German Youth Movement

The German Youth Movement (German: Die deutsche Jugendbewegung) is a collective term for a cultural and educational movement that started in 1896. It consists of numerous associations of young people that focus on outdoor activities. The movement included German Scouting and the Wandervogel. By 1938, 8 million children had joined associations that identified with the movement.

Both the kibbutz and Bruderhof Communities can trace their origins to the German Youth Movement. The influence of Friedrich Nietzsche on the movement was substantial, with the philosopher described as the "Prophet of the German Youth Movement".

In 1896 the Wandervogel was founded in Berlin, and soon they crystallized many vital concepts from the ideas of earlier social critics and Romantics that came to reach great and extensive influence on many fields at the onset of the 20th century.

To escape the repressive and authoritarian society of the end of the 19th century and the adult values of a new modern German society increasingly transformed by industrialism, imperial militarism, and British and Victorian influence, groups of young people searched for free space to develop some healthy life of their own away from the increasingly contaminated cities growing all around and from where most of them came to be disappointed. Also a romantic longing for a pristine state of things and older cultural diverse traditions played a part. They turned to nature, confraternity and adventure. Soon the groups split and there originated ever more organisations, which still all called themselves Wandervogel, but were organisationally independent. Nonetheless, the feeling was still of being a common movement but split into several branches.

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