Talk:Wandervogel

Wandervögel?

Perhaps this should be moved to Wandervögel? Haiduc 23:49, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

No, Wandervögel is the plural, but the movement in total is usually referred to as Wandervogel. But one could think about a redirect from there to here. LARS 13:16, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

French Movement

Actually although I am quite well informed about the Wandervogel movement and the German Youth Movement in general I never heard of a French Wandervogel. Did they really develop from the German movement. If so, how? You imply, that they still exist. If so, how many are there today? It seems to me, that there is quite an different perception from the German Wandervogel. We should therefore take care to differentiate between both. Regarding the German Wandervogel (which is AFAIK still the original one) anarchism is definitely misleading. The same goes for pedarasty. There were cases of attraction, but the movement was definitely about hiking, group and nature experience, not about political ideologies or sexuality. LARS 13:28, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Sadly, the informations on the French movement are correct, there may also be a Swiss wing [1], but I don't have any reliable informations on this. As far as I know, the French have connections to the de:Freibund and the Sturmvogel, an offspring of the Wiking-Jugend, all of them on the extreme right. --jergen 16:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

See the french article on this as well as [2] --jergen 16:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

The anarchism aspect is played up by the modern French, but it is far from a "hippie" anarchism. Historicall, I had the impression that there was a definite counterculture bent to the movement, but I have not studied it deeply enough to argue either way. Haiduc 16:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK the anarchism mentioned by the modern French "Oiseaux migrateurs" concerns mainly their own organisation, but isn't directed to society or politics; thus I think this article doesn't belong in the Category:Anarchism. --jergen 16:55, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately I am not able to read the French article. But anyway one does not have to accept, that 'there is a French wing of the Wandervogel', even if there is a French group, which calls and sees itsself as such. I am quite sceptical about what such a 'French Wandervogel' has really in common with the original and also the current Wandervogel groups in Germany. LARS 15:04, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

My changes

• remove of motto: The historic movement had no common motto, this is misleading.
• remove of mention of pederasty: I haven't read anything concerning pederasty, although I studied most of the important texts on the Wandervogel including de:Hans Blüher.
• information given on the origin of the Jungwandervogel is correct
• remove of members: none of them was part of the Wandervogel, so I don't see why they are mentioned here
• actual membership: change to 5,000 (estimated); none of the 2 or 3 larger organizations has more than 1,000 members, so I think 10 to 20,000 is quite to high --jergen 16:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

For discussions of pederasty in the movement, see [3], [4], [5], [6]. The fact that the pederastic relationships were mostly of a chaste nature does not change their basic nature (this is not meant as a moralistic statement). Haiduc 16:42, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Non of your sources mentions the Wandervogel or his members as pederastic; they stress mainly the homoeroticism of the movement. And also - none of the pages is a scientific source; since this is a very emotional (and also political) question, I think we shouldn't add pederasty in the article because somebody wrote this word and (somewhere else in the same article) the word Wandervogel. --jergen 17:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC) --jergen 17:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry if my references were a bit hasty, I was rushed at the time. However, I am not convinced that the elimination of all references to pederasty from the article is a service to our readers. I am not looking to cast aspersions on the movement, simply to document it. How do you reconcile your study of Hans Bluher with this statement in [[7]] that he believed that "pederasty and male bonding provided a basis for a stronger nation and state"? Psychologist Parker Rossman writes that "In Central Europe in the 1920's and early 1930's there was another effort to revive the Greek ideal of pedagogic pederasty, in the movement of "wandering youth. . . men and boys who wandered around the countryside, hiking and singing hand in hand, enjoying nature, life together and their sexuality." He quotes as references Bluher "The German Boy Scout Movement as Erotic Phenomenon" in "Die Rolle der Erotic in der Mannlichen Gesselschaft", Stuttgart, Erns Klett (1962), Willets "Vandervogel in pre-Hitler Germany" in Journal of Criminal Psychopathology, 3.(1943) and Laquer "Young Germany" (1962). Haiduc 14:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

1. The correct title of Hans Blüher's book is Die deutsche Wandervogel-Bewegung als erotisches Phänomen: ein Beitrag zur Erkenntnis der sexuellen Inversion (The German Wandervogel movement as erotic phenomenon: a contribution to the understanding of sexual inversion). I wont' give anything for Rossman's book, if he got this wrong. Blüher's book was the third volume of his work on the history of the Wandervogel movement. It was widely rejected (also by the members of the movement). I read it some years ago, but when I recall correct, Blüher wrote about latent homosexuality and not about pederasty.
2. If Rossman states that the Wandervogel movement was active in the 1920s and the 1930s, this is totally wrong - the movement had changed it forms to the so called Bündische Jugend and was much more militaristic.
3. And some background: Homosexuality and - in very few causes - pederasty were among the standard accuses of the Nazis against former leaders of the Bündische Jugend to suppress this movement. Most of the accused were proved not guilty - even in the Third Reich -, but a few were sentenced to concentration camp. After the war, their trials were reopened and AFIAK all were proved not guilty. --jergen 20:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I do not wish to press a point against someone so much more familiar with this topic, so I defer to your expertise. Some reservations though: the fact that Blüher's book was rejected means nothing - all "embarrassing" information is rejected in such cases, whether true or not. Rossman's gloss of the title is an obvious attempt to translate the term for a general readership, rather than a "mistake." My own suspicion is that embedded in Blüher's book is the information we need, since it would be nonsensical to assume that boys only loved boys, and ludicrous to assume that these men loved each other erotically. What you call "latent homosexuality" in all likelihood is precisely the chaste pederasty that IS the very ressurection of ideal Greek practices which the sources discuss. But I have no access to the material and do not speak German, so I have no way to verify or refute this theory. Haiduc 21:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I am happy with Jergen changes, although I am not sure, if today's Wandervogel is really so small.

I also think, that the connection between the Wandervogel and homoeroticism is now presented in a more balanced way, since, although there were such feelings, this was never what the movement was about. LARS 15:14, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I would be really interested if we could find out more about the modern movement. I can explore the French side but not the German. I agree with you that the movement was not about homoeroticism, no more than it was about music or outdoor cooking. It simply was something that happened, I am sure less frequently than the music and the cooking but probably more frequently than we might think, with our modern outlook. During my research I googled Wandervogel + Austria and made an interesting discovery. Not that I would want to post those images here, but. . . Haiduc 16:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Ludwig Von Hofmann

Any connection? Haiduc 01:41, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Revulsion

To put all this into perspective: Educated young Germans today react to words like Wandervogel or Bündische Jugend with revulsion.--What of the night? 12:20, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh well, so I'm not educated.

What changes or additions to the article do you propose? --jergen 14:27, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

To What of the night?: This is plain wrong. I know dozens of counterexamples. LARS 16:54, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

So do I. Most young Germans have no reason to react with 'revulsion' to words like Wandervogel or Bündische Jugend, because even the educated ones don't know much about these movements. The ones that do know are probably members of a group in the tradition of the scouts, the Wandervogel etc. Again, no reason for revulsion. Chrisahn 17:19, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Erikson?

I first learned of the Wandervogel through Eric Erickson's Childhood and Society. Is his discussion authoratative? 128.147.28.1 (talk) 21:36, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

As far as I could see, all later editions are based on the 2nd edition in 1964, so it could be outdated. I think there are very few English titles on the Wandervogel movement, in German there is an abundance of newer books. --jergen (talk) 08:57, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Wandervogel and Hippies?

The relevant German scientific literature does not mention any connections between both subcultures. I'd like to have some reference, otherways linking to Hippie is pure speculation, even in the see-also-section. --jergen (talk)

I agree and removed the link.Chrisahn (talk) 06:13, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

To quote from the Wandervogel site:-

Why is Wandervogel called the first hippie movement? So many of the issues, ideas, and lifestyle practices of the early Wandervögel are a direct match with those of the American hippies of the 1960s and ’70s. Photographs of the Wandervögel with their long hair and beards, dancing and making music, cavorting in the nude, wearing hiking boots, sandals or going barefoot, look like images from the concerts at Woodstock and Golden Gate Park, or of Haight Ashbury street life in the “Summer of Love.” Yet the similarities are even more striking when you compare the values and cultures of the two movements. The Wandervögel, in the early years especially, were often the same people who called themselves lebensreformer (life reformers). These were people who practiced vegetarianism, natural medicine and healing, abstinence from alcohol, nudism, and clothing reform—all mainstream ideas today. It was important to the young men and women alike to eschew the starched collars and corsets of their age for a more natural, comfortable, and healthy fashion of dress. The following description of the Wandervögel, written by Richard Miller in 1977, might well have described the hippies: “They pooled their money, spoke hobo slang, peasant patois and medieval vulgate. They were loud and rude, sometimes ragged and dirty and torn by briars. They carried packs, wore woolen capes, shorts, dark shirts, Tyrolean hats with heavy boots and bright neck scarves. Part hobo and part medieval they were very offensive to their elders.”
There were 50,000 Wandervögel by 1914. They were anti-bourgeois and Teutonic-pagan, composed mostly of middle class German young people, organized themselves around leaders into autonomous cells called Bunde (bands), and tended to follow charismatic leaders. Like American hippies five or six decades later, the more committed among them were forming communes, cooperatives, garden towns, and settlements where soil reform, organic gardening, communitarian and economic experiments were carried out and perfected in daily life. One such well-known settlement was “Monte Verita.” at Ascona, a fishing village on the shore of Lake Maggiore on the Swiss side of the border with Italy. Ascona became a gathering point for Europe’s spiritual rebels. Hermann Hesse, Carl Jung, Isadora Duncan, D.H. Lawrence, and Franz Kafka were among the notables who were drawn to Monte Verita and the life-experiments undertaken there. Although the settlement at Ascona died out after 1920, the spirit of it was reborn in California at Big Sur in the 1960s, with Esalen Institute becoming a monte verita on the Pacific. As the ideas and influence of the Wandervögel and related groups diffused into and infected the larger culture, the surviving Bunde inevitably became less radical and more conventional. They morphed into organizations quite different from those envisioned by their initiators. A similar pattern of development can be observed in the history of the hippie phenomenon.

So, why the problem with including a summary of this, with citations, in the article? Another good reference is here. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:59, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

<ironic>O wow. Wonderful references. The first one is a commercial link, trying to sell outdoor equipment, the second a book without review in the (worldwide) relevant German publication (ie Jahrbuch des Archivs der deutschen Jugendbewegung) and with nearly no reviews at all.</ironic>

This alleged Hippie connection is not mentioned in any of the numerous German publications on the Wandervogel movement. As there are nearly no English publications on the movement but lots of german ones, we have to see the German standpoint on this as authoratoive. --jergen (talk) 15:37, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

The problem here is that you are seeing this organisation simply from one specific perspective - as a German scouting movement. So, you will accept German references, and scouting references, but not references from different sources or different countries which place the organisation and movement in the wider global context that is appropriate for a global encyclopaedia. It is clear from the refs I've provided that Wandervogel was a movement which was established within a certain cultural context and which in turn had a wider - and quite unintended - influence on later and wider social movements in other countries, such as the hippies. I don't claim those particular refs are perfect, but the points they make are valid - the hippy movement in the US and elsewhere can be traced back to European movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including Wandervogel. That is worthy of note. It would be good if you could acknowledge it, and allow the article to take a wider global perspective on the movement. <not ironic>And please try to assume good faith.</not ironic> Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:14, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

The German literature on the Wandervogel, the de:Lebensreform etc as social movements is abundant, compared to the about 20 titles in English language (Even the LOC lists less than 10 English titles on the Wandervogel, but about 50 German titles; the same with Jugendbewegung/"German yout movement").

Nearly every aspect (including naturism, vergetarism, pacifism et al) was subject to scholarly research in Germany. None of those titles known to me mention a connection between Wandervogel and Hippies - and I did study more than 100 books on the German youth movement. Why are an single titel, written by an organic farmer and autodidact, and an web-based advertisement better sources than those written by scholars?

There is no global reserch perspective on the Wandervogel or the German youth movement, which is quite easy to understand: All sources are in German, a language spoken by very few in the anglo-saxon world. We try to write an encyclopedia: That means we should use the best sources avalaible, which means scholarly sources, even if they are in strange languages.

You should understand that it is very difficult to prove th non-existence of a connection. But in this case it is very clear: There are less than ten authors claiming this connenction, but hundreds not mentioning it. --jergen (talk) 10:06, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

But the fact that the connection is mentioned by historians of the hippy movement is relevant and noteworthy. Have you looked at histories in German of the origins of the hippy movement? Sources which concentrate on the specifically German aspects of the Wandervogel as it existed in the early 20th century would be unlikely to look into all the ways in which the influence of that movement later spread into other corners of the world, such as California - it would be outside the remit of those sources. But sources which look at the influence of the movement are still relevant and should be mentioned - not given undue weight, but mentioned nonetheless. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:19, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

If the Wandervogel is mentioned at all, it is mentioned as a movement with a similiar base (ie "youth"), but not as a source or as an influence.

Your so called sources for this influence are unscientific, unreviewed and nearly not cited [8]. They are not reputable in any meaning of the word. --jergen (talk) 16:48, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

PS: The paragraph on the Wandervogel in Hippies is wrong in nearly all points stated:

• Between 1896 and 1908, a German youth movement arose as a countercultural reaction to the organized social and cultural clubs that centered around German folk music. — There was a "countercultural reaction" with in the WV - but not between 1896 and 1908; this started in 1908 and was finished about 1918. The same with the "folk music": the song book de:Der Zupfgeigenhansl, which started this orientiation, was not published until 1909
• Inspired by the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Goethe, Hermann Hesse, and Eduard Baltzer — I could agree that some of the Wandervögel read Nietzsche or Goethe, but Hesse had not even published any books when the Wandervogel was founded and Baltzer was not acceptable because of his antireligious and socialist positions.
• who rejected the rapid trend toward urbanization and yearned for the pagan, back-to-nature spiritual life of their ancestors — Quite the contrary, the Wandervogel was based in the towns and it is unthinkable without the urbanization and the modernization of the society; there was nothing pagan in the movement on its heyday about 1910.

These are nice sounding stories being told - but there is very little truth within. --jergen (talk) 17:06, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't be so sure of that jergen. There are definite similarities btwn the two movements. — Rlevse • Talk • 17:57, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

There are maybe similarities - but are there really links? --jergen (talk) 18:43, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Nothing that has been said here justifies your continuing removal of that information. You now have three editors who disagree with you. ---RepublicanJacobite_{The'FortyFive'} 05:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I've tried an alternative approach, linking to the article History of the hippie movement - an article which, by the way, I have just found and have had no part in editing. Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:12, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Good call, Ghmyrtle, that link makes more sense. ---RepublicanJacobite_{The'FortyFive'} 15:11, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

"Histiorians" vs. "authors"

• For Gordon Kennedy see [9] and [10]. He's an organic farmer by profession, not an historian.
• For Kody Ryan see [11]. FArmer as well
• For wandervogel.com: The text is unsigned, so it's better to assume that this was written by an author, than to suggest that this commercial was produced by a historian.

"Historians" is incorrect, if at least one of those cited is not a historian; as I did show, one is unknown and the remaining two are farmers. --jergen (talk) 17:54, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

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Gathering resources for additional material.

Just proposing some sources of additional material. I found this vice article: Remembering the Wandervogal it claims that the Edelweiss Pirates (a youth gang who fought the Nazis) originated with the Wandervogal. This connection was made by an investigative reporter from the time, Christine Fournier. When googling her name, I found this blog post which talks about German youth movements in general, differentiating between the relatively clean cut and well intentioned Wandervogal, and the later "Wild-Frei" gangs (the post describes them as "Wandervogel-gone-wild"), which include the Edelweiss Pirates. Anyways, it seems there were some grand meetings of these groups, including something called the Erster_Freideutscher_Jugendtag (link to German Wikipedia)... and something called the "Meissner Proclamation" (a youth manifesto that resulted from one of these grand meetings). This all fits under the banner of "Jugendkultur" or "Youth Culture"... but is also related to the Lebensreform movement, and is an avenue for expanding the article. --Jobrot (talk) 15:22, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

There is no need of using dubious blogs for expanding this article. There are masses of scholarly publications on the Wandervogel movement as well as on the German Youth movement in general, at least in German.

Fournier's "Wild-Frei" gangs don't featured prominent in them. Perhaps Fournier was referring to the so called "wilde Cliquen" (~ wild gangs), but there existed a multitude of them with very diffent attitudes - and the term is nearly execlusively used for gangs in the 1930s and 1940s. --jergen (talk) 10:01, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Translations

This is English Wikipedia, and as most English-speakers are monoglot, it is not unreasonable to expect translations into English of foreign-language texts that are included in its articles. How difficult can it be to render Wer hat euch Wandervögeln... into English? Nuttyskin (talk) 19:31, 9 January 2022 (UTC)