Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation

The Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation (German: Pionierorganisation Ernst Thälmann) was a youth organisation in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1948 to 1990. It was a subdivision of the Free German Youth (FDJ) for schoolchildren aged 6 to 13 consisting of the Young Pioneers (Jungpioniere) and the Thälmann Pioneers (Thälmann-Pioniere). In the 1960s and 1970s, nearly all schoolchildren in East Germany between ages 6 and 13 were organised into Young Pioneer or Thälmann Pioneer groups, with the organisations having "nearly two million children" collectively by 1975.

The Pioneer Organisation was founded on 13 December 1948 and named for Ernst Thälmann, the former leader of the Communist Party of Germany who was executed at the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944. It was based on Komsomol and Scouting, being organised to teach socialist ideology to young schoolchildren and prepare them for the FDJ. Pioneer group afternoons mainly consisted of a mixture of adventure, myth-like socialist teachings, and the upkeep of revolutionary traditions. In the summer, children usually went to pioneer camps similar to West Germany's Wandervogel groups or the Scouts, and international pioneer camps were also common, intended to foster friendship between different nationalities. The Pioneer Organisation was dissolved shortly before German reunification in 1990.