Monte Verità

As the new community of Monte Verità (the Mountain of Truth) set about learning how to feed and support themselves, the old world order was not so eager to embrace feminism, veganism, free love, and nudity. Even as the parents of the group members cut off all support, the list of artists and thinkers who frequented the place reads like a laundry list of the great minds of the last century. Freud, Jung, and even Lenin, made regular visitations. One of the most central figures at Monte Verità was Otto Gross, a protégé of Freud and the only child of Hans Gross, who invented the science of criminology. Otto Gross’s later trial and incarceration (at the behest of his father) supposedly inspired Franz Kafka to write The Trial. Hermann Hesse (author of Steppenwolf) was similarly inspired by the commune’s residents, which included Gusto Gräser, whose proto-hippy garb and messianic ways attracted legions of followers. Choreographer and dancer Mary Wigman worked closely with dance pioneer Rudolf Laban at Monte Verità before setting out to reinvent modern dance.(http://www.freakoutmovie.org/?page_id=242)