Youth movement

This article deals with the German youth movement. The youth riots of 1980, also known as the Zurich youth movement , are represented in youth riots in Switzerland .

The youth movement is a particularly influential movement in the first third of the 20th century, which opposed urban life, which was shaped by industrialization, with a trend towards experiencing nature, which was spreading , especially in circles of bourgeois youth. Another feature was the romantic recourse to traditional cultural elements, with the reappropriation of folk songs and direct forms of socializing played a prominent role.

The movement that emerged from the Wandervogel consisted of a large number of small groups, which, under the guidance of mostly young adults, mainly carried out hikes and trips on weekends or during holidays. Reform pedagogy , nudism and the life reform movement were closely interrelated with the youth movement. The authorship for this term as well as for the youth culture claimed the reform pedagogue Gustav Wyneken . The first youth hostels came into being with the increasing spread of youth hiking .

Initially apolitical in their self-image, the various groups were nevertheless exposed to and oriented towards contemporary ideological currents. On the one hand, the First World War , which was followed by the politically more polarized phase of the Bundischen youth movement, and on the other hand, the National Socialist seizure of power in 1933, which led to the forced incorporation of all other youth associations into the Hitler Youth or its dissolution, represented deep cuts for the youth movement . The successor organizations founded after the Second World War have not regained their former importance.

The Wandervogel Era (1896–1913)

→ Main article : Wandervogel

The starting point of the youth movement at the end of the 19th century was the village of Steglitz, which at the time did not yet belong to Berlin . The main initiators were Hermann Hoffmann , who organized the first extensive hikes and trips with schoolchildren , and his successor Karl Fischer , who created a permanent organizational framework for such activities with the founding of the Wandervogels in 1901.

Motives and activities

The beginnings of the Steglitz Wandering Bird Movement were not motivated by socio-political reasons, but rather arose from a spontaneous impulse, the sparking effect of which, however, resulted from certain preconditions for those involved. They were recorded in retrospect by contemporary witnesses and chroniclers of the event. Werner Helwig wrote :

“The founding years , which had brought about the mighty upswing of industrialism and the technical inventions realized, went parallel to a strange withering away of the values ​​of life. The youth felt pushed out of their realm. The green spaces disappeared, natural playgrounds, forests, trees and shrubs around the growing cities decreased by leaps and bounds. A spirit of suffocating all youth reigned in the schools. The naked existence as such had become boring, sterile. The joy of the factory walls and chimneys sprouting up everywhere was not for everyone. The practice of bourgeois entrepreneurship, the feverish making of money, combined with the addiction of a big man and stock market player arrogance, was seen by many - partly consciously, partly unconsciously - as a lazy magic. "

Many Wandervogel members saw themselves rather apolitical or even anti-political; they stayed away from the party quarrels and the cheer patriotism of the beer bars. In view of the value system of Wilhelmine society, which was not based on individual freedom and the pursuit of happiness, but on Prussian-aristocratic ideas of loyalty and obedience to the emperor and empire, they at least asserted their own needs that countered paternalism Parents and teachers judged. Hans Blüher , who as an early member of the Wandervogel published the first history of the Wandervogel movement as early as 1912 , shows that hiking for the sake of hiking also developed into an intoxicating sense of self and mission :

“This state of affairs between youth and old age has been repeated thousands of times in Germany, it has become typical, but only here in this Märkerneste Steglitz were the contrasts characteristic enough, were so sharp and peculiar that the youth really succeeded on their own initiative To create a great movement that was nothing more than a struggle without asking a teacher. […] Steglitz became the topsoil of a youth movement that for almost ten years kept itself in the small and private, which took the ideal of traveling schoolchildren from the Middle Ages in order to become healthy and autocratic in the new era suddenly rose quite suddenly, when the stars were favorable, and in a few years in romantic enthusiasm poured over all of Germany, so that by the thousands and thousands the youth, injured with old age, roared through the woods. "

While initially only easily accessible destinations such as the Grunewald or the nearby Nuthetal came into question for half-day and weekend trips, holiday trips to the Harz and Bohemian Forest followed under Hoffmann's leadership . In view of the limited resources that the young people had at their disposal and with the principle of the simplest possible life in mind, they prepared their own meals on their own using alcohol stoves or cooked them on an open fire. On hikes lasting several days, people spent the night in barns, later also in tents and sometimes in cheap village inns. Rainy weather and grueling stretches of road were conquered with the singing of folk songs and mutual encouragement and afterwards were part of the common experience as challenges passed.

“The real and deepest experience of the youth movement is difficult to describe and perhaps impossible to analyze: the experience of the hike at night and sunrise, the atmosphere of the campfire, the friendships they made. There was a lot of romantic enthusiasm, and it is easier to ridicule the excesses of this state of mind than to do them justice. Very deep emotional chords were struck; the authenticity of this experience cannot be doubted. For many of the best of the young generation in Germany, it was a precious experience that they thought back on all their lives. "

Division and expansion of movement

Even in its early stages, the youth movement did not remain a unified whole. As early as 1904, three Bachanten with their own leadership ambitions opposed their Oberbachanten Karl Fischer and founded the “Steglitzer Wandervogel eV” instead of the now dissolved committee for school trips. V. “Soon afterwards, Karl Fischer's loyal friends organized themselves under a new name:“ Alt-Wandervogel ”. In Hamburg in 1905 a second important starting point for the youth movement emerged, the “Hamburger Wanderverein”, which became the Bund Deutscher Wanderer and which spread mainly in West Germany. The Berliner Wandervogel sparked spontaneous start-ups, especially in East and Central Germany.

Many of the first start-ups arose in university towns, in Heidelberg, Jena and Göttingen, for example on the initiative of high school graduates from Steglitz. A core area of ​​the Wandervogel was the Kassel - Göttingen - Eisenach area. In Germany it was mainly Protestant regions in which the youth movement took hold, but hardly in the Rhineland or Upper Silesia . Even with the spread of the youth movement in Catholic Austria, the number of Protestants was disproportionate to the total population. Here the movement was more politically oriented from the start and propagated the primacy of Germanness in the multi-ethnic state of the k. u. k. Monarchy .

The bourgeois youth concentrated in the secondary schools shaped the appearance of those who love to hike because young people from working-class families, when they left elementary school at the age of 14 to switch to an apprenticeship or gainful employment, no longer had the time for extensive hikes. Vacation trips were completely ruled out for them, which made it even more difficult to have intensive encounters with young people from different social backgrounds:

“The students had their own interests, completely different from young workers and apprentices who were still waiting for the eight-hour day. It was quite natural for pupils and students to keep to themselves. But in the long run, the youth movement's narrow class character was probably its greatest weakness. All the beautiful slogans about the deepening of the national community and of the 'breakthrough to the nation' were condemned to remain ineffective under these circumstances. "

Diverse break-offs and new foundations within the hiking groups and clubs served to regulate the conflict and contributed to the spread of the movement. When demands arose in 1907 to allow girls to join the organizations and to make alcohol abstinence on trips a principle, this met with resistance from the old members. On the initiative of Hans Breuer , a migratory bird from the early days, another organization was formed, the “Wandervogel Deutscher Bund für Jugendwandern”, which implemented these innovations.

The Wandervogel movement had grown to around 25,000 members in 1912. Their momentum also set school reforms in motion and encouraged the establishment of rural education centers and free school communities.

Philosophical and cultural orientation

According to Laqueur, before the First World War, the youth movement was largely politically neutral, but according to its social roots it was part of the general right-wing nationalist current. “If a lack of interest in politics were an alibi before history, then the Wandervogel would emerge from the process with an immaculately white vest.” On the other hand, the lack of political thought does not protect against becoming entangled in political disaster. Interest in public affairs and preparation for the role of active citizen were not promoted in the Wandervogel; there was a lack of a set of values, as it was known by socialist youth and Catholics, "a dangerous vacuum that could all too easily be filled with moral relativism and nihilism ."

Even with Hans Breuer, an important promoter of the membership of girls in the Wandervogel, the role model of the sexes bore the distinctive conservative traits typical of the time:

“… I think of expanding girls' hiking something like this: renouncing long distance marches, but giving strong preference to country homes; The question of getting quarters every evening, which is quite difficult for girls, is thus completely eliminated. There in the country homes, the girls learn all the virtues that they need in later life, they learn domesticity, compatibility, economy and have the advantages of hiking after their own even on daily forays where no heavy backpack prevents their movement Art. - Instead of rough forced marches, games and dance and dance, in short everything that promotes the grace of movement, will try to liven up. "

Many of the girls who were now admitted to hiking were enthusiastic about their new opportunities despite such programmatic guidelines:

“Allowing girls from high schools to prowl alone in the woods on Sundays had never been there before; as a girl you should never attract attention, that was the highest law! Every trip was unforgettable. When it rained we found shelter somewhere; when we were drenched, the movement made us dry again; therefore there was no cold. We had our favorite places hidden deep in the woods, an abandoned castle or a hunter's lodge with a wobbly sloping roof, from the ridge of which we slipped on old sacks into the soft grass for hours. We jumped through the undergrowth and over the forest stream, there were stuck shoes full of mud and water and ingenious drainage. Dams were built and castle dungeons discovered. We drew, took photos, made wreaths, sang and danced. This time is incomparably beautiful in our memories. What unfamiliar experiences, conversations, dangers, clashing opinions! "

At least in some of the established Wandervogel members, homoerotic tendencies are likely to have encouraged the persistent reservations towards female members and emphasized the demand that hikes in organizations with girls only be carried out separately by gender. A particularly influential advocate of this orientation was Hans Blüher , who, in the course of his examination of the history of the wandering bird, developed his own experiences and observations into an ideology of men's associations . For Blüher, the homoerotic elements of the Wandervogel life were the most valuable impetus for movement, without which it would not have been able to develop its resounding effect in the taboo-ridden Wilhelmine society.

“From the founding of the Wandervogels on, friendship relationships were noticed among the youth, the erotic nuances of which could not be ignored. How far this eroticism went and whether it made its way to the physical intoxication event that is always desired between man and woman remains unexplained here. The dignity and seriousness through which the many observed cases emerged suggest that this was a very excellent feeling that need not be ashamed of its existence and that there are enough analogies in the best parts of the German and the foreign culture. "

A completely different view prevailed in the contemporary public, which the Wandervogel also felt when he was approached in the context of an affair with a homosexual background, the focus of which was Prince Philipp zu Eulenburg , a friend of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Those responsible for Wandervogel were now exposed to diatribes, even referred to as the " pederast club ". Blüher describes the reaction within the movement:

“From now on the whole Wandervogel was divided into two groups; the first maintained that the wandering bird had nothing to do with any eroticism about its own sex; the older guides only acted out of ideal convictions. All bearers of same-sex inclinations should therefore be stamped out, including them themselves. That was the overwhelming majority who judged that way. A very vanishing minority countered: physiological friendship is part of the nature of the migratory bird movement; the most ideal attitudes towards youth were based on it, and it should therefore be cultivated. Their eradication would necessarily result in the internal desolation of the wandering bird. "

Another problem of attitudes and demarcation against the background of social mentalities arose in relation to Jewish Wandervogel members who joined or wanted to join from 1905 onwards. The proportion of Jews in the total population in the German Empire was less than one percent; in the upper grades of some grammar schools, on which the youth movement relied, it sometimes rose to 25% and more. After the case of a Jewish girl who had been rejected as a member in Zittau despite having passed the entrance examination in 1912 in the Berliner Tagblatt in 1912, a multi-voiced controversy arose among migrant bird guides, which was primarily fueled by Paul Erlach and Friedrich Wilhelm Fulda . Erlach published a pamphlet Der 'Wandervogel' German! , in which he stated that no Jew could belong to a Germanic-German movement like the Wandervogel. Fulda dedicated a whole issue of the Wandervogelführer newspaper to the "race question". Walter Laqueur suspects that Fulda’s views would have been accepted by the majority of migrant birds had they not been presented in such a radical form. While the Austrian Wandervogel introduced an Aryan paragraph at its federal meeting in Krems in 1913 , which declared Slavs, Jews and Welsche to be undesirable in its ranks, the federal leadership in Germany exercised restraint, citing its political neutrality. At the Bundestag at Easter 1914 in Frankfurt (Oder) it was decided that the local groups should decide whether to accept or reject Jewish candidates. They did not want to take action against local groups that rejected Jews as members, for example "because particularly pronounced racial peculiarities with the type of wandering bird, which has emerged from the depths of the German essence and is rooted in the German past, seem unbearable to her". The Wandervogel movement was not anti-Semitic in its entirety , but the controversies within the youth movement were sufficient to polarize it and split it into a German-Christian and a German-Jewish movement.

For the development of community life within the respective local groups, on the other hand, more was done than just planning and carrying out hikes. Usually the group members wore small badges and pins as an expression of their togetherness. They looked for rooms or sheds where they could get together once or twice during the week after school. These were adorned with the movement's emblems, and some were also equipped with books and sports equipment. Singing together to the sound of a guitar was already planned by Karl Fischer; Additional design elements of such gatherings were readings from the work of a favorite writer of the youth movement or stories presented by the group leader. In many cases, approaches to an own Wandervogel cultural life developed:

“There were amateur games (with Hans Sachs as the most popular author) and puppet theater . Members were encouraged to put their impressions and experiences on paper. Some wrote poetry, and anyone who showed the slightest aptitude for it one expected drawings and especially silhouettes; the first Wandervogel photographers appeared. "

The motif back to nature corresponded with a conscious recourse to traditions, emblazoned with echoes of romanticism , which found its expression in (simple) clothing, home evenings and song evenings , campfire celebrations and dance . The youth music movement was part of the youth movement. She dedicated herself to promoting music making and folk songs .

In the creation of the most important song book of the youth movement, which was published again and again under the title " Zupfgeigenhansl " after its first publication in 1909 and sold a total of over a million copies, Hans Breuer played a major role, who moved to the university town after his early days in Steglitz Gone to Heidelberg and founded a well-known “Pachanthey” (group of wandering birds) with Hans Lißner. About the initiators of the song collection, Lißner said in Werner Helwig's memory collection The Blue Flower of the Wandering Bird :

“Since she deliberately avoided the main roads on her cruises, her way led her to farmers, foresters, fishermen and craftsmen, and from such people all ages in the most diverse districts of Germany had approached them. Every song they sang had to evoke certain, really experienced people and landscapes. […] Our students sang and conjured up other people's songs. Didn't the brave student landlady upstairs in the forest house get all the songs out of her old Swabian head and didn't the raftsmen start trying their voices again down on the Neckarstaden ? So the treasure trove of experienced songs grew ever richer. Summer days in the Odenwald , moonlit nights on the Neckar, furnace heat in the Swabian and Franconian corner towns increased it. "

The external impact and the 1913 meeting on the Hoher Meissner

Modern information board with an idealized representation of the Free German Youth Day 1913

By 1910, the Wandervogel and the parallel founding of the youth movement had such a strong impact that institutions such as churches , political parties , trade unions and country associations tried to reform their own youth by orienting themselves on the one hand to the external style of the Wandervogel, but on the other hand to the traditional principle of authority held tight. However, this adjustment and rapprochement was viewed very critically by some of those responsible within these institutions and adult associations. Insofar as many of these newly formed or newly founded youth associations remained in direct dependence on adult associations, they cannot be described as youth-moving groups. On the other hand, however, their own dynamic was sometimes underestimated by the respective authorities, so that sometimes very independent groups emerged. The Catholic and Protestant youth movements, for example, were helped by the fact that, for different reasons (e.g. abstinence , relationship to nature and culture), numerous young people had already gathered in new groups around spiritual mentors (e.g. Quickborn working group ).

Within the Wandervogel movement, after years of split-offs and separate foundings, from 1910 onwards efforts to reach unity at parties with participants from very different groups, in 1911 the umbrella organization "Association of German Wandering Birds" was founded, and in January 1913 finally the association in "Wandervogel eV - Association for German Youth Hiking" “, Which, however, did not join individual established groups or subgroups.

When then for October 1913 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig , which resulted in the end of Napoleonic domination in Germany, - but in contrast to the other hurray-patriotic jubilee events in the Reich - for a big meeting of the "Free German Youth “ Was invited to the Hoher Meissner , the movement continued to be divided: Although a number of Wandervogel groups came, there were also reservations and complaints about the fact that too many groups are now being led by teachers on behalf of their superior authorities acted. The collective term Freideutsche Jugend also included the older migrant birds , which were meanwhile organized in student groups; In addition, representatives of the teetotalers and the life reform movement as well as a strictly ethnic group called “Volkserzieher” and advocates of the free school communities were also represented at the festival .

Gustav Wyneken , who founded the Free School Community of Wickersdorf in 1906 and welcomed some groups of wandering birds there, who were fascinated by this model of a self-educating living and working community, was the author of the invitation text for the Meißner meeting , which lasted several days . It said u. a .:

“The German youth is at a historic turning point. The youth, hitherto excluded from the public life of the nation and dependent on a passive role of learning, on a playful and vain sociability and only an appendage of the older generation, begin to reflect on themselves. She tries to shape her own life independently of the sluggish habits of the ancients and the dictates of an ugly convention. She strives for a lifestyle that corresponds to a youthful nature, but which at the same time enables her to take herself and her actions seriously and to integrate herself as a special factor in general cultural work. [...] She, who is ready at any time in an emergency to stand up for the rights of her people with her life, would like to dedicate her fresh, pure blood to the fatherland even in struggle and peace on the working day. [...] So we invite young people to celebrate the First Free German Youth Day with us on October 11th and 12th on the Hoher Meißner near Kassel . May a new era of German youth begin from him, with a new belief in one's own strength, with a new will to do one's own thing. "

The playwright Herbert Eulenberg tried to conjure up the common motives and plans of those gathered at the Hoher Meissner in his encouraging "Festgruß":

“Bring tankards and sabers to the junk room,
chase away the booze, including cat-shame
and everything that rots and loots you!
Come on, become people of our century! "

The day of arrival was not favored by the weather: rain and fog hindered the ascent and depressed the mood. Nevertheless, it was the hoped-for major event with around 9,000 participants from 13 youth associations. When the weather improved in the meantime, cooking and dancing activities were the focus of the festival, as Gustav Wyneken reported as an eyewitness, who played a key role as a rousing speaker during the implementation of the event. The terms youth culture and youth movement were coined by him . The “Meißner formula”, on the other hand, was a compromise product that resulted from the consultations of the various association representatives on site. It said:

“The Freideutsche youth want to shape their lives with inner truthfulness on their own initiative and before their own responsibility. She stands up for this inner freedom under all circumstances. "

On the newly rainy day of departure, the final highlight, the performance of Goethe's Iphigenie, took place in a wet tent. Laqueur is skeptical about the total yield of the Meißner Festival:

“In the end, that historic conference on the Hoher Meißner resulted in little - just a promise that was never kept and a formula that meant something different to everyone and that was definitely not a special formula for young people. For the boys and girls in the Wandervogel, this may not have been very important: They laughed and watched as the left and right struggled to mobilize them for their purposes on the Hoher Meissner. The First World War broke out less than a year later. "

Incisive world war experiences

Wandering Bird Group (around 1930)

As little as political may have played a role in the self-image of the early migrant birds, they did not remain unaffected in their essential areas of interest. This can be seen, for example, in Hans Breuer's prefaces to various editions of the “Zupfgeigenhansl”. While in 1909 the invitation to participate in the expansion of the song collection still dominated, in 1913 it was already about the completion of Germanism and in the war year 1915 it was about asserting their own place on earth as wandering birds and fulfilling the legacy of their comrades who had already fallen . Hans Breuer himself was not to see the end of the war.

The enthusiasm of the first days of the war in August 1914 also hit the youngsters with full force. The war initially presented itself to the young people as a stimulating adventure, some of whom made their way to the front, laughing and carrying flowers in their gun barrels. “You will be home before the leaves fall from the trees,” Kaiser Wilhelm II had promised. "Hundreds of thousands of young people stormed the advertising agencies to volunteer for the flags - just like their peers in France or England."

Disenchantment was not long in coming in the grueling material battles and wars of position in Belgium and France. In a student letter from the Flanders Front in the autumn of 1914:

“We imagined the war to be completely different. I wanted to see the enemy, and then we wanted to shoot each other or charge each other with the bayonet. But right at the beginning, without even having seen a living enemy to be shot down ... "

From the official side, however, a representation and interpretation of the events, in part completely opposite to the actual war events, was distributed quite successfully. In this regard, the long-term impact was particularly evident in the assault on Langemark in November 1914 , which the troops fought with many volunteers, high school graduates and students:

“The British defenders of Langemarck were veteran, highly trained guard soldiers. The young Germans, on the other hand, had completely inadequate short training. They could hardly handle their weapons, as a combat group they were not at all useful. But they willingly let their leaders drive them across the uncovered terrain, into the artillery and machine gun fire of an enemy who was well entrenched and barely visible in his positions. Thousands fell. "

This fiasco was subsequently stylized and celebrated as the myth of Langemarck , the heroic sacrifice of youth for the fatherland, also by the survivors themselves, who met in 1919 for the first Langemarck celebration in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin . From 1921, this was followed by annual commemorative events by youth associations and the Berlin student body, the unveiling of a Langemarck memorial in 1924 in the Rhön region and a "Langemarck donation" from the German student body . The National Socialists made use of the Langemarck myth in their own way.

In the period after the beginning of the war, the usual activities also came to a standstill for the migratory birds that did not serve in the field. After a few months, however, operations were resumed to a lesser extent. The group leadership was now often taken over by girls, occasionally supported by discharged soldiers who were wounded or unable to fight and could no longer serve the army.

An organizational network was set up in individual army units for the field wanderers; sometimes his own publications and circulars circulated. One participant in the war described the mood at the front, which had changed over time:

“When the war did not want to end, it lost what was convincing for the individual. In general, the inner and outer forlornness became the hallmark of his last years. More and more good comrades fell next to you. The wandering bird soldier felt more and more lonely. One looked longingly for friends from the old guild. [...] Real soldiers' local groups were formed. There were even nests of soldiers migrating birds behind the front. If there were a few hours or days to spare, one could finally move around and talk to one's own kind. The hopes expressed here, of course, were aimed at the future Wandervogel, who should come forward with a final agreement after the end of the war. "

Time of the Bündische Jugend (1919–1933)

Not only those who died in the World War - around one in four of around 15,000 war participants in the youth movement died in the war - but those who returned from the war also contributed to a fundamentally changed situation: only around half of them rejoined the youth movement at all. Most of them were strongly influenced by their war experiences, a minority in the sense of pacifism , many others on the other hand - in memory of experiences at the front and the " steel thunderstorms " they had survived - rather militaristic .

The outcome of the war and the November Revolution of 1918 presented the youth movement with a completely new starting point, also in terms of social policy. The orientations initiated by this resulted in a creeping dissolution of the Free German youth by 1923, under whose sign the big meeting on the Hoher Meißner in 1913 had been. At the first post-war meeting at Easter 1919 in Jena, the participants split into supporters of socialism and unorthodox communism; on the other hand, they were opposed to right-wing conservative representatives who made a front against the “imperialism” of the victorious powers meeting in Versailles . Often the positions in this time of upheaval could not be clearly assigned to certain political camps:

“The fact that one stood on the right and felt on the left, that one stood on the left and could have 'folkish' ideals contributed a lot to the mixing of all tendencies. The communists, like the first national Bolsheviks and Nazis, drew considerable profits from it. "

A new variety of sub-movements and new foundations were characteristic of the post-revolutionary early years of the Weimar Republic , which, however, also brought the organizational integration of scout associations into the youth movement. In contrast, the workers' youth movement always formed an independent branch among the organized youth.

According to Geuter, the tendency towards further diversification of the groupings in the period after the First World War was strengthened by the increasing importance of girls in some organizations. On the other hand, voices were raised that said that the essential difference between the sexes was so fundamental that there could be no comradely coexistence between boys and girls, or that said: “Wherever girls are, it's cozy. You feel satisfied there, not revolutionary. ”According to Geuter, it is no coincidence that such demarcations on the male side emerged particularly at the time when women's suffrage had just been introduced in Germany and more and more women were going to higher schools and universities.

Idea of ​​the federal government

An essential tendency in the second phase of the youth movement turned out to be the turning away from the largely purposeless, individualized romanticism of the wandering bird towards an all-encompassing obligation of each individual member to the group, to which one subjected oneself in a disciplined manner and with which one can serve a " big deal ”.

The most important intellectual model of this development was the circle around the poet Stefan George , who had also used the future key term of the youth movement in his poetry cycle "Der Stern des Bundes" published in 1913/14. The George Circle was a purely men's society - Stefan George did not hide his own homosexual orientation - which, in its exclusion of all feminine, influenced the associations of the youth movement in a similar way as the writings of Hans Blüher and the experiences and memories military comradeship from the First World War.

“The Alt-Wandervogel was accused of having sunk into the Poussier club. Divisions, separations, disagreements without number set in. […] In my opinion, the separation from girls led to an overestimation and mystification of the state. They wanted to revive the idea of ​​the knightly order. The state structure should be 'grasped' from the structure of the order. "

Geuter sees an explanation for why the ideology of the men's association was so particularly pronounced in Germany in the fact that the emancipation of women lagged comparatively far behind, "while the recognition of homosexuality was conspicuously promoted through propaganda." Only here are there homosexual scandals given to the highest levels of government.

The driving force behind the Bündische on the scout side were the new scouts under the leadership of the Berlin theologian Martin Voelkel . For them in particular, knight, castle, grail idea, fight and allegiance became important key concepts:

“Noble bodies and souls faithful to death, illuminating the dirtiest corner with beauty and educated enough to fill every space; grown together in comradeship with the people, and at the same time gorgeous leaders; proud in the ornament of the storm helmet, and humbly with the helmet off to prayer. Here the new image rises. […] And from the depths of the woods a young generation lifts believing eyes to this star, because the compass in its chest shows it the way to such full and heroic humanity. This is the white knight who is now setting out again to redeem the world through his kingdom. "

Voelkel propagated the dispensability of vows and programs: “In our hearts we wear the covenant mark, which unmistakably shows us our direction; and the believing battle cry rang out from the lips: 'Long live the new empire!' "Less heroic and mission-conscious, instead Ernst Buske , old wanderer bird and later federal leader of the German Freischar , presented his model:

“Only that which connects people spiritually with one another in a peculiar way, i. H. the spiritual interactions that take place in cognition and knowledge, in world view, in religious, artistic and moral feeling and thinking, in short the entire cultural relations, constitute the essence of the national community. People means cultural community, and race, space, language, state are only important as conditions of the process of cultural communitarization. [...] The idea of ​​humanity must appear as a necessary complement to this ethnic-cultural bond. Because the nation is not the measure of all things to us. The moral law applies across all national barriers, the moral precepts apply equally to all human beings as moral beings. From this it follows that by itself no people are superior to the other, that the idea of ​​law should apply above and between the people. [...] So the people are only a special expression of humanity for us. "

A wide range of new beginnings

Construction hut of the Nerother Wandering Bird at Waldeck Castle (1966)

The declining cohesiveness of the Free German youth led to a wide variety of new foundations. As a split from Alt-Wandervogel, Robert Oelbermann and his twin brother Karl founded the "Nerommen secret society" at the turn of the year 1919/20 in a basalt cave near Neroth in the Eifel, initially with eight members . The earlier Wandervogel culture seemed to them spoiled by wild hiking groups from big cities: “With guitars, mandolins and roaring songs, the wild crowds strolled through the woods with their girls. The name Wandervogel had come among the rank and file and was relentlessly trampled underfoot by the so-called 'wild hordes'. "

This was opposed to a pure boys 'and men' s union, which later became known under the name Nerother Wandervogel, Deutscher Ritterbund and which influenced the youth movement so style-forming that as late as 1933 authoritative Nazi leaders such as Göring and Goebbels believed that the Nerother Wandervogel had been overcome to be able to undermine an essential element of the youth movement. The Nerommen set up their headquarters on the ruins of Waldeck Castle in the Baybachtal in the Hunsrück, which they had prepared for their own purposes . The repair work and the maintenance costs for the castle were partly financed with slide presentations, which the members of the order designed as reports from their big trips. Werner Helwig, at the time known as "Hussa" Waldecker Burgpoet, reports on these trips:

“Since singing was one of our standing qualities, and not even our worst, we made virtue a necessity, that is, we made money doing what was close to our hearts. In the radio studios of many cities and countries, we soon moved as usual guests, and the concert halls echoed with applause when we had brought the final curve of 'Mountains, Streams, Forests' to a stop with conscious meticulousness. That's how we came to India, that's how we came to America. We did not despise walking and the deserted landscape, but we also did not despise the highways and modern means of transport. In the desert or at sea, hitchhiking or with a paid ticket: nothing was alien to us. We know the continents, we know the islands, we know the skies over all areas. "

Another striking phenomenon in the early days of the Bündische Jugendbewegung, which, in contrast to the Nerother Wandervogel, which still exists today, only had a brief, albeit highly intense effect, was the "New Group" under the leadership of Friedrich Muck-Lamberty . Directly from the big reunion of the wandering birds who had returned from the war at Whitsun 1920 in Kronach, the wood turner Muck-Lamberty set out with around 30 followers of both sexes on a procession through Thuringia, which led via Coburg, Jena and Weimar to Eisenach. The members of the group shared all their property, a vegetarian diet and avoided alcohol. Lamberty preached inner contemplation and awakening to life in marketplaces and in churches and, with his crowd, created an atmosphere filled with singing, dancing and swinging, which developed a magnetic effect.

“In addition to the announced dances, there were those who were curious and critical, but mostly young enthusiasts. The confident demeanor of the crowd drew more and more people into the circle. Everyone was addressed as 'you'. These dances had an incredible effect. Those who were initially reluctant were also dragged into the vortex, it was as if the time of the flagellants and the cultic dances had returned. Everything, whether Catholic orphans, Protestant virgins' associations, whether adults, whether youngsters, whether proletarians or nobles - everything was seized by the dance madness, even real princesses are said to have participated. And when the crowd moved on, many enthusiasts accompanied them for miles. "

The triumphal procession lasted until autumn 1920 and should have been continued in spring 1921. For the cold season, the Neue Schar withdrew to the Leuchtenburg , where a turnery was set up. But when it got out that Muck-Lamberty had impregnated several female members of his group, the public reputation of the new crowd was ruined. She had to leave the Leuchtenburg, but stayed together and founded a lucrative new turner's workshop under Muck's leadership in Naumburg .

From abandoned castles to youth hostels

Ludwigstein Castle, memorial for the migratory birds that fell in the First World War. Today the youth hostel and archive of the German youth movement

Just as Waldeck Castle became the most important enduring community concern for the Nerother Wandervogel and the Leuchtenburg became the chosen winter quarters of the Neue Schar, so there were also numerous similar activities elsewhere aimed at offering young people in country homes, special accommodation or on unused knight castles ( youth castles ). to provide a place for their meetings and overnight quarters for their journeys. The youth hostel association played a key role in this and, according to Helwig, succeeded in wresting "a large number of high-sounding castle names" from oblivion. “Perhaps something of the spirit of the 12th century was revived in the Bündische with their religious structures, their crusader and castle dreams, namely, transported into the romantic, the endeavor to form outposts in the social wasteland of the present, in the sense of their worldview to conquer and enforce ... "

Ludwigstein Castle was of particular importance in the long term for the entire youth movement . Even before the Free German Youth Day on the Hoher Meißner in 1913, the Hanstein and Ludwigstein castles, which are located on either side of the Werra, were popular hiking bird destinations. As early as 1908, on a geological excursion to Hanstein, the wandering bird Enno Narten was pointed out by his university professor to Ludwigstein Castle as an object of particular interest to him. In the following years, Narten never gave up the idea of ​​using it for the Wandervogel. On the war front in 1914, he and his comrades decided to convert the castle into a memorial for the fallen migratory birds. After the end of the war, Narten started to implement the plan and negotiated with the competent Kassel government, which, however, demanded proof of sufficient funds for the purchase and repair of the castle:

“I went black - money? I was a scholarship student, engaged to a teacher trainee with a monthly salary of ninety marks. But an enlightenment came to me: I wrote an 'appeal for the acquisition of the Ludwigstein', set up a postal checking account with the help of my bride's 'assets', had the appeal printed, and we both wrote envelopes for days and nights to send the appeal. "

The appeal for donations was very successful, so that the purchase could be made and, according to Nartens, the support association soon grew to over 1000 members. Anyone visiting the castle first had to do at least two hours of construction. The archive of the youth movement, which was later set up in the castle, finally fell victim to Nazi confiscation, like the castle itself. After the Second World War , right on the inner-German border until 1990 , Ludwigstein Castle became a youth hostel and youth education center . Today the central archive of the German youth movement is located there again - as part of the Hessian State Archives .

In league with scouts: the German Freischar

While the various branches of organization of the youth movement were relatively easy to survey up to the end of the First World War, this no longer applies to the good dozen larger and countless smaller groups in the 1920s and early 1930s. They all had their own magazines or information letters, camps and flags, and special clothing features. "Even experts found it difficult to differentiate between the German Wandering Bird and the Wandering Bird of the German Federation or between the Ringgemeinschaft and the Reichsschaft der Scouts."

As the largest and most respected of these associations, the "Association of Wandering Birds and Scouts", the future German Freischar with ten to twelve thousand members, 15% of whom were girls , was created in 1926, mainly from old hikers and new pathfinders .

Robert Baden-Powell , who had used “boy scouts” on the British side during the Second Boer War and developed a training concept for young boy scouts from this, was the founder of the scout movement . With his font Scouting for Boys in 1908 he created the basis for the worldwide dissemination of his ideas. Compared to the Wandervogel movement, a military character dominated here, which was evident in activities, exercises and field games as well as in a differentiated hierarchy above and below. The First World War brought field wanderers and scout soldiers together at the front, which favored the subsequent organizational rapprochement.

In 1920 the new scouts split off from the German Scout Association , in 1922 the ring scouts . From then on, the German scout movement also assumed a league of diversity. In contrast to the two aforementioned spin-offs, the German Boy Scout Association maintained its independence from the German Freischar, to which the conversation “of a relationship of friendship and trust” was considered sufficient.

The well-respected old wanderer Ernst Buske became the undisputed leadership authority of the Freischar group . Despite his one-armed nature, he exuded self-confidence, calm and humor in his work. Under his aegis, the German Freischar presented itself as one of the few comparatively liberal and pro-democratic associations of the 1920s, which was therefore exposed to the accusation of "national indignity" from other quarters. For example, the “ Boberhaus ”, founded by Freischar members in Silesia, stood for tolerance and openness. As a “ primary school”, it offered courses on the social and cultural requirements of the border region and tried to achieve political, religious and professional neutrality. The program also included promoting encounters and the coming together of different generations.

A branch in itself: the working youth

According to Laqueur, the largest unions of the Weimar Republic with the most members were not those of the youth movement, but largely right-wing paramilitary organizations with a military orientation. In addition, and as their opponents, there also existed the organized youth workers . Their beginnings, which were accompanied by police distrust - neither women, pupils nor apprentices were allowed to belong to political associations at the time - ran parallel to the early Wandervogel years.

The triggering event in 1904 was the case of a locksmith's apprentice found hanged in Berlin's Grunewald who, according to the Prussian trade regulations still in force at the time, was subject to the “paternal educational authority” of his master and showed signs of continued physical abuse. In 1904, the “Association of apprentices and young workers in Berlin” was founded to protect the “economic, legal and intellectual interests” of working youth against such trafficking. Outside Prussia there was a more liberal political climate, so that the “Association of Young Workers in Germany”, founded in 1906 as an umbrella organization, was able to propagate the goal of introducing young people to the world of socialism and preparing them for the “workers' liberation struggle”.

“When the young workers got together in groups, it did not have the introverted character of the migrant bird groups. The goal was not inwardly directed warmth and elation - the proletarian was concerned with the outward effect. The group appeared in solidarity, they achieved more through their unity than the individual could ever fight for himself. "

This difference also essentially remained in relation to the youth groups of the Weimar period, which each pursued common models: For the Socialist Workers' Youth in Germany founded in 1922, the practical questions of leisure time regulations, holidays and reforms of vocational training continued to dominate. It is true that young socialists also took up the impulses of the Bundischen youth movement in their dispute with the social democratic party apparatus; on the other hand, the established party comrades pursued a successful blockade policy. Since 1921, the members of the Communist Youth Association of Germany , who were directly subordinate to the Communist parties at the then second World Congress of the Youth International in Moscow , had no freedom of their own .

Tusks departure and farewell - towards the end of the covenants

Tusk (Eberhard Koebel) in the boys jacket he designed (around 1930)

Since its beginnings and also in the Bundestag era, the youth movement in its numerous ramifications was essentially shaped by the leaders who founded the respective groups and determined their direction or who came to their heads as successors of others. The early death of Ernst Buske, who suddenly died of an infection in 1930 at the age of 35, was therefore perceived by thousands of members of the German Freischar as a decisive loss. According to Helwig, he met precisely that significant part of the Bundische youth movement which, under Buske, had shown itself to be stable as an antagonist "against ideological and mass social infiltration".

A critical admirer of Buske, who had already caused a sensation within the German Freischar with his Swabian group in Buske's time, was Eberhard Koebel from Stuttgart , who traded under his Scandinavian loan name "tusk" (German). Tusk appeared with the claim to give the youth movement new impetus and developed considerable creativity in various fields, which radiated beyond his own sphere of activity. One of his impulses, for example, was the design of the boys' jacket . His "Fahrtbericht 29" from the trip to Lapland with his group of boys from Stuttgart, which was published by Voggenreiter Verlag in 1930 , showed him to be an excellent expert on the customs and language of the rag. Werner Helwig paid great respect to tusk's achievements and role in that phase of the youth movement.

“The best thing you gave the youth movement was the new kind of independence from home and abode. You had got to know the principle of the heatable tent in Lapland and have now applied it to the cutting of the tent sheets with German thoroughness. With the housing you invented, called Kohte in Lappish, every landscape, no matter how deserted, can be explored, every high mountain loneliness can be experienced. Snow line no longer applies. You can even spend the night on ice if you can find enough wood not to let the campfire go out in the center of the Kohte . "

But tusk was also newer, for example, with the use of lower case letters in particularly prominent places. So he made sure not only for his own chosen name, but also for those of his group mates. On November 1, 1929, he founded the " dj.1.11 " (dj for German youth , plus the date of foundation) as a special conspiracy association . The design of Bunds magazines took on more modern forms under the influence of tusk, who was a talented draftsman and who based the layout of the magazine “Campfire” on the Bauhaus school. In relation to Buske, tusk claimed the editing of the Freischar-Führer magazine, which he failed to do as well as the hoped-for management of all southern districts of the German Freischar.

After Buske's death, tusk continued his struggle for more personal influence with the new federal leadership so vigorously that he was finally expelled and left the group with his youth. The dj.1.11 remained a leading part of the Bundestag youth, as can be seen from internal statements by the Hitler Youth after the Nazi takeover of power in 1933, according to which "the bundes all directly or indirectly from Eberhard Koebel, the leader of the 'DJ1.11' influenced ".

Tusk himself gave up the leadership of his league, however, in 1932 when he demonstratively joined the Communist Party on April 20 ( “Führer” s birthday) and now declared the political struggle to be his main concern. After the Nazi seizure of power, tusk and Helwig both temporarily pursued the goal of converting entire youth union groups into the Hitler Youth in order to counter-attack in the interests of their own ideas at the appropriate opportunity. Laqueur comments skeptically:

“Tusk's stance in 1933 was contradictory, even if all doubts are interpreted in his favor. He continued to write for the youth magazine he founded, Eisbrecher, and he edited a new cultural-political organ, Die Kiefer, which dealt heavily with Far Eastern culture and religion, particularly Zen Buddhism . All in all a very strange continuation of his recently announced conversion to the Marxist-Leninist worldview. "

After his arrest by the Gestapo in January 1934, tusk made two suicide attempts and was only released after he had signed an undertaking not to be active in politics or youth work in the future. He and his wife emigrated to England via Sweden in June 1934.

Immersion in the Hitler Youth and shadowy existence in the underground (1933–1945)

The independent leagues as part of the Nazi enemy image

Werner Kindt drew a multi-layered contemporary picture in 1932 from the perspective of those who were rooted in the youth movement for the political stance of the Bundischen youth movement on the National Socialists' striving for power in the final phase of the Weimar Republic . After the Reichstag election in 1930 , which had given the NSDAP an enormous increase in votes and 107 seats, there was a noticeable surge of politicization among the members of the Bunds, “and in 1931 it could be said without exaggeration that the youth team included almost all of the Bundestag and Protestant youth of all directions, to a large extent, either belonged to the NSDAP and its youth and combat groups or at least was 'very close' without directly acquiring the party book. "

Within the confederations, however, this led to conflicts, so that the respective federal leaderships threatened party members with expulsion proceedings and the local leaders swore to this line. In the papers of the Bundischen and Protestant youth a clear demarcation against party-political fighting and advertising methods especially of the NSDAP was followed. In a special issue of the German Scout Association in 1932, a position was taken against the demands of the Hitler Youth for integration:

“When working with adolescents, nothing seems wrong to us than a one-sided, possibly party-oriented influence -> education <- of the youth. On the contrary, we believe that especially at this age you learn a lot more from opposites (I think each of us wanted to join the Red Front Fighters League !), And only when you see the whole can you decide on which side . Not what you are taught is decisive for the attitude of the covenant person, but only the conviction that comes from your own experience and your own thinking. "

As a counterexample, Kindt used a leader of the Protestant Neulandbund, who intoned an anthem to the National Socialist movement in the federal magazine "Neuland":

"How have we women always stood there and looked around us to see whether the men put up with this flood of mud of dishonor, baseness, greed, selfishness and class hatred. [...] And then we felt with a shock that the miracle of God had happened and that a Savior really arose who was able to awaken the souls of the people. Then we joined the great 'Germany awake' with jubilation and knew: this is where God walks through world history, here he awakens the tools himself! "

The image of the youth leagues, which were confronted with the political contradictions that degenerated into extremism and street fights, is rounded off in Kindt's presentation by around a dozen smaller league groups with a national Bolshevik tendency, some of which had organizational ties to the KPD . They too each had their own magazine, in which articles such as the following could be found:

“The fact that the NSDAP has become more and more of a protective force for the German property bourgeoisie, and the western orientation of its foreign policy, however, makes it impossible for the National Socialist Party to actually carry out the national and social liberation of the German nation. [...] It can only be carried out on the basis of the only world power that stands outside the Versailles system , namely the Soviet Union . "

Of the more than 100 leagues with around 100,000 members in the final phase of the Weimar Republic, the Artamans, with their clear turn to National Socialism, were the exception. But to all of them, what was in the HJ-Führerblatt in May 1933 was true:

“We praised the graves of our murdered comrades that we want to guarantee the purity of National Socialism with the most brutal effort! We proclaim a ruthless fight against the fraternities. [...]. The human material of the leagues should not be affected. But the special nature of the leagues. The spread conceit of their leadership claps. The disgusting cheek to want to come down the back stairs to influence youth organization. Be [...] convinced: the frets will be exterminated! You have no right to exist! The Hitler Youth alone is 'the new idea in its new form'. "

As incorrigibly sentimental and addicted to moonlight romanticism, completely unsuitable for upcoming fights, the youth leagues were made contemptible in the circles of the Hitler Youth. The later “Reichsjugendführer” Baldur von Schirach had already stated in 1931 that “cowardly and egotistical people” were raised in the youth movement who chased “fantasies”. One of the tasks of the Hitler Youth at that time was to make an impression by parades in the streets of the big cities and to attack opponents in armed street fights. While the majority of the members of the Bündische attended secondary school, only 12 percent of the Hitler Youth members did so. Dissatisfaction with the patronizing arrogance of the more educated, who allegedly did not want to get their fingers dirty, was constantly stoked in the Hitler Youth.

Dissolution and forced integration into the HJ

Camp of the Greater German Confederation in Grunewald near Berlin (1933)

Under the impression of the first steps of the National Socialist seizure of power , which were also already associated with terrorist measures against political and ideological opponents, the “ Greater German Bund ”, comprising more than 70,000 members, was founded in March 1933 through the merger of the German Freischar with various other leagues . The 70-year-old Admiral Adolf von Trotha , a friend of the Reich President Paul von Hindenburg , was made federal leader for life and he was looking for support for asserting himself against the Hitler Youth (HJ).

All the different approaches and efforts on the part of the youth leagues to secure their own continued existence after the Nazi takeover were doomed to failure. With a two-pronged strategy, the new rulers succeeded in the course of the "national uprising" they orchestrated, on the one hand to harass, beat up and confiscate their materials to the leagues and, on the other hand, to entice large parts of the youth movement into their own ranks through targeted enticement and integration of league leaders convict.

So the Greater German Boys' Union, under the leadership of Admiral von Trotha, was granted only a short, unworthy existence. On April 15, 1933, his leadership (the "Federal Chapter") confessed to Adolf Hitler and "his struggle for the construction of Germany" and expressed the will to "classify the allied forces of the German youth of the National Socialist movement." Corresponding signs were immediately given set: "Before May was over, the Greater German Boys' Association marched under the swastika flag to its Gau meeting in Berlin's Grunewald." The overt pomping was in vain and missed the goal of preserving its own alliance. With his appointment as the "Reich Youth Leader of the German People" on June 17, 1933, von Schirach issued the ban on the Greater German Boys' Union and all its affiliated groups. Von Trotha protested unsuccessfully to Reich President Hindenburg and thereupon ordered all boys and girls of the Federation on June 28 to join the Hitler Youth. Most obeyed.

Other parts of the Bundischen youth movement anticipated the ban on the " Reich Youth Leadership " by dissolving themselves. As a result, the members then went their own way, or attempts were made to maintain community life in illegality. Occasionally whole groups joined the Hitler Youth as a group, and in a transition phase this was also encouraged by local Hitler Youth Gauleiter. But even the Bundischen leaders, who were initially courted by the Hitler Youth and whose organizational skills were useful for camps and trips, had had their day when there were enough HJ leaders available from 1935.

Laqueur blames the youth movement as a whole more on sins of omission than active action in the emergence of the Nazi regime:

“Your political influence was too little to have had a decisive influence on the course of history. But she did less than she could have done to create an ethos of personal political responsibility. While some of their leaders were the intellectual pacemakers of National Socialism and a small group actively resisted it, the majority did little in this or in that respect. "

Remnants of self-assertion and resistance

Confessional leagues could in some cases last until 1937/38. Although the process of integration into the Hitler Youth was otherwise often carried out with euphoria and great approval, legends of widespread opposition to this development keep surfacing. Only a few groups, in particular the Jungschafts movement and the Nerother Wandering Bird , even survived illegally, some of which in turn developed into resistance groups, such as the group around Michael Jovy .

The decision to dissolve the Nerother Wandervogel had already been made in June 1933; Nevertheless, in 1934 there was a last meeting of various sub-groups from Darmstadt, Cologne and Hamburg at Waldeck Castle, where Robert Oelbermann directed sharp attacks against the "brown monkey hordes", regardless of the Nazi informers, which he had to pay for with early arrest and early death . Werner Helwig, on the other hand, the castle poet from Waldeck, was appointed cultural advisor by the HJ in Frankfurt, organized cultural evenings in this function and was also involved in organizing group meetings of disguised Nerother associations from Wiesbaden and Koblenz at Liebenstein Castle .

Meanwhile, the Gestapo set up a special subdivision for the targeted surveillance of former youth activists, but could not prevent illegal Graubünden journeys from continuing until shortly before the outbreak of World War II: “You could find small groups of Graubünden on all roads in Europe, from Lapland to Sicily , although there was no foreign exchange and strict border controls existed and what other obstacles were. "

At the beginning of the Second World War, new groups with a Covenant claim emerged, especially in the Rhineland, but most of them no longer had any connection to the youth movement of the Weimar period. The best-known representatives of these groups are the edelweiss pirates , who in turn appeared in very different formations. Some developed activities similar to those of the former youth movement with hikes and chants, others emerged from street gangs, skipped school, and fought with Hitler Youth. Similar groups existed under different names in many large cities of the German Empire. These groups were also persecuted by the Gestapo on charges of "allied activities".

The clothing of edelweiss pirates often consisted of plaid shirts, lederhosen and white socks. As a sign of identification, some infected themselves with an edelweiss. Resistance to the Nazi regime was articulated more often in leaflets, occasionally in acts of sabotage. These groups consisted mainly of young workers and had a relatively high proportion of girls.

There was also contact with the youth movement in the most famous resistance group of young people against the Nazi state in World War II, the White Rose . Both Willi Graf and Hans Scholl had already been arrested once in 1937/38 for “group activities” before they later became resistance fighters with the leaflets of the White Rose.

1945 until today

It is controversial whether and to what extent the youth movement and the Bundische Jugend still live on today. While members of the pre-war youth movement and historians saw the end of the youth movement in the integration of the free leagues into the Hitler Youth in 1933/34 - or at the latest with the end of World War II - most members of today's groups consider each other as a contemporary continuation of the historical youth movement and describe themselves as “alliance” and / or “youth movement”. The Nerother Wandering Bird Werner Helwig gave in the balancing chapter "The way from where and the way where", among other things, the following position determination for the time after the Second World War:

“Heaven and hell on the country road belong to the car alone. Paths and paths that lead to solitude, the moped. Camping is compulsory in almost every European and now gradually non-European 'nature'. It is forbidden to live in tents in the woods. Campfire in the swamps: prohibited. Castles: see restaurants. [...] The times when you could tap through loneliness for hours from a heather train station will not come back. Everything is common to everyone. Whoever wants more has to withdraw behind palisades like the physical culture associations. There the blue flowers and floret would actually be in the greenhouse. But if we assume that the blue flower might also mean a self-encounter, then it can be found in the densest swarm of the big city as surely as in the cork oak forests of Corsica. The blue flower would thus be withdrawn from the question of 'free' or 'organized'. So it would not be a greenhouse issue, but a private matter. "

More recent research approaches assume that the youth movement will continue to exist as a subcultural milieu.

The era of the division of Germany and Europe

From October 10th to 14th, 1963, 37 groups with over 3,000 participants met on the Hoher Meißner to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the First Free German Youth Day in 1913. As a result of Meißner's Day, the Ring of Young Bounds (RjB) was founded in 1966 .

The 75th anniversary of the Meissner formula was also celebrated on the Hoher Meissner; From October 12 to 16, 1988, up to 5,000 participants from 70 groups came together in a common camp.

West Germany

After 1945 there were numerous start-ups in West Germany that were influenced by the youth movement. These included youth groups (the associated adult associations in brackets) such as

• Christian Worker Youth ( Catholic Worker Movement )
• Kolping youth
• Catholic rural youth movement ( Catholic rural people movement )
• Christian Association of Young Men
• Union youth
• various scout associations
• Nerother Wandervogel
• Quickborn working group
• German Forest Youth (Protection Association of German Forests)
• various youth associations

Political youth organizations such as the SJD - Die Falken (close to the SPD) are a special case .

East Germany

In the GDR , the Free German Youth (FDJ) became the only legal youth organization under the influence of the SED state party . The youth movement was again only able to form rudiments within the FDJ or in the social border area or in the anti-communist underground.

Present tendencies

In the course of the unification process , there was also a revival of the scouting movement and the Bundish tradition in the new federal states . Mostly it was also a question of expanding West German organizations and transferring their structures to the new federal states. So there are still numerous, mostly small, migrant bird and young league associations . The German scout movement (and partly the Austrian one) is still influenced by the youth of the Bund, which clearly distinguishes it from the scout associations of other countries.

However, there are also major differences in the German-speaking countries between the various scout associations and groups of today. The diversity of current lifestyles, which has meanwhile been mostly accepted, often means that bundled forms and a boy scout outfit no longer appear particularly conspicuous. According to Malzacher / Daenschel, this relieves today's youth movements of having to constantly position and justify themselves, but it also weakens the possibility of polarizing otherness, an important drive of the earlier groups. In their historical record, these authors, who come from the contemporary scouting movement, emphasize that the importance of the wandering bird and the subsequent leagues never lay in their impact on society as a whole, but in what was triggered in the individual:

"Their commitment to the youth's right to self-determination, the conveyance of group and community experiences, nature experiences, harmony and aesthetics are the essential achievements of the youth movement - far more than their 'measurable' contributions to folk song, reform pedagogy and youth hostels."

In its guiding principles from 2006, the Stiftung Jugendburg Ludwigstein sees itself as a mediator between the historical and the current youth movement , which is considered a permanent joint effort of the German youth movement and whose institutions include the archive of the German youth movement . Important contributions to research into the youth movement phenomenon were made in the late 1950s, when the "Joint Documentation of the Youth Movement" was created from circles of former members of the youth movement and the "Scientific Commission for the History of the Youth Movement" was founded. In the volume “Grundschriften der Deutschen Jugendbewegung”, which emerged from these documentation and research approaches, Theodor Wilhelm outlined their educational output:

“First of all, at a final summit, the German youth movement demonstrated the knowledge that had dawned since the Enlightenment that the young generation needs a shelter in order to mature to the full development of humanity. A closed season is desirable, not to make life easy for young people, but to integrate the intellectual and moral productivity of young people into adulthood. This anthropological truth became apparent between 1910 and 1930 through the youth movement. "

In this realization, the youth movement meets with reform pedagogy, but the youth movement also includes the extracurricular area of ​​life in youth protection. In political terms, the youth movement according to Theodor Wilhelm was determined by the tragic misconception that it was enough “to tackle the continuum of history with vitality and inwardness alone. [...] The neglect of the rational processing of time is their real theme of fate. "

See also

• Archive of the German youth movement
• Jewish youth movement

literature

• Sabine Andresen : Girls and women in the bourgeois youth movement: social construction of girls' youth . Luchterhand, Neuwied 1997, ISBN 3-472-03108-5 .
• Reinhard Barth: Youth on the move. The young against old revolt in Germany in the 20th century . Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-86602-052-X .
• Werner Helwig : The blue flower of the wandering bird . Revised new edition. Deutscher Spurbuchverlag, Baunach 1998, ISBN 3-88778-208-9 .
• Matthias von Hellfeld : Bündische Jugend and Hitlerjugend - On the history of adaptation and resistance 1930-1939 . Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1987, ISBN 3-8046-8683-4 .
• Joachim H. Knoll : Typically German: the youth movement: Contributions to a history of phenomena . Leske and Budrich, Opladen 1988, ISBN 3-8100-0674-2 .
• Hermann Giesecke : From the Wandervogel to the Hitler Youth. Juventa-Verlag 1981, as a pdf at http://www.hermann-giesecke.de/wvtot.pdf .
• Ulfried Geuter: Homosexuality in the German youth movement. Boyfriendship and sexuality in the discourse of the youth movement, psychoanalysis and youth psychology at the beginning of the 20th century . Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-518-28713-3 .
• Werner Kindt: Documentation of the youth movement . 3 volumes:

• Volume I: Basic scripts of the German youth movement . Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1963.
• Volume II: The Wandervogelzeit. Sources for the German youth movement 1896 to 1919. Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1968.
• Volume III: The German Youth Movement 1920 to 1933. The Bündische Zeit . Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1974, ISBN 3-424-00527-4 .

• Thomas Koebner , Rolf Peter Janz, Frank Trommler (eds.): “The new times are moving with us”. The myth of youth. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-518-11229-5 .
• Elisabeth Korn, Otto Suppert and Karl Vogt (ed.): The youth movement: world and effect. For the 50th anniversary of the Free German Youth Day on the Hoher Meissner. Düsseldorf / Cologne 1963.
• Walter Laqueur : The German youth movement . Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1978, ISBN 3-8046-8548-X .
• Charlotte Lütkens : The German youth movement. A sociological attempt. Frankfurter Societäts-Druckerei, Frankfurt am Main 1925.
• Florian Malzacher , Matthias Daenschel: Youth Movement for Beginners . 2nd Edition. Publishing house of the youth movement, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-88258-131-X .
• Barbara Stambolis : Youth Movement. European History Online , ed. from the Institute for European History (Mainz) , 2011, accessed on: June 22, 2011.
• Gerhard Ziemer, Hans Wolf: Wandervogel and free German youth . Voggenreiter Verlag, Bad Godesberg 1961.
• Claudia Selheim et al. (Ed.): Aufbruch der Jugend: German youth movement between self-determination and seduction. Verlag des Germanisches Nationalmuseums , Nuremberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-946653-93-6 .

Web links

Commons : German youth movement  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Archive of the German youth movement
• Today's migratory bird federations
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Individual evidence

1. ↑ Quotation from Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 75. Geuter points out that youth was only "discovered" at the beginning of the 20th century as an independent phase of life with special difficulties and special opportunities. “New terms such as 'youth culture', 'youth movement' and 'art nouveau' proclaimed that the age of youth was now also seen as a symbol for renewal and cultural development.” (Geuter 1994, p. 31).
2. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 7.
3. ↑ Laqueur, p. 14ff. There it also states (p. 22): “The community was completely related to the adult and the upbringing aimed at training a new generation of teachers, state officials and reserve lieutenants who were more or less faithful to the older generation. "
4. ↑ Hans Blüher : Wandervogel. History of a youth movement. First part: home and rise. Third edition, Berlin-Tempelhof 1913, p. 50.
5. ↑ Laqueur, p. 31.
6. ↑ “ Fischer introduced the term 'Bachanten' , who repeatedly pointed out to the newcomers that this had nothing to do with 'Bacchus', but came from the Latin 'vagantes', as the traveling pupils of the Middle Ages called themselves. In southern Germany they mostly said 'pachanten'. ”(Werner Helwig: Die Blaue Blume des Wandervogel . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 32f.)
7. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 35.
8. ↑ Laqueur, p. 22f.
9. ↑ Laqueur, p. 22.
10. ↑ Laqueur, p. 24.
11. ↑ Barth, p. 35.
12. ↑ Laqueur, p. 90.
13. ↑ Laqueur, p. 61.
14. ↑ Quotation from Malzacher / Daenschel, p. 35.
15. ↑ Quotation from Barth, p. 40.
16. ↑ Hans Blüher : Wandervogel. History of a youth movement. Part two: flowering and decline. Second edition, Berlin-Tempelhof 1912, p. 110.
17. ↑ Hans Blüher : Wandervogel. History of a youth movement. Part two: flowering and decline. Second edition, Berlin-Tempelhof 1912, p. 112.
18. ↑ Laqueur, p. 90.
19. ↑ Andreas Winnecken: A case of anti-Semitism. On the history and pathogenesis of the German youth movement before the First World War. Cologne 1991, pp. 50-82.
20. ↑ Laqueur, p. 92.
21. ↑ Laqueur, p. 91.
22. ↑ Andreas Winnecken: A case of anti-Semitism. On the history and pathogenesis of the German youth movement before the First World War. Cologne 1991, pp. 89-97, cit. 94.
23. ↑ Laqueur, p. 94.
24. ↑ Andreas Winnecken: A case of anti-Semitism. On the history and pathogenesis of the German youth movement before the First World War. Cologne 1991, p. 116.
25. ↑ Laqueur, p. 41.
26. ↑ Laqueur, p. 30.
27. ↑ Quotation from Malzacher / Daenschel, p. 30f.
28. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 42. Ludwig Erk and Franz Magnus Böhme prepared the wandering birds and their collection of folk songs with their work Deutscher Liederhort, which was published in 1893/94 and is still canonical today .
29. ↑ Malzacher / Daenschel, p. 43f.
30. ↑ Laqueur, p. 45.
31. ↑ Quotation from Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 70.
32. ↑ Quoted from Volker Weiß: Jung, frei, deutsch. The festival on the Hoher Meißner in autumn 1913 was the last major youth gathering before the start of the World War. Many gloomy tones were already mixed into the exuberant celebration. In: Die Zeit , August 29, 2013, p. 19.
33. ↑ Barth, p. 38.
34. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 75.
35. ↑ Quotation from Barth, p. 38f.
36. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 77.
37. ↑ Laqueur, p. 51.
38. ↑ Malzacher / Daenschel, p. 32; Ibid the longer quote from the foreword from 1915: “The war has confirmed the Wandervogel, has placed its deep national basic idea, free of all accessories, strong and light in our midst. We have to become more and more German. Hiking is the most German of all instincts, is our basic being, is the mirror of our national character in general. And now don't let yourself be misled! Hiked even more now! Explore what is German. Grow and become strong on your Wandervogel! Become men to stand firm and claim your place on earth! It is a sacred duty to your brothers who have fallen; their lives flowed so that you could keep building. Your work is her monument! "
39. ↑ Quotation from Barth, p. 53.
40. ↑ Quotation from Barth, p. 56.
41. ↑ Barth, p. 54.
42. ↑ Barth, p. 55.
43. ↑ Laqueur, p. 102.
44. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 127.
45. ↑ Barth, p. 59f .; Laqueur, p. 113.
46. ↑ Laqueur, p. 129.
47. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 170.
48. ↑ Quotation from Geuter 1994, p. 184. According to Geuter, it was also partly about questions of sexual orientation: “If you wanted to face a relationship with women as a mature youth, you wanted to grow up, did you want to take on the challenges associated with the increasing emancipation of women [...] - or would you prefer to stay in the youth field, switch to the relationship with men in which all these problems seemed to be left out? "(ibid. p. 191; analogous to p. 290 f. And p. 302: "The boy community with its homoerotic tint made it possible for them to turn away from their parents' home, but it also saved them from the difficult path to becoming a woman. And it held them firmly in an atmosphere of libidinally charged boyfriends. For a long time over the age of twenty, the relationships of many migrating birds with the girls remained infantile. ")
49. ↑ Malzacher / Daenschel, p. 68f.
50. ↑ Laqueur, p. 151f.
51. ↑ Laqueur, p. 150.
52. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 148.
53. ↑ Geuter 1994, p. 305. With reference to Nicolaus Sombart , Geuter refers to the men's union model of the old knight orders (in which the kiss on the master's penis was often part of the entry ritual), which had a strong influence on Prussia and especially on the Prussian military have had. (ibid.)
54. ↑ Martin Voelkel: Here knights and empire! From: The White Knight, special issue broadcast, issue 6/1921. Quote from Werner Kindt (Ed.): Documentation of the youth movement . Volume I: Basic scripts of the German youth movement . Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1963, p. 372.
55. ↑ Quotation from Malzacher / Daenschel, p. 75.
56. ↑ Ernst Buske: Jugend und Volk From the text Origin and Tasks of the Freideutschen Jugend by Adolf Grabowsky and Walther Koch, Gotha 1920. Quoted from Werner Kindt (ed.): Documentation of the youth movement . Volume I: Basic scripts of the German youth movement . Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1963, p. 200.
57. ↑ Quoted in Malzacher / Daenschel, p. 89.
58. ^ Joachim H. Knoll: Youth Movement: Phenomena, Impressions, Coins; an essay . Opladen 1988, p. 149.
59. ↑ Malzacher / Daenschel, p. 91.
60. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, pp. 185f.
61. ↑ Malzacher / Daenschel, p. 86f .; Laqueur, p. 133.
62. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 139.
63. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 153.
64. ↑ Enno Narten, quoted in n. Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 156.
65. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, pp. 154–157; Malzacher / Daenschel, pp. 81–83.
66. ↑ Laqueur, p. 171.
67. ↑ Laqueur, p. 160.
68. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 227.
69. ↑ Malzacher / Daenschel, p. 94.
70. ↑ Malzacher / Daenschel, p. 95.
71. ↑ Laqueur, p. 181.
72. ↑ Barth, p. 43.
73. ↑ Barth, p. 45.
74. ↑ Barth, pp. 70-72.
75. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 259.
76. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 266f .; Helwig, on the other hand, sharply criticized tusk's later turn to GDR socialism: "You with the ascetic eyes, with the monk's point of view, with the superhuman demands, you with the vestment, with the saved colors (and how good was this gray and red of your banners, How beautiful and sleek were your symbols on it: falcon and wind wave), out of sheer self-exaggeration you finally went into the net of an idol who made small pieces of your great qualities with which he repaired his cellar stairs. ”(ibid., p. 264).
77. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 267.
78. ↑ Malzacher / Daenschel, pp. 105-107.
79. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, pp. 273-276.
80. ↑ Quotation from Laqueur, p. 193.
81. ↑ The appointment was a signal in several respects, since Koebel, at the age of seventeen, had visited Hitler in 1925 and then wrote an appeal in the Völkischer Beobachter : “So meet German boys under the banner of the man who showed us our destination and the way, under the pure clear banner of Adolf Hitler. ”(quoted in Die Zeit No. 9, February 21, 1997) On April 10, 1932, the second ballot of the Reich presidential election in 1932 took place, which brought Hitler 36.7% of the vote behind the incumbent in second place Paul von Hindenburg with 53.1% and ahead of the communist candidate Ernst Thälmann with 10.1%.
82. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 308f.
83. ↑ Laqueur, p. 193. Heidrun Holzbach-Linsenmaier also considers Tusk’s approach to be difficult to understand: “In fact, Koebel, with his mixture of irrationalism, Rousseau’s criticism of civilization, homoerotic youth cult, adventurism, militarism and maddening worldliness, would have been far better left people from the right 'around Otto Strasser and his' Black Front' fit as with the communists. Whether he really wanted to do something against the Nazis with his commitment to the KPD is rather doubtful in view of his behavior after January 30, 1933. ”(Die Zeit No. 9, February 21, 1997)
84. ↑ Malzacher / Daenschel, p. 108f.
85. ↑ Werner Kindt, born in 1898, had been a member of the Altwandervogel since November 1909, of the Wandervogel eV since 1912, there from 1920 Gauleiter for the Lower Elbe Gau, 1920–22 member of the Wandervogel federal leadership; Editor of several relevant publication organs and external representatives of the German Freischar in Berlin as well as employee of the Reich Committee of the German youth associations; 1930 involved in the founding of the German State Party. (Source: Werner Kindt (Hrsg.): Documentation of the youth movement . Volume I: Basic writings of the German youth movement . Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1963, p. 568f.)
86. ↑ Werner Kindt: "Bund or Party" in the youth movement . In: Werner Kindt (Hrsg.): Documentation of the youth movement . Volume I: Basic scripts of the German youth movement . Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1963, p. 517.
87. ↑ Quotation from Werner Kindt: "Bund or Party" in the youth movement . In: Werner Kindt (Hrsg.): Documentation of the youth movement . Volume I: Basic scripts of the German youth movement . Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1963, p. 518f.
88. ↑ Quotation from Werner Kindt: "Bund or Party" in the youth movement . In: Werner Kindt (Hrsg.): Documentation of the youth movement . Volume I: Basic scripts of the German youth movement . Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1963, p. 522.
89. ↑ Quotation from Werner Kindt: "Bund or Party" in the youth movement . In: Werner Kindt (Hrsg.): Documentation of the youth movement . Volume I: Basic scripts of the German youth movement . Diederichs, Düsseldorf 1963, p. 523.
90. ↑ Quoted in Malzacher / Daenschel, p. 117.
91. ↑ Quotation from Laqueur, p. 211.
92. ↑ Laqueur, p. 212f.
93. ↑ Malzacher / Daenschel, pp. 116/122.
94. ↑ Quoted in Malzacher / Daenschel, p. 125.
95. ↑ Laqueur, p. 218.
96. ↑ Malzacher / Daenschel, p. 128.
97. ↑ Malzacher / Daenschel, pp. 117/122/130.
98. ↑ Laqueur, p. 216.
99. ↑ Malzacher / Daenschel, p. 131.
100. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 309.
101. ↑ Laqueur, pp. 226f.
102. ↑ Malzacher / Daenschel, p. 135f.
103. ↑ Malzacher / Daenschel, p. 137.
104. ↑ Werner Helwig: The blue flower of the wandering bird . Heidenheim an der Brenz 1980, p. 313f.
105. ^ Susanne Rappe-Weber: Archive report for the year 2007 . In: Historical Youth Research NF 4/2007. Schwalbach 2008, p. 230.
106. ↑ Malzacher / Daenschel, pp. 188f.
107. ↑ Quoted in Kindt, Volume I, p. 25.
108. ↑ Quotation from Kindt, Volume I, p. 28.