Radical Youth: Generational Conflict in the Anfang Movement, 1912-January 1914

Abstract

THE ANFANG MOVEMENT, centered in Vienrna and Berlin from 1912 to 1914, was the twentieth century's first left-wing political youth movement whose main concern was youthful independence from adult authority. The movement took its name from its journal Der Anfang (The Beginning). The 3000 members were Austrians and Germans born between 1890 and 1899. Most were urban state secondary school pupils and university students from middle-class families, many of which were artistic, academic and intellectual. A third of the members were Jewish; in Vienna 90% were Jewish. In June 1914 the journal reached a high point of 1000 subscribers. (1) But the movement's structure and history can now be outlined with much greater clarity than before. Siegfried Bernfeld's ArchivfuirJugendkultur (containing the movement's letters, chronicles, house-organ, unprinted manuscripts and periodical collection) has become available at the YIVO Institute and the Hoover Institution. (2) Perusal of the archival material has provided much new information and made it possible to penetrate the carefully guarded anonymity of many members. This article will also attempt to understand the movement on the basis of recent psychoanalytic theory. From this standpoint, it is possible to offer new hypotheses on the generational conflict the movement excited: the members had self-assertive characters; it seems that they acquired these in early childhood because of advanced methods of child-rearing pursued byJewish, artistic and intellectual parents; they wanted the German and Austrian state secondary school to accord pupils the mutual respect to which they themselves were accustomed at home; they felt that American and British pupils were generally accorded such respect. The movement's program and institutions were shaped effectively in a period of unity lasting until January 1914. At that point of success in publicizing the program, schisms among members and altercation with