In response to parents' complaints, in 1917 the school governors arranged for Oelfken to be transferred to Tarmstedt in the flat lands north of Bremen, described in one source as a "marsh village" ("Moordorf"). It was here that she came across members of the so-called Worpswede community, a colony of artist-intellectuals based in the area who were by this time coming to be associated with pacifism and other liberal-reformist causes. She was, in particular, influenced by Heinrich Vogeler. She later confessed that his influence on her had proven more enduring than that of anyone else. Vogeler's home, the "Barkenhoff", was the meeting point for a group of like-minded artists and intellectuals. Here he set up an idealistic communist labour school. Tami Oelfken and Vogeler would discuss together developing a primer for it, drawing their inspiration not so much from the recent (and still unfolding) October Revolution as from the beliefs and practices of the Tolstoyan movement. It was under the influence of this "Barkenhoff Group" that during 1918 Oelfken became a member of the anti-war Spartacus League, which by the end of that year had become one of the twin founding pillars (along with the Independent Social Democratic Party) of Germany's Communist Party. She was a delegate to the held at Berlin during the middle of June 1920: the backwash from the previous year's uprisings was still very much in the air, and the theme of the conference was reform of the . (The conclusion was a series of compromises that disappointed the more extremist reformist factions.)