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Wandervogel was the name adopted by a popular movement of German youth groups from 1896 onward. The name can be translated as migratory bird and their ethos was to shake off the restrictions of society and get back to nature and freedom.
After the first world war, 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 organistion, more camps and a clearer ideology.
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 the Nazis began to see the opportunity to hijack some methods and symbols of the German Youth Movement to use it in the Hitler Youth for manipulate the young.
They are thought infamous for having Adolf Eichmann as one of their members from 1930 to 1931. However, some of the Wandervogel groups had Jewish members. There doesn't seem to have been an anti-semitic policy imposed from the top of the organisation. Rather, it seems that some groups within the movement were anti-semitic because they were led by anti-semites, while other groups in the same movement were free of bigotry. It may, by all accounts, have been similar to the the practice, before the 1970s of classing some areas of American and Canadian society as restricted (meaning no Jews were admitted). This practice included such areas as some country clubs and some medical colleges. Our historical perception of these bigotries may be slightly slanted by the context. The example of German anti-semitism in the early part of the 20th century is in close relation to the holocaust which followed and so might be retro-actively seen as part of that. The example of North American bigotry in the middle of the same century is followed chronologically by a liberalising of society and so might be seen, again retroactively, as less bad than the same thing in German history.
Hans Scholl was a member of the Jungenschaft an association of the Bündische Jugend. Claus von Stauffenberg was a member of the scout association of the Neupfadfinder, also an association of the Bündische Jugend. This movement was very influential at these times. Its members were romantic and prepared to sacrifize a lot for their ideals. That is why there are many to be found on both sides in the Third Reich.
The Wandervogel movement continued after World War II and exists in Germany to this day with arround 10000 to 20000 members.
See also
Literature
- Robert A. Pois. National Socialism and the Religion of Nature. (In English, 1986).
- Walter Laqueur: Young Germany: A History of the German Youth Movement, Transaction Pub, 1984, ISBN 0878559604
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