scouts and freebird:

A brief history of youth movement in Germany:

In Germany, the scouts (german: Pfadfinder) went through a different history, than the national scout movements in other countries . This was caused by the developement of a paralell youth movement at the same time, called Wandervogel (often translated with "freebird", "hikers" or "rambler") It came up at the beginning of the twentieth century, short time before the founding of the first scout groups in Great Britain.
The Wandervogel were groups of young men, later also women, trying to resist the strict rules of the society of that time. Their way of resistance was to travel through nature resorts in self-defined groups of same age, without leadership of grown-ups. Hiking, making music together or sitting at camp fires was their expression of a self-defined way of living, leaving behind the fixed and regulated life, their parents usually had prepeared for them. During that time, the thought of youth, defining itself was revolutionary throughout Europe.
In 1909 the first Scout groups were founded in Germany, like in Britain, by former or active military officers. At the beginning, the strict organisation and the old group leaders were in a huge contrast to the ideas lived by the Wandervogel, but spending time in the nature and giving responsibility to young men and women were aspects, they had in common.

After the first World War, society in Germany changed dramatically: The Kaiserreich became Republic, millions of soldiers came home in a land with a desastrous economy, everyone was facing an uncertain future. During this time hundreds of scout and Wandervogel groups were founded, and these groups influenced each other to a high degree. So the scout movement in Germany left more and more the traditional anglo-american way and adapted much aspects from the Wandervogel. Famous travels were made that time, first Wandervogel travelled round the world, songs and poems were written political influence in democratic organisations was gained. In 1932 many tenthousand young people were organized in the so called youth movement, the movement of scouts and Wandervogel.
When the Nazis came to power, it was clear, that the existing huge variety of groups will not be able to exist by time. So, in a last attempt of gaining recognition in national and international public, most groups of the youth movement founded one national organisation. But this made it even easier for the nazis, in 1934 these and all other youth movement organisation were banned.
Some groups coorporated and changed into the nazi youth organisations, some tried to continue their activities in underground. In the later years, some of the groups took part in active resistance: The famous resistance student group of "white rose" consisted of members of underground youth movement groups.
A lot of them did not survive the war.

But after the defeat of nazi Germany, the first new groups were founded in the western occupied zones. So scout and Wandervogel movement both came back to life, not as strong, as in the years before the Third Reich, but ongoing to the present days. After the reunification of Germany in 1990, goups now exist allover german terretory.
Today, German youth movement consists of five big and about one hundred small scout organisation and about thirty Wandervogel organisations. All in all about one hundred thousand elder and younger people join these organisation. The organisations, our World-Tour group consists of,are the "Grauer Reiter" (Trans.: the grey riders, a name of a underground group 1934-44, consisting today of about 400 members in eight cities), Freier Stamm Murmeltier and Wandervogel Siebenstreich (local scout and Wandervogel groups of smaller size).
On our World Vojage, we try to life in the tradition of the youth movement: We carry a guitar and a mandoline with us, our rucksacks are made in traditional shape, covered with goat skin and we are travelling in leather trousers. We carry a small flag with our group sign (sextant) and the signs of our groups at home. And our tent is lthe usual german scout tent, black and tippi-like, it was brought from lappland in the twentieth.

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