Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
The Anfang movement, centered in Vienna 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.
My thanks to Richard Dougherty for advice concerning this article; and to Lily Bernfeld Stross, Rosemarie Bernfeld Ostwald, Ruth Bernfeld Goldberg, Peter Paret and Rudolf Ekstein for interviews about the movement; to Marek Web for access to the YIVO Institute Archive; to Agnes Peterson for access to the Hoover Institution Archive; to Hans Wolf for access to the German Jugendbewegung Archive, Burg Ludwigstein.
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