Jugendbewegung (youth movement)

Jugendbewegung was a movement mainly within the German youth starting at the end of the 19th century. It can be seen as a reaction against the Industrial Revolution as well as an attempt to counterbalance the excesses of Rationalism. With the Enlightenment a new era begins, with reason replacing religion . However, the increasing importance given to science and technology produced also reification and dehumanization . Mass production, green areas being transformed in dust and steam, the prevalence of quantitative aspects, the ascendancy of exchange-values over use-values, the dominance of systems, apparatuses and bureaucracy over public and private life, the loss of individuality and an overemphasis on objectivity provoked the Jugendbewegung to shelter in nature and Romanticism . Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) movement in literature may be seen as precursors of the ideas developed by the Jugendbewegung; Nietzsche certainly had a strong influence on them . A very good overview of the movement is given in the classical book of Walter Lacqueur (1984), A History of the German Youth Movement. A more recent account is given by Klotter & Beckenbach (2012) in Romantik und Gewalt.

Gillis (1973) mentions the contrasting styles of English and German youth, comparing the Jugendbewegung with the Boy Scouts. He says that at a first glance they seem to represent two different tendencies with Scouting, Victorian in its morality, militaristically in its organization and staunchly patriotic in its politics, illustrating an archetypically British compromise between middle class utilitarianism and the sporting instincts of the aristocracy. On the other side there were the participants of the German Wandervogel movement with their unconventional manners and appearance, challenging social conventions in symbolic opposition to the militarism of the upper classes. Their bizarre dress, uninhibited behaviour, and reputation for sexual liberation shocked straight-laced Wilhelminian society and earned for the movement a reputation for rebelliousness that contrasted sharply with the sober image of the English Scouts . Gillis mentions that the stylistic differences appear far less important than their social and psychological similarities. Both were middle class in their values and both played a role of political passivity and social dependence .

The Jugendbewegung can be placed in the more general movement of the Lebensreform (life reform) or Reformbewegung which began in Germany in the middle of the 19th century . People participating in the Lebensreform were afraid that the quick changes induced by civilization would harm individual and society and therefore plead for a more natural way of life. Characteristic of the Lebensreform were vegetarianism, ecological agriculture, natural healing, naturism, Yoga, emphasis in physical activity and gymnastics. Many of these ideas can today be stigmatized as utopian or escapism.

Participants of the Lebensreform often associated modernity with decay and deterioration. Purity was seen as a positive value and Stoicism/Asceticism were ways to counterbalance the Hedonism of modern times . Some of these ideas will later be used by Nazism .

Of course one also finds progressive tendencies within the Lebensreform. There were connections to feminism as well as socialist groups pleading for sexual education. A well known progressive experiment of the Lebensreform was the artist settlement at the beginning of the 20th century at Monte Veritá near Ascona, Switzerland.

Remainders of the Lebensreform movement are the Reformhäuser (health shops) which still exist in Germany and Austria. The Reformpädagogik can certainly also be placed within the Lebensreform. The Jugendherbergen (youth hostels) which in Germany even today are often located in castles and other mansions can be strongly associated with the Jugendbewegung.

The Jugendbewegung was more attitude and mentality than ideology and no precise and detailed body of ideas that can be associated with the movement . Even politically it ranges from left-wing associations of workers youth after WWI, socialist youth linked to the German Social Democratic party (SPD) to circles that certainly did contribute to the rise of Nazism . Central to the Jugendbewegung were the concepts of homeland and nature as well as the idea of learning/understanding through experience . Important was also the idea of self-determination and self-education, meaning freedom and independence from parents and school .

The first phase of the Jugendbewegung, the Wandervogel (Wander Birds), lasts until the beginning of WWI and is essentially a romantic movement . Main ideas are the return to nature and to a more simple and spontaneous way of living. Hiking in the woods, camping, playing the guitar and singing Lieder (songs) round a fire mark strongly this phase. Popular goals of the trekking activities were castles and fortresses and the imagination of the participants was often filled with knights, armours and other kind of medieval ghosts. Music played an essential role in the activities and many of the Lieder of the Wandervogel movement remain part of the German folk culture . The bulk of the participants in this phase of the movement did belong to middle class often directing the main part of their contesting energy against the tutelage and patronizing attitude of parents and teachers. Although there was no explicit political engagement, the striving for individual freedom and the right for pleasure confronted the establishment and an authoritarian society where supreme (Prussian) values were serving the Kaiser (emperor) and the Vaterland (fatherland). The flow of liberation from bourgeois morality did also open the pace for the unfolding of homoerotic tendencies . Several male associations were formed within the Wandervogel movement . As in other political and social spheres of German society there were also anti-Semitic tendencies present in the movement .

Ironically all this anti-establishment ends in the Nationalism of WWI which marks the second phase of the Jugendbewegung. Kaiser and Vaterland again occupy a central position. The lack of a consistent body of ideas and the heterogeneity of the movement with the presence of ethnic nationalistic sectors (völkisch movement) may give an explanation for this fact. War begins as a promise of a great adventure and enthusiastically the youth joins the troops to the front with flowers in the gun barrels. The long exhausting time spent in the trenches waiting for the enemy, backed only by cold, hunger and pain, under the thunder of cannons and the lightening of bombs proved much less romantic. As time passed, the hopeless struggle was always more identified with impending doom, relieved only by the hope of new times and an end of the war.

The third phase of the Jugendbewegung starts at the end of WWI and is characterized by a stronger political engagement as well as a shift from romantic individualism to a more militant attitude where individual interests now have to integrate the group concerns . As stated by Elisabeth Harvey (1995), the Bünde entertained a grand but vague vision of political renewal that would “overcome” the petty conflicts of parliamentary democracy . She mentions the challenging of authority, the rejection of the conventions of bourgeois civilization, the cultivation of healthy comradeship between the sexes, and the liberation of the body through hiking, gymnastics, sport and dance, as important aspects of the ethos of the youth movement.

The revolutionary movement in Germany that followed the end of WWI strengthened women rights. Women’s suffrage is approved in 1918 and the participation of women in the Jugendbewegung increases. In spite of this, most of the participants of the youth movement challenged feminist values, goals and forms of organization and at the end of the Weimar Republic only 17,000 out of 77,000 members of the Bünde were girls .

The trend towards more engagement and more action was often capitalized by different political and religious institutions. During the third phase of the Jugendbewegung, associations ranged from socialist and communist groups to right wing lodges protesting against the betrayal of the treaty of Versailles. This ideological confusion was also found within groups. Helwig (1980) mentions that often one did stand on the right but conceived things from a left perspective and it was quite common to find people on the left thinking nationalistically (völkisch) . Associations of workers’ youth and scouting organizations were formed as well as groups concerned with the preservation of the German traditions. Of course trekking, camping, singing and dancing continued being the main activities of the Jugendbewegung and one could find flocks of people moving from town to town gathering passers-by to join the music and the dances.

Similar to the first phase also the third phase of the Jugendbewegung ends in war. However, this time it is not juvenile enthusiasm and patriotism that leads the youth to join the troops to the front. Political machinations result in the streaming of whole sectors of the Jugendbewegung into the Hitlerjugend (HJ or Hitler youth) . The ascent of Nazism marks the beginning of the fourth phase of the movement in Germany.
The fifth and last phase of the Jugendbewegung follows the end of WWII and is more represented by scouting organizations. Both fourth and fifth phase are treated very briefly here. Besides, it is controversial if these last two phases still belong to what we call Jugendbewegung.

According to Wilhelm (2012), central to the Jugendbewegung was the idea of wholeness . Communal life and the prevalence of sense and feelings over rationality often resulted in strong relations between members of a community and frequently there was a commitment to each other which transcended the limits of normal friendship in bourgeois society.

In this context it is very interesting to examine the concepts of Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft as used by Ferdinand Tönnies . Gemeinschaft (community) results in a connection of the individual with the group in the sense of wholeness, i.e., links are multidimensional, affect every (or, at least, several) aspects of life and are essentially emotional. In the Gesellschaft (society or corporation) links within the group are instrumental, determined by aims, purposes, i.e. rationality. Fritz Pappenheim comments Tönnies ideas from a Marxist perspective. In the Gesellschaft only a part of the individual relates to the group, particularly the part which corresponds to the purpose of the society to which he belongs. This produces fragmentation and results in alienation. Economic relations in the Gesellschaft are dictated by exchange values and these represent just a fraction of the commodity. Modern society is shaped by an ever increasing importance of Gesellschaft over Gemeinschaft. To sum up: In the Gemeinschaft, members are essentially united in spite of occasional separation while in the Gesellschaft members are essential separated from each other in spite of occasional or even frequent connections .

Wilhelm (2012) also stresses the importance of the artistic activities in the Jugendbewegung. There was sometimes an ostensible rejection of formality . Conventions and clichés were refused in the belief that form should reflect content . What was exactly the content form should reflect? As so often in history, construction of a new order proved much harder than the critique of the old one .

The rejection of formality and bureaucracy in conjunction with the subordinate role given to rational constructions often led to a lack of organizational structure of the associations which relied too much on the central figure of a leader (or Führer) . This fact and the absence of a consolidated body of ideas exerting an inertial force and therefore avoiding the frequent swing from right to left may help to explain the co-option by Nazism.

Groups were often convinced they were elite, playing a special role in German society. The heroism and intrepidness shown up in climbing a mountain was sometimes ingenuously extended so as to comprise also the will to make History . Pathos was often found in the speeches as well as in the text of the Lieder. All this utopian idealism and reverie was difficult to transform in reality . The result was often delusion. Nazi activism did offer great attraction for those sectors of the Jugendbewegung who were discontent with a deedless existence. For those who did not want to be spectators in History, Nazism offered a great opportunity for glow and glory .

Gillis mentions that both the Jugendbewegung and the Scouts were essentially middle class movements. The Wandervogel homoeroticism, its nudism and occult practices, while culturally radical, was still socially and politically conservative. Middle class fears of premature sexual relations were relieved by the völkish cult of maleness and strong strains of Puritanism mingled with the more exotic motifs of paganism. Much was spoken about inner freedom but very few contributions were made towards conquering outer freedom from tyranny and exploitation. As Gillis mentions, the Jugendbewegung remained safely unpolitical, a reflection of the abdication of political responsibility by the German middle class as a whole . In spite of apparent contestation of formality, the Jugendbewegung remained much more form than content.

As we have seen wholeness was a central idea for the Jugendbewegung and community (Gemeinschaft) was a way of translating it to reality. The human being in a community was to be seen from a holistic perspective and not just split into pieces corresponding to the interests of an instrumental reason. Fragmentation was seen as alienation of men from each other and within the self, leading to the dehumanization and reification brought in by the Enlightenment and its offspring: capitalism and communism.

Community, however, is a rather vague concept. It may emphasize völkisch aspects, i.e. it may be seen from an ethnic and national perspective (Volksgemeinschaft). This was the dominant view in the Jugendbewegung, and rather simplistically, it may be shelved at the right. Community, however, may also mean solidarity between men independently of nation, race and other cultural aspects. Even if the idea of community may have been used by the Jugendbewegung in a rather questionable way, the source for all this demand, the longing for unity between men and between men and the outer world remains a valid aspiration.

Main References:

Bruns, Claudia, Politik des Eros. Der Männerbund in Wissenschaft, Politik und Jugendkultur (1880-1934), Böhlau Verlag Köln, 2008.

Gillis, John R., Conformity and Rebellion: Contrasting Styles of English and German youth, 1900-33, History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1973, pp. 249-60.

Harvey, Elisabeth, The Failure of Feminism? Young Women and the Bourgeois Feminist Movement in Weimar Germany 1918-1933, p. 15, Central European History, Vol. 28, Issue 01, March 1995, pp 1-28.

Helwig, Werner, Die Blaue Blume des Wandervogels, Südmarkverlag Fritsch, 1980.

Klotter, Christoph & Niels Beckenbach, Romantik und Gewalt, Jugenbewegung im 19. 20. und 21. Jahrhundert, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften / Spinger Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, 2012.

Laqueur, Walter Z., Young Germany - A History of the German Youth Movement, Transaction Books, Rutgers – The State University, New Brunswick, NJ, 1984.

Lindner, Wolfgang, Jugendbewegung als Äusserung lebensideologische Mentalität, Verlag Dr. Kovač, Hamburg, 2003.

Vogt, Stefan, Strange Encounters: Social Democracy and Radical Nationalism in Weimar Germany, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 45, No. 2, 2010, pp. 253-281.

Wilhelm, Theodor, Der geschichtliche Ort der deutschen Jugendbewegung, www.hartwig-w.de, retrieved May, 24, 2012.