I went through some old notes today and found the stuff I used to explain in my scouting group about the history of scouting in Germany, which is rather different from the international one. When scouting was invented it quickly spread to Germany and even got official support, but at the time the Wandervogel, a comparable German movement was already established. It was not as popular with the authorities, since it was less centralised and more independent-minded, but despite the opposition it had sucess as well. During and after WWI both groups mixed, introduced some external ideas and the different opinions, what they considered important, led to a splintering into tons of "Bünde" which together form what usually is called the German Youth Movement.
Despite the interruption of the 3rd Reich to this day the same is pretty much true (if on a smaller scale) and there are still a lot of different organisations, seeing themselves as part of the Bündische Jugend. To a degree every German scouting organisation also incorporates not only Scoutist, but also Bündische ideas: The latter includes for example a stronger emphasis on hiking tours (in my case the summer tour was usually a three week hiking tour in patrols with the entire scout group only 3-5 days on a campsite, though the group most years traveled into the same region/country together), the German black tents, a strong emphasis on youth leading youth (in my scouting group 15/16 years old elect their own patrol leader and usually acted also as patrol leaders for younger groups in their own right with little oversight, oldest active leaders on a local base are rarely above their mid-twenties) the importance and style of music and a certain kind of romanticism.
This special development makes German scouting pretty much unique internationally, but I wondered whether it would be possible for the German Youth Movement to influence scouting internationally or to spread in parallel.
Note: I used the terms patrol and scouting group, because the German groups in question are of similiar size, but they seem not really the same. You can´t generalise it, but for example in my Bund the patrol was the core unit which leaves the cub scouts together aged 10-12, meets weekly as a patrol (troops being pretty much an exeception for the case a group lacks leaders) and stays together until the end of their "scouting career", even after the members already have their own leadership duties.
Despite the interruption of the 3rd Reich to this day the same is pretty much true (if on a smaller scale) and there are still a lot of different organisations, seeing themselves as part of the Bündische Jugend. To a degree every German scouting organisation also incorporates not only Scoutist, but also Bündische ideas: The latter includes for example a stronger emphasis on hiking tours (in my case the summer tour was usually a three week hiking tour in patrols with the entire scout group only 3-5 days on a campsite, though the group most years traveled into the same region/country together), the German black tents, a strong emphasis on youth leading youth (in my scouting group 15/16 years old elect their own patrol leader and usually acted also as patrol leaders for younger groups in their own right with little oversight, oldest active leaders on a local base are rarely above their mid-twenties) the importance and style of music and a certain kind of romanticism.
This special development makes German scouting pretty much unique internationally, but I wondered whether it would be possible for the German Youth Movement to influence scouting internationally or to spread in parallel.
Note: I used the terms patrol and scouting group, because the German groups in question are of similiar size, but they seem not really the same. You can´t generalise it, but for example in my Bund the patrol was the core unit which leaves the cub scouts together aged 10-12, meets weekly as a patrol (troops being pretty much an exeception for the case a group lacks leaders) and stays together until the end of their "scouting career", even after the members already have their own leadership duties.