.[10]