Wandervogel

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Wandervogel emblem
Wandervogel emblem

Wandervogel is the name adopted by a popular movement of German youth groups from 1896 onward. The name can be translated as migratory bird and the ethos is to shake off the restrictions of society and get back to nature and freedom. Soon the groups split and there originated ever more organisations, which still all called themselves Wandervogel, but were organisationally independent. Nonetheless the feeling was still of being a common movement, but split into several branches.

Contents

[edit] History

After World War I, the leaders returned disillusioned from the war. The same was true for leaders of German Scouting. So both movements started to influence each other heavily in Germany. From the Wandervogel came a stronger culture of hiking, adventure, bigger tours to farther places, romanticism and a younger leadership structure. Scouting brought uniforms, flags, more organization, more camps and a clearer ideology. There was also an educationalist influence from Gustav Wyneken.

Influenced by the ideas of Gustav Wyneken, some members of the Wandervogel movement were quite open about their homoerotic feelings, although this kind of affection was supposed to be expressed in a mostly chaste manner.[1] The founding of the Jungwandervogel happened largely as a reaction to a public scandal about these erotic passions, which were said to alienate young men from women.[2]

Together this lead to the emergence of the Bündische Jugend. The Wandervogel, German Scouting and the Bündische Jugend together are referred to as the German Youth Movement.

They had been around for more than a quarter of a century before National Socialists began to see an opportunity to hijack some methods and symbols of the German Youth Movement to use it in the Hitler Youth to influence the young.

This movement was very influential at that time. Its members were romantic and prepared to sacrifice a lot for their ideals. That is why there are many to be found on both sides in the Third Reich. Some of the Wandervogel groups had Jewish members and Jewish scouting movements such as Hashomer Hatzair were influenced by the Wandervogel. Other groups within the movement were anti-semitic or close to the Nazi government. Therefore one can later find prominent members, both subscribing to the Third Reich or resisting it.

From 1933 the Nazis outlawed the Wandervogel, German Scouting, the Jungenschaft and the Bündische Jugend, along with all youth groups independent of the Hitler Youth. (Only church affiliated groups had some years more.)

[edit] Modern aspects

The Wandervogel movement was refounded after World War II and exists in Germany to this day with around 5,000 members in many different associations, as well as in neighboring countries.

[edit] French Movement

The French movement established a particular presence in Normandy and Brittany. It is seen by its members as answering the needs of those young people seeking an alternative to the bourgeois lifestyle in which they have been taken hostage to an adult morality, politics and religion. However, the French movement has a pattern of right wing anarchism of the parent organization, and is marked by connections with racist, anti-semitic, nationalist and survivalist elements, raising questions about its freedom of contamination from adult dogmas.

[edit] Sources

  1. ^ Ulfried Greiner: Homosexualität in der deutschen Jugendbewegung. Jungenfreundschaft und Sexualität im Diskurs vom Jugenbewegung, Psychoanalyse und Jugendpsychologie am Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1994. ISBN 3-518-28713-3
  2. ^ Ulfried Greiner: Homosexualität in der deutschen Jugendbewegung.

[edit] Literature

  • Gordon Kennedy. Children of the Sun: A Pictorial Anthology from Germany to California 1883-1949, 1998, ISBN 0-9668898-0-0
  • Walter Laqueur: Young Germany: A History of the German Youth Movement, Transaction Pub, 1984, ISBN 0-87855-960-4
  • Robert A. Pois. National Socialism and the Religion of Nature. (In English, 1986).

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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