You know you’ve become an adult when you’re expected to hide the eggs, not find them. BOO.
Why do we hunt for eggs? This one goes back to Germany, too. When he wasn’t nailing shit to doors or spouting antisemitic garbage, Martin Luther apparently liked to organize Easter egg hunts for his congregation. It is said that men would hide the eggs for women and children to find. Marty likened eggs to Jesus’s empty tomb, which was discovered by women. Neat.
Did he invent the game? Almost certainly not, but he gets most of the credit by virtue of 1.) being famous and 2.) nobody else took credit. Such is history.
But the idea definitely took off in Germany. So much so that the Duchess of Kent would hand-paint eggs and host a hunt for the young Princess Victoria (and the overbearing mum even let her participate.)
The Queen brought the tradition to the royal family with her ascension. As all things Victorian, as the Queen did, so did the people. Artificial eggs began to hit the streets of London in the 1850s; chocolate eggs, then common in France and Germany, followed shortly.
Even so, the tradition of Easter egg hunts didn’t really take off until the post-WWII everything boom. The rise of so many new, inexpensive products meant it was easy for people to jump on board with this silly tradition. Candy companies marketed the idea of Easter egg hunts (and baskets!) to move product. (It’s always a commercial racket.)