Wandervogel
Wandervogel (plural: Wandervögel; English: "Wandering Bird") is the name adopted by a popular movement of German youth groups from 1896 to 1933, who protested against industrialization by going to hike in the country and commune with nature in the woods.
Drawing influence from medieval wandering scholars, their ethos was to revive old Teutonic values, with a strong emphasis on German nationalism.
[9] In the autumn of 1895, a law student named Hermann Hoffmann-Fölkersamb (1875–1955) received permission from the director of the Steglitz Gymnasium to offer free stenography classes.
The small gathering soon grew in size, organizing a trek in the Rhine region in 1898 with 11 participants, followed in 1899 by a four-week excursion in Bohemia with around 20 schoolboys.
Even in these early outings, the core elements of the future Wandervogel were already apparent: an emphasis on the group's independence and a frugal way of life, a rejection of traditional authority, a scorn for tourist-friendly, well-marked trails, and a disregard for the comforts offered by youth hostels.
A former teacher at the Steglitz Gymnasium, the reform pedagogue Ludwig Gurlitt (1855–1931), helped secure official recognition from the Prussian Ministry of Culture by submitting a positive report.
[11] After failing his Abitur (school-leaving exams) twice, Fischer had to wait until 1901 to devote himself fully to the movement, at the expense of his studies in law and Sinology.
After his departure, the Alt-Wandervögel quickly abandoned the previous authoritarian structure centered around Fischer to adopt an organization closer to the Steglitz group's.
They also tried to reunite the different Wandervogel wings under a common agenda of alcohol prohibition, the admission of girls, and the enlargement of membership to primary school students and apprentices.
After several compromises—notably the autonomy of each group in the application of policies, comparable to the situation of German states in the Empire—they eventually succeeded in creating the Wandervogel eingetragener Verein, Bund für deutsches Jugendwandern (WVEV) at the end of 1912.
[13] By 1910, some directors of the Alt-Wandervogel had denounced the homosexuality of their colleague Wilhelm Jansen, who eventually seceded to create the Jung-Wandervogel split group in the same year.
This situation was caused in their views by the growing influence of adults via the Council of parents and friends (Eufrat), the interventions of teachers in their activities, and a rise in membership that had become out of control.
According to historian Peter Stachura however, if male eroticism "did play some part in the ordinary day-to-day life of the Wandervögel, [...] it would be misleading to conclude on this account that the Wandervogel was a predominantly homo-erotic movement".
Recruited within the Austrian bourgeoisie, its members were known for their violent rhetoric, and defended German nationalism against the perceived threat of pan-Slavism in Austria-Hungary.
[18] The regions with the largest concentration of Wandervögel were Silesia, Saxony, Thuringia, Hesse, Westphalia, Rhineland; and to a lesser extent Baden.
[4] However, the Wandervogel was not a revolutionary movement in the real sense of the term, as they simply withdrew from society in order to carry out their activities in isolation during a few days or a whole summer, before returning to their usual life during the remaining part of the year.
Although it could promote anarchist or nihilistic ideas at the margins, especially in the Jung-Wandervogel,[3] most of the Wandervögel essentially sought to be seen as a respectable movement in wider society.
