Gustav Gräser

In 1900, "Gusto" Gräser and his brother Karl, along with others, founded Monte Verità, a community on this mountain (shown below in a photo from 1946) above the town of Ascona in Switzerland. He profoundly influenced Hermann Hesse, who underwent a cure for alcoholism there, and the later counterculture movement of the 1960's.

The Gräsers were in a long line of German gurus who founded communes, promoted naturism (nudity and vegetarianism) and an ascetic lifestyle. But, Gusto Gräser also showed great courage in opposing the drift to war in the 1910s and 1930s. He died in 1958 in Munich.