The German youth movement at the beginning of the 20th century is generally interpreted as a movement of cultural criticism and as a spiritual movement exposing the petrified contemporary bourgeois culture. But this view fails to explain sufficiently the peculiar characteristic of this movement. The most radical and all-pervading common expression of the youth movement was definitely
Wandern in nature. The
Wandern activity as such contitutes the original characteristic of the youth movement. Aimlessness is the basic element of
Wandern and it possesses a peculiar brightness and serenity of its own. Thus
Wandern makes man turn to the fountains of life. As far as cultural criticism is concerned it has been pointed out that
Bildung had become separated from the subject and thus become externralized; the youth movement, aware of this criticism, strove after an internalization of the world through a return to the springs of life. Only in this way true
Bildung as the internal form of life can be conducted.
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