During his early life the family moved often between Italy and Germany, living in Pisa, Florence, Bagni di Lucca, Viareggio, Baden-Baden and Gotha.

Bayer agreed to work with Lion to edit and publish a German translation of Baden-Powell's "Scouting for Boys."

On 20 January 1909, the first German Scout troop, "Jugendsport in Wald und Feld" (Youth Sport in Woods and Fields) was formed in Berlin.

Lion, Bayer, and their colleagues were faced with opposition from military, civilian, and church leaders, who objected to Scouting on the grounds that it was anti-patriotic.

A wave of attacks in the press followed shortly thereafter, in March 1909, and the founders of the organization faced social exclusion over their participation in Scouting.

As a result of these pressures, Bayer resigned from the organization in May of that same year and his name was removed from the title page of later editions of "Das Pfadfinderbuch".

When the German Scout Association (DPB) was founded in 1911, Bayer was elected "First Reich Field Master," a post which he would hold until his death.

He also took an unpaid leave that year due to ongoing heart problems and to devote himself to the design of the German Scouting movement.

[3] Jacobi created an anti-Semitic cartoon lampooning Lion, playing on Lion's Jewish birth, changing "Jungensport in Feld und Wald" (youth sports in field and forest) to "Judensport in Wald und Feld" (Jews' sports in forest and field), and calling Scouting supporter General Baschwitz a "vain Jewish man".