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Lebensreform (; 'life reform' in English) is a German term that serves as an umbrella for various social that have emerged since the mid-19th century, particularly originating from Germany and Switzerland. In its early days, these movements were predominantly supported by the burgher class ( Bürgerstand, urban residents), particularly the urban intellectuals, and were characterised by common features such as the critique of industrialisation, materialism, and urbanisation, coupled with a desire to return to a natural state of living.
The objectives of Lebensreform included the promotion of a natural and healthy lifestyle to counter the detrimental effects of these factors on health and overall well-being. Common practices associated with the movement encompassed vegetarianism (advocating for a diet free of meat, typically motivated by ethical, health, and environmental reasons), naturopathy (the use of natural remedies for healing), naturism (embracing natural environments and was closely associated with the Freikörperkultur movement, which promoted the benefits of unclothed exposure to natural elements such as sunlight, fresh air, and water), physical fitness and posture care through gymnastics and expressionist dance, and clothing reform aimed at promoting more natural and comfortable attire.
The Lebensreform movement has had a lasting effect on several aspects of modern life, influencing contemporary health and wellness practices. Other elements associated with the Lebensreform movement included:
While these diverse movements did not coalesce into a single overarching organisation, they were marked by the presence of numerous associations.
Whether the reform movements of the Lebensreform should be classified as modern or as anti-modern and reactionary is controversial. Both theses have been defended.
The painter and social reformer Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach is considered an important pioneer of the Lebensreform ideas. Other influential proponents included Sebastian Kneipp, Louis Kuhne, Rudolf Steiner, Hugo Höppener (Fidus), Gustav Gräser, and Adolf Just.
One noticeable legacy of the Lebensreform movement in Germany today is the Reformhaus ("reform house"), which are retail stores that sell organic food and Naturopathy. — PDF
Spiritually, the Lebensreform turned to new religious and spiritual views, including theosophy, Mazdaznan, and yoga. Many late neo-romanticism elements were also taken up, along with a glorification of the "simple life in the country". Dozens of magazines, journals, books, and pamphlets were published on these topics. The Lebensreform movement encompassed a wide spectrum of ideological affiliations. While some groups were rooted in socialist ideals, others maintained an apolitical stance, and several adopted right-wing or nationalist perspectives.
The architectural form of the Lebensreform first emerged from settlement experiments such as Monte Verità. Later, it influenced the garden city movement, including the Hellerau settlement and many others. The best-known representative of this movement was the reform architect Heinrich Tessenow (1876–1950), and the Bauhaus. The first establishment of a vegetarian settlement in Germany was the Vegetarian Fruit-Growing Colony Eden ( Vegetarische Obstbau-Kolonie Eden) in Oranienburg near Berlin in 1893, formed by some 18 vegetarians from Berlin. It was later named the Eden Fruit-Growing Cooperative Settlement ( Eden Gemeinnützige Obstbau-Siedlung).
Lebensreform was a movement primarily dominated by the burgher class (urban residents), with significant participation from women. In the body culture ( Körperkultur), it aimed to provide people with plenty of fresh air and sun to compensate for the effects of industrialization and urbanization.
Some areas of the Lebensreform movement, such as naturopathy or vegetarianism, were organized in associations and enjoyed great popularity, as reflected in their membership numbers. To disseminate their content and principles, they published magazines such as Der Naturarzt (The Naturopath) and Die Vegetarische Warte (The Vegetarian Observer). The movement also included freikörperkultur (free body culture; also known as naturism), physical culture, gymnastics, expressionist dance, and posture care, as advocated by Bess Mensendieck. By the 1920s, Germany had even produced a cinematic cultural feature film titled Ways to Strength and Beauty, which promoted and idealized health and beauty in conformity with nature.
One outstanding prophet of the Lebensreform movement was the painter Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach (1861–1913), a pacifist and Tolstoyan anarchist who lived with his students in a hermitage in Höllriegelskreuth near Munich and later founded the community near Vienna. Among his disciples were three painters: Hugo Höppener (Fidus), František Kupka, and Gustav Gräser.
In 1900, Gräser became the co-founder and inspiring pioneer of the community Monte Verità near Ascona, Switzerland. Monte Verità attracted many artists from all over Europe, and during World War I, conscientious objectors from Germany and France. Gustav Gräser, a thinker and poet, greatly influenced the German Youth Movement and such writers as Hermann Hesse and Gerhart Hauptmann. He was the model for the master figures in the books of Hermann Hesse.
Richard Ungewitter and Heinrich Pudor were also well-known advocates of a strain of Lebensreform that emphasized nude culture ( Nacktkultur) and was explicitly Völkisch in tradition, which eventually became the Freikörperkultur movement. The Freikörperkultur movement eventually broadened and came to include socialists with no strains of ethnic nationalism, like the educationalist and gymnastics teacher Adolf Koch.
The extremists promoting right-wing ideology eventually became popular among Nazi Party officials and their supporters, including Heinrich Himmler and Rudolf Höss, who belonged to the right-wing farming organization the Artaman League. When other groups were being banned or disbanded due to political conflict during the 1930s, the extreme nationalist ideology became connected with National Socialism. The German Life Reform League broke apart into political factions during this time.
The Nationalist physician Artur Fedor Fuchs began the League for Freikörperkultur (free body culture), giving public lectures on the healing powers of the sun in the "Nordic sky", which "alone strengthened and healed the warrior nation".Gordon 2006, p. 144 Ancient forest living and habits presumed to have been followed by the ancient tribes of Germany were considered beneficial to regenerating the Aryan people, according to Fuchs' philosophy.
Hans Sùren, a prominent former military officer and sports instructor, published Man and the Sun (1924), which sold 240,000 copies; by 1941 it was reissued in 68 editions. Sùren promoted the Aryan master race concept of physically strong, militarized men who would be the "salvation" of the German people.Gordon 2006, p. 146
Right-wing radicalism
A specific stream based on völkisch Romanticism gradually became part of Nazi ideology by the 1930s, known as blood and soil. As early as 1907, Richard Ungewitter published a pamphlet called Wieder nacktgewordene Menschen (Become-naked-again People), which sold 100,000 copies. He argued that the practices he recommended would be "the means by which the German race would regenerate itself and ultimately prevail over its neighbours and the diabolical Jews, who were intent on injecting putrefying agents into the nation's blood and soil".Gordon 2006, pp. 138–9
Effect in the United States
Some of the less well-known protagonists of the movement in Germany, such as Bill Pester, Benedict Lust, and Arnold Ehret, emigrated to California at the end of the 19th and until the mid-20th century, where they strongly influenced the later hippie movement. "Hippie Roots & The Perennial Subculture" — also contains excerpts from Kennedy (1998) Frieze magazine, issue 122 (April 2009): Tune in, Drop out One group, calling themselves the "Nature Boys", settled as a commune in the California desert. One member of this group, eden ahbez, wrote the song Nature Boy, recorded in 1947 by Nat King Cole, popularizing the "back-to-nature" movement in mainstream America. Eventually, a few of these Nature Boys, including Gypsy Boots, made their way to Northern California in 1967, taking part in the Summer of Love in San Francisco.
Today
Many contemporary environmental and other movements, such as the organic food movement, various fad diets, "back to nature" movements, as well as "folk movements", have their roots in the Lebensreform movement's emphasis on the goodness of nature, the harms caused by industrialization to society, people, and nature, the importance of the whole person—body and mind—and the goodness of "the old ways". (2025). 9781317548133, Routledge. ISBN 9781317548133
Comparison of Lebensreform with other social movements
The German researcher compared the Lebensreform to other social movements and identified some specific characteristics:
Books that influenced Lebensreform
See also
Bibliography
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