German Nationalist Youth Groups: Wandervogel Activities


Figure 1.--This idealized image shows what the Wandervogel was best known for, hiking and camping in the German countryside.

Wandervogel was best known for its outdoor activities such as camping and hiking, folk dancing and singing, reciting poetry, staging dramtics, and sports. Activities were not restricted to bucolic country settings. Wanddrvogel and other groups supported a Heim (home) in Berlin and other major cities. Often they were small basement apartments or storefronts. The young members paid the rent and furnished as best they could. They were decorated with posters, bannersm trophies, and momentos of their many excursions. Here the boys and to a lesser extent girls would play games, sing, reherse dramtic skits, conduct poetry readings, and discuss the issues of the day which interested young people. They planned and organized their next excursion. In these homes they enjoyed e fredom they found in bucolic settngs--freedom from often stifling adult authority. For many they felt more at home in these "caves" as some were called than in their own homes. One very importnat element of Wandervogel was the music and song. Some of the music was quite beautiful and appealing. There was, however, also some rather uglu anti-semetic songs which in the light of history are quite chilling today. Many of the more benign songs are still remembered in Germany today. A HBC contributor reports visiting the Wandervogel exhibition in Berlin in 2001 where two girls and a boy came in. The boy had a guitar and wore the only pair of Lederhosen to be seen in Berlin. They were from the town of Lippe in West-Germany. They started playing and singing typical Wandervogel songs. They had beautiful voices and the singing filled all of the house. These Wandervogel songs are available on CDs.

Settings

Wandervogel was best known for its outdoor activities. Activities were not restricted to bucolic country settings. Wanddrvogel and other groups supported a Heim (home) in Berlin and other major cities. Often they were small basement apartments or storefronts. The young members paid the rent and furnished as best they could. They were decorated with posters, bannersm trophies, and momentos of their many excursions. Here the boys and to a lesser extent girls would play games, sing, reherse dramtic skits, conduct poetry readings, and discuss the issues of the day which interested young people. They planned and organized their next excursin. In these homes they enjoyed e fredom they found in bucolic settngs--freedom from often stifling adult authority. For many they felt more at home in these "caves" as some were called than in their own homes.

Individual Activities

Wandervogel youth carried out a wide range of activities.

Camping and hiking

Hiking had become a popular activity in Germany in the late 19th century, especially in the 1990s. Hiking brought Germans to the beautiful forests in their country, an important elelement of the country's symbolic national landscape and psyche. It was in the Teutoburg Forest, for example, that the Roman Army suffered perhaps its greatest military disaster and, as a result, is often seen as the birth place of the German nation. Few German groups embraced hiking with the same vigor as Wandervogel. Wandervogel was especially interested in map reading seeing maps as a tool to help free themselves from tourist guidebooks. A Wondervogel publication, "The Topographical Map," leaders announced that members now had alternatives to what they considered to be unsatisfactory school atlases for their camping and hiking excursions. [Wandervogel, "Die Landkarte,".] The German War Ministry in 1910 began publishing detailed regional topographical maps which were sold at prices young people could afford. Wandervogel leaders suggested that members should acquire a map for their own Heimat and learn the landscape their hometown as if it were the back of their hand. Wandervogel advised that " ... a more complete man must also be able to hike without guidance and not be helpless when he is by himself." [Moranda]

Culture

Wandervogel had a non-political cultural orientation, devoted to the enjoyment of culture (drama, dance, music, and poertry. This is in sharp contrast to the direction of the German youth movement toward a more political orientation after the disaster of World War I. [Wohl] Many youth groups were associated with a variery of extremist groups.

Dancing

Wandervogel youth were especially interested in folk dancing.

Drama


Music and singing

One very importnat element of Wandervogel was the music and song. Some of the music was quite beautiful and appealing. There was, however, also some rather uglu anti-semetic songs which in the light of history are quite chilling today. The defense for Baldur von Schirach at the Nuremberg War Trials pointed out that some of the anti-semetic songs attributed to the Hitkler Youth dated back to the Middle Ages and have figured in the song-book of the Wandervogel. Many of the more benign songs are still remembered in Germany today. A HBC contributor reports visiting the Wandervogel exhibition in Berlin in 2001 where two girls and a boy came in. The boy had a guitar and wore the only pair of Lederhosen to be seen in Berlin. They were from the town of Lippe in West-Germany. They started playing and singing typical Wandervogel songs. They had beautiful voices and the singing filled all of the house. These Wandervogel songs are available on CDs.

Poetry

Wandervogel youth loved to recite poetry.

Religion

We are not yet sure about the Wandervogel religious ethos. We believe that it pursued a kind of amorphous back to nature theology. We are less sure about the movements orientation toward Christaianity.

Sports

Sports and athletics was another important Wandervogel activity.

Sources

Koch, H.W. The Hitler Youth: Origins and Development 1922-1945.

Moranda, Scott. "Maps, Markers and Bodies: Hikers Constructing the Nation in German Forests", The Nationalism Project, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI. 2001).

Wohl, Robert. The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, Massachussets: Harvard University Press, 1979). Wohl focuses on right wing groups in his German discussion.

Wandervogel. "Die Landkarte: Monatsschrift für deutsches Jugendwandern". 1911, Heft 6, p. 150.





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Created: June 11, 2002
Last updated: 5:13 AM 9/11/2004