Sweden trip

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Schwedenfahrt is a book by Walter Scherf that had a formative effect on the large-scale journeys of the Bund groups of the post-war youth movement.

content

“Ih”, he says, “mushrooms! Mushrooms with pasta, mushrooms with semolina, mushrooms with potatoes, mushrooms with eggs, mushrooms on bread and butter ... “

A lake in Dalsland, Sweden: mushrooms sizzle in the pan of the group.

A group of young people from the Ruhr area and the Rhineland travels to Sweden to go on a wilderness hike through Dalsland and Värmland . She meets local friends again, wanders through rain and swamps, meets interesting people and adders, sings, collects mushrooms and one of them gets lost for a few days in the woods and has to be found again in a major search. The boys not only experience a strange apparition at the lake Oberer Gla and the lonely "King of Limmen", but they are also unobtrusively led by tejo , their group leader, to respect nature.

History of origin

Walter Scherf, who appears in the book under his trip name tejo , had already explored the Swedish province of Dalsland three times and in 1954 wanted to collect photos and material for a book on a fourth group trip, which also included Värmland. In the book Schwedenfahrt the adventures and experiences of these ventures have been designed and condensed into a single journey.

Reception and effects

The trip to Sweden described in the book was seen by alliance groups, but also some scouts, as a model for a wilderness trip and an impetus for independent travel companies and gave them inspiration for numerous trips to Scandinavia and for their own logbooks. It triggered “a Bundische caravan” , and groups tried, for example, misunderstanding Scherf's intention, to discover the “most beautiful lake” mentioned in the book, but only localized in encrypted form. In the meantime, Dalsland and Värmland have been developed for tourism, including with canoe camps, and a wilderness hike in the manner described is no longer possible here. Scherf's claim to perceive the journey and the driving landscape in an ecological way still has an impact in the Bünden to this day.

Text analysis and literary evaluation

The author shows how a young drive group can discover people, landscapes, nature and culture. For the post-war youth from the Ruhr area, which is still partly in ruins, roaming through the wilderness is a special experience of nature. This approach to nature is presented by Scherf in a clear, yet literary language devoid of sentimentality. "You can also read it as a textbook for youth culture " , writes Peter Stibane in his documentation about this book and says that the author has "created an ideal type of journey" with it. Scherf weaves experiences from previous journeys into the plot and illustrates the landscape and atmosphere by adding illustrations, map sketches, black and white photos and songs.

Quote

“And then we discover the most incredible storm cape of our entire journey. It lies freely to the north and west and consists of a tangle of rounded bays and quietly blinking lagoons in smooth, flat rock walls. Pine trees, the trunks of which crawl crookedly out of crevices, stand black and adventurous against the wild clouds of the western sky. The air is always full of foam and surf spray. Only behind an almost vertical wall is there isolated silence in gray and green moss pillows. "

- Walter Scherf

literature

Text output

  • 1955: Paulus Verlag, Recklinghausen (with illustrations by Lothar Heinemann and photos by Jürgen Retzlaff)
  • 1976: Südmarkverlag Fritsch, Heidenheim. Piratenbücherei, Vol. 9. (Paperback edition without the photo images. Still available from the successor publisher: Verlag der Jugendbewegung , Berlin)

Secondary literature

  • Peter Stibane: Sweden trip - a search for clues . Pulse 25. Documentation of the youth movement. Publishing house of the youth movement, Berlin 2006, ISSN  0342-3328
  • Walter Sauer : The myth of the experience of nature in the youth movement. In: Joachim H. Knoll (ed.): Typically German: The youth movement. Contributions to a history of phenomena. Leske and Budrich, Opladen 1988, ISBN 3-8100-0674-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ First edition, p. 85
  2. ↑ Arno Klönne : Foreword to the Stibane documentation, see secondary literature
  3. ↑ For decades, numerous reports on trips to Sweden appeared in the magazine der eisbrecher
  4. ↑ For example: Sweden trip 75 . Evangelical youth association Greif. Gluing 1975
  5. ↑ catch . Leadership magazine of the German Forest Youth. No. 14, p. 22. Hemer 1984
  6. ↑ catch . Leadership magazine of the German Forest Youth. No. 14 p. 23 Hemer 1984
  7. ↑ Peter Stibane: Sweden trip - a search for traces . Pulse 25. Documentation of the youth movement. Publishing house of the youth movement, Berlin 2006. ISSN  0342-3328
  8. ↑ First edition, p. 92