26/12/2018
Contrary to what many people have been led to believe, the Hi**erjugend (Hi**er Youth) was not heir to the Wandervögel (Wandering Birds) movement at all and this is a myth that has been propagated by mainstream and fascist historians alike. Thanks to the diaries, letters and university theses that were produced by those directly involved in the German youth movement at the beginning of the twentieth century, few of which have ever been translated into other languages, it is possible to draw a marked contrast between Hi**erism and the Wandervögel itself. One interesting source was published under the auspices of the Autorenkollektiv, or Author's Collective, and examines the period between 1904 and 1945. The document itself, Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterjugend-Bewegung, describes how the Wandervögel and other youth fraternities came together to form the Freideutsche Jungend (Free German Youth) in 1912 and it is perfectly clear that the aspirations of this organisation were based on a fundamental opposition to sabre-rattling militarism, political reaction and mass conformity: "The beginnings of this oppositional bourgeois youth movement reach back to the turn of the [twentieth] century. A number of high school students, mainly young people from the petty bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie, came into conflict with the authoritarian regime prevailing in the secondary schools. where, for the most part, ossified pedants set the tone, demanding unconditional obedience from the pupils." However, that which began as a school rebellion began to assume a far more radical and subversive edge, and the differences between this and the docile mass-mind that later took hold under Na**sm is obvious: "The suppression of every independent intellectual initiative, the allignment of the educational programme with the idea of military preparedness and the cult of the monarchy, stood in contradiction to the humanist ideals invoked in the teaching. Together with this, the bourgeois morals of the parental home, the pursuit of profit and the hypocrisy, servility, and ruthlessness bound up with it, were repugnant to many. Of these young people, many went on to study at universities, where they continued to uphold the Wandervögel spirit." This determination to resist the bourgeois values of the pre-war period even led them to reject all political parties and, in addition, they dismissed "the practices of the reactionary student corps, the obsession with duelling and drinking, the chauvinism and arrogance and contempt for the people". Furthermore, it was stated at the Meissner youth congress of October 1913 and reported in the popular Der Anfang journal that their ultimate goal was to live their lives "according to their own principles, on their own responsibility, and in inner truthfulness." Another development that is completely out-of-kilter with the Hi**erite determination to confine women to the task of breeding and home-making, was the Freideutsche Jungend's acceptance of young girls into their hiking and camping fraternities. This, as one female member describes in Werner Helwig's 1960 work, Die blaue Blume des Wandervögels (The Blue Flower of the Wandervögel), had a truly liberating effect: "Girls from high schools wandering alone in the woods on Sundays, had never been there before; as a girl you were never allowed to attract attention, that was the supreme law! Every ride was unforgettable. When it rained, we found somewhere a shelter, when we were drenched, we were dry again by the movement; therefore there was no cold. Hiding deep in the woods we had our favorite places, a deserted castle or a hunter's cottage with a rickety sloping roof, from the ridge of which we slid for hours on old sacks into the soft grass. We made great leaps through the undergrowth and over the forest stream, there were stuck shoes full of mud and water and ingenious draining. Barrels were built and discovered castle dungeon. We drew, photographed, wreathed, sung and danced wreaths. This time is in our memory incomparably beautiful. What unusual experiences, conversations, dangers, clashing opinions!" In 1933, when the Third Reich won capitalist approval and swept to power on a tide of compromise with wealthy industrialists, N**i youth leader Baldur Benedikt von Schirach (1907-1974) co-opted the German youth movement and set about banning the likes of the Greater German Boys' League and all other organisations which tried to retain their sovereignty and individuality. Many had little choice but to accept their swift assimilation into the Hi**erjugend and dissidents were soon crushed by local N**i gauleiters. Those Wandervögel groups which continued to oppose the rising spectre of mass conformity - mainly at Darmstadt, Cologne and Hamburg - were organised by Ernst Michael Jovy (1920-1984) of the Jungenschaftsgruppe into resistance units. Jovy was eventually arrested by the Gestapo in 1939 and sentenced to six years in prison. Others held a secret meeting at Waldeck Castle under the direction of Robert Oelbermann (1896-1941), the outspoken leader of the Nerother Bund section of the Wandervögel who was eventually arrested for describing the drones of the N**i state as a "brown monkey horde". Oelbermann died in 1941 at the Dachau concentration camp and the outstretched wings of the Wandering Birds, once wild and carefree, had finally been clipped. One of the most famous resistance movements that arose from the German youth movement was the Edelweißpiraten (Edelweiss Pirates), which fought against Hi**er's mass society in favour of free association between men and women. Finally, whilst many Hi**erjugend songs were about death and destruction, this may be contrasted with the following life-giving sentiments that were written by Otto Roquette (1824-1896), one of the early pioneers of the Wandervögel movement itself: "You wandering birds in the air, / In the ether-shine, in the sun-aroma, / In blue sky-waves, / I greet you as journeymen! / I am also a wandering bird, / And my gift of song / Is my dearest possession." It is a tragedy that many of these young people were so brutally slain on the unforgiving killing-fields of the Second World War, which is why those of us who adore nature, beauty and youthful vitality must honour their memory in our own struggle against bourgeois conformity and the slavery of the modern nation-state.
