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
