I've just watched "Made In Britain", a British film from the 1980s about skinheads and unemployment, glue sniffing, stealing, and racism. An online review calls the issues depicted as "timeless".
If those issues are so timeless, why did we in Germany in the 1950s and 1960s found no time for glue sniffing and stealing? There certainly was plenty of unemployment after the war, but we were too busy rebuilding the country and building a new life for ourselves, and what spare time we had from school or work we spent in character-building activities.
I had joined the "Fahrenden Gesellen" when I was perhaps ten or eleven years old. The "Fahrenden Gesellen" were part of the "Wandervogel" movement of German youth who protested against industrialisation by going for hikes in the country and communing with nature in the woods.
I spent most weekends and all my school holidays "auf Fahrt" or under canvas or at the group's "Landheim", learning how to be self-reliant and how to live off the land. Of course, alcohol and tobacco were banned.
Misspent youth? Call me a nerd, but I would do it again in a heartbeat!
