German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
''Burschenschaft'' jargon; plural: ) is one of the traditional (student associations) of
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
,
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
, and
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...
(the latter due to German cultural influence).
Burschenschaften were founded in the 19th century as associations of
university
A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...
student
A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution, or more generally, a person who takes a special interest in a subject.
In the United Kingdom and most The Commonwealth, commonwealth countries, a "student" attends ...
unification of Germany
The unification of Germany (, ) was a process of building the first nation-state for Germans with federalism, federal features based on the concept of Lesser Germany (one without Habsburgs' multi-ethnic Austria or its German-speaking part). I ...
.
After the formation of the
German Empire
The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...
in 1871, they faced a crisis, as their main political objective had been realized. So-called were established, but these were dissolved by the
Nazi
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
regime in 1935/6. In
West Germany
West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...
, the were re-established in the 1950s, but they faced a renewed crisis in the 1960s and 1970s, as the mainstream political outlook of the German student movement of that period started leaning more towards the left. Roughly 160 exist today in Germany, Austria and Chile.
History
Origins
The very first one, called ("
original
Originality is the aspect of created or invented works that distinguish them from reproductions, clones, forgeries, or substantially derivative works. The modern idea of originality is according to some scholars tied to Romanticism, by a notion t ...
"), was founded on 12 June 1815 at
Jena
Jena (; ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 in ...
as an association drawn from all German university students inspired by liberal and
patriotic
Patriotism is the feeling of love, devotion, and a sense of attachment to one's country or state. This attachment can be a combination of different feelings for things such as the language of one's homeland, and its ethnic, cultural, politic ...
ideas. Like the Landsmannschaften or the
Corps
Corps (; plural ''corps'' ; from French , from the Latin "body") is a term used for several different kinds of organization. A military innovation by Napoleon I, the formation was formally introduced March 1, 1800, when Napoleon ordered Gener ...
, a student association based on particular German region, the Burschenschaft members also engaged in duelling. However, its main purpose was to break down society lines and to destroy rivalry in the student body, to improve student life and increase patriotism. It was intended to draw its members from a broader population base than the
Corps
Corps (; plural ''corps'' ; from French , from the Latin "body") is a term used for several different kinds of organization. A military innovation by Napoleon I, the formation was formally introduced March 1, 1800, when Napoleon ordered Gener ...
. Indeed, the group was known for its middle-class membership while the Corps' was mainly aristocratic. At first, a significant component of its membership were students who had taken part in the German wars of liberation against the Napoleonic occupation of Germany.This article incorporates text from a work in the
public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...
:
Its motto was “honor, freedom, fatherland” (), and the original colors were red-black-red with a golden oak leaves cluster, which might be based on the uniform of the Lützow Free Corps, being a corps of volunteer soldiers during the wars of liberation.
19th century
The were student associations that engaged in numerous social activities. However, their most important goal was to foster loyalty to the concept of a united German national state as well as strong engagement for freedom, rights, and democracy. Quite often decided to stress extreme nationalist or sometimes also liberal ideas, leading in time to the exclusion of Jews, who were considered to be un-German. Nevertheless, all were banned as revolutionary by Klemens Wenzel von Metternich of
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
when he issued the reactionary
Carlsbad Decrees
The Carlsbad Decrees () were a set of reactionary restrictions introduced in the states of the German Confederation by resolution of the Bundesversammlung on 20 September 1819 after a conference held in the spa town of Carlsbad, Austrian Empire. ...
in 1819.
Many took part in the in 1832 and the democratic Revolution in 1848/49. After this revolution had been suppressed, plenty of leading , such as
Friedrich Hecker
Friedrich Karl Franz Hecker (September 28, 1811 – March 24, 1881) was a German lawyer, politician and revolutionary. He was one of the most popular speakers and agitators of the 1848 Revolution. After moving to the United States, he served a ...
and
Carl Schurz
Carl Christian Schurz (; March 2, 1829 – May 14, 1906) was a German-American revolutionary and an American statesman, journalist, and reformer. He migrated to the United States after the German revolutions of 1848–1849 and became a prominent ...
, went abroad. After the foundation of the
German Empire
The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...
in 1871, the movement faced a severe crisis, as one major goal had been achieved to some extent: German unification. In the 1880s, a renaissance movement, the , led by the ideas of Küster, arose and many new were founded. It was also during this time until the 1890s when many members turned increasingly towards anti-Semitic outlook believing it provided an approach to achieving the fraternity's fundamental goal. Such members viewed the Jews as a problem that hampered the unification of Germany and the achievement of new values the organization advanced. There were members who resigned to protest a resolution adopted at an
Eisenach
Eisenach () is a Town#Germany, town in Thuringia, Germany with 42,000 inhabitants, west of Erfurt, southeast of Kassel and northeast of Frankfurt. It is the main urban centre of western Thuringia, and bordering northeastern Hesse, Hessian re ...
meeting declaring that Burschenschaft "have no Jewish members and do not plan to have any in the future."
Interbellum and Nazi Germany
In 1935/36, most north of the Austrian Alps were dissolved by the Nazi government or transformed and fused with other into so-called (comradeships). Some Nazis (e.g.
Ernst Kaltenbrunner
Ernst Kaltenbrunner (4 October 1903 – 16 October 1946) was an Austrian high-ranking SS official during the Nazi era, major perpetrator of the Holocaust and convicted war criminal. After the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, and a ...
) and Nazi opponents ( Karl Sack, Hermann Kaiser) were members of .
Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was an Austria-Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist and lawyer who was the father of Types of Zionism, modern political Zionism. Herzl formed the World Zionist Organization, Zionist Organizat ...
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
journalist who founded modern political
Zionism
Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
, was also a member of a .
However, he resigned two years after he joined because of the fraternity's antisemitism.
Postwar
While in communist
East Germany
East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...
were prohibited as representatives of a bourgeois attitude to be extinguished, in
West Germany
West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...
most were refounded in the 1950s. Some of them had to be transferred into other cities, since Germany had lost great parts of its territories after the Second World War, and many from East Germany also tried to find a new home. The allied victors had forbidden refounding originally, but this could not be upheld in a liberal surrounding. In the 1970s and 1980s, the , as many other student fraternities, underwent a crisis: a lack of new members and strong attacks by the leftist student community. In the 1990s many that had left Eastern Germany in the 1940s and 1950s returned to their traditional home universities in the East.
Today
Roughly 160 still exist today and many are organized in different organizations ranging from progressive to nationalistic. Among the latter is the Deutsche Burschenschaft organization (, German Burschenschaft), which represents about a third of the . Others are organized in the Schwarzburgbund (Schwarzburg League), the Neue Deutsche Burschenschaft (, New Germany Fraternity) or the Allgemeine Deutsche Burschenschaft (General German Student Union). While the still insists upon Fichte's idea of a German nation based on language, thought and culture, the favors defining Germany as the political Germany established by the
German Basic Law
The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany () is the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The West German Constitution was approved in Bonn on 8 May 1949 and came into effect on 23 May after having been approved by the oc ...
(constitution) in 1949 and altered by the 1990 unification. Many are not organized at all since they do not see an organization that represents their values sufficiently.
Because of the German emigration into Chile in the late 19th century, there are also some in Chile, organized in the Bund Chilenischer Burschenschaften in contact with the German and Austrian organizations. These are B! Araucania (Santiago), B! Andinia (Santiago), B! Montania (Concepción), B! Ripuaria (Viña Del Mar) and B! Vulkania (Valdivia). Contrary to popular belief, there is no precise political view point held by these Burschenschaften, in fact, they don't really mix with politics, mostly focusing on maintaining B! culture (still, fencing is prohibited in Chile).
Most are , i.e. their members must sustain a number of .
Academic fencing
Academic fencing () or is the traditional kind of fencing practiced by some student corporations () in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Latvia, Estonia, and, to a minor extent, in Belgium, Lithuania, and Poland. It is a traditional, strictly re ...
is still an important part of their self-understanding as well as political education.
Many , often found in certain "umbrella" organisations (such as the ), are associated with right-wing or
far-right
Far-right politics, often termed right-wing extremism, encompasses a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, and nativism. This political spectrum situates itself on the far end of the ...
ideas, in particular with the wish for a German state encompassing Austria.
In 2013 one Bonn fraternity proposed that only students of German origin should be eligible to join a . Reportedly half of member clubs threatened to leave in a row over proposed ID cards and a decision to label an opponent of
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
a "traitor".
Many of the that left the Deutsche Burschenschaft following this were later involved in the founding of a new organization, the .
Erich Adickes
Erich Adickes (29 June 1866, in Lesum – 8 July 1928, in Tübingen) was a German philosopher who wrote many important works on Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and the Kantian philosophy. Adickes was a critical empiricist (moderate Kantian).
Adickes ...
Rudolf Arndt
Rudolf Gottfried Arndt (31 March 1835 – 29 January 1900) was a German psychiatrist from Bialken, district of Marienwerder.
Biography
Arndt studied in Greifswald and Halle. As a student, his instructors included Felix von Niemeyer (182 ...
Ludwig Aschoff
Karl Albert Ludwig Aschoff (10 January 1866 – 24 June 1942) was a German physician and pathologist. He is considered to be one of the most influential pathologists of the early 20th century and is regarded as the most important German patholo ...
Hans Berger
Hans Berger (21 May 1873 – 1 June 1941) was a German psychiatrist. He is best known as the inventor of electroencephalography (EEG) in 1924, which is a method used for recording the electrical activity of the brain, commonly described in terms ...
Hans-Friedrich Blunck
Hans-Friedrich Blunck (3 September 1888 – 24 April 1961) was a German jurist and a writer. In the time of the Third Reich, he occupied various positions in Nazi
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-ri ...
(1888–1961)
*
Franz Boas
Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and ethnomusicologist. He was a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the mov ...
Paul Carell
Paul Carell was the post-war pen name of Paul Karl Schmidt (2 November 1911 – 20 June 1997) who was a writer and German propagandist. During the Nazi era, Schmidt served as the chief press spokesman for Joachim von Ribbentrop's Foreign Ministry. ...
(1911–1997)
*
Friedrich Wilhelm Carové
Friedrich Wilhelm Carové (June 20, 1789 – March 18, 1852) was a German philosopher and publicist.
Biography
He was a lawyer, held some judicial offices, was made doctor of philosophy by the University of Heidelberg, and officiated for a short ...
Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt
Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt (June 2, 1885 – December 30, 1964) was a German neurologist and neuropathologist. Although he is typically credited as the physician to first describe the Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, this has been disputed. He was bo ...
(1885–1964)
*
Johann Nepomuk Czermak
Johann Nepomuk Czermak (17 June 1828 – 16 September 1873) was an Austrian-German physiologist.
Biography
Czermak was born on 17 June 1828 in Prague. He studied in Prague, Vienna, Wrocław, Breslau and Würzburg. At Breslau he was greatly influe ...
Kurt Daluege
Kurt Max Franz Daluege (15 September 1897 – 24 October 1946) was a German ''SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer'' and ''Generaloberst'' of the police, the highest ranking police officer, who served as chief of ''Ordnungspolizei'' (Order Police) of N ...
Richard Dedekind
Julius Wilhelm Richard Dedekind (; ; 6 October 1831 – 12 February 1916) was a German mathematician who made important contributions to number theory, abstract algebra (particularly ring theory), and the axiomatic foundations of arithmetic. H ...
Paul Deussen
Paul Jakob Deussen (; 7 January 1845 – 6 July 1919) was a German Indologist and professor of philosophy at University of Kiel. Strongly influenced by Arthur Schopenhauer, Deussen was a friend of Friedrich Nietzsche and Swami Vivekananda. In ...
(1845–1919)
*
Ernst Dieffenbach
Johann Karl Ernst Dieffenbach (27 January 1811 – 1 October 1855), also known as Ernest Dieffenbach, was a German physician, geologist and naturalist, the first trained scientist to live and work in New Zealand, where he travelled widely under th ...
Martin Disteli
Martin Disteli (28 May 1802 in Olten – 18 March 1844 in Solothurn) was a Switzerland, Swiss painter.
Early years
He attended college in Solothurn 1817, then went to study in Lucerne from 1819 to 1821 (where he attended the very liberal zofi ...
Henri Druey
Daniel-Henri Druey (; 12 April 1799 – 29 March 1855) was a Swiss politician of the 19th century. He was a founding father of constitutional democracy and member of the Free Democratic Party in Switzerlan Early life
Druey was born in Faoug in ...
Irmfried Eberl
Irmfried Eberl (8 September 1910 – 16 February 1948) was an Austrian psychiatrist and medical director of the euthanasia institutes in Brandenburg and Bernburg, who helped set up and was the first commandant of the Treblinka extermination camp ...
Adolf Erman
Johann Peter Adolf Erman (; 31 October 185426 June 1937) was a German Egyptologist and lexicographer.
Education
Born in Berlin, he was the son of the physicist Georg Adolf Erman and grandson of the physicist Paul Erman and the astronomer Frie ...
(1854–1937)
*
Abraham Esau
Robert Abraham Esau (7 June 1884 – 12 May 1955) was a German physicist.
After receipt of his doctorate from the University of Berlin, Esau worked at Telefunken, where he pioneered very high frequency (VHF) waves used in radar, radio, and tele ...
Julius von Ficker
Julius Ficker or Julius von Ficker or Johann Kaspar Julius Ficker von Feldhaus (30 April 1826 – 10 June 1902) was a Roman Catholic Germans, German historian. In 1898 he was awarded the Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts.Hans Fischer (1881–1945)
* Wilhelm Fleischmann (1837–1920)
*
Walther Flemming
Walther Flemming (21 April 1843 – 4 August 1905) was a German biologist and a founder of cytogenetics.
He was born in Sachsenberg (now part of Schwerin) as the fifth child and only son of the psychiatrist Carl Friedrich Flemming (1799–1880 ...
Charles Follen
Charles (Karl) Theodor Christian Friedrich Follen (September 6, 1796 – January 13, 1840) was a Germans, German poet and patriot, who later moved to the United States and became the first professor of German language, German at Harvard Universi ...
Emil Frommel
Emil Frommel (1828–1896) was a German pastor and author, born at Karlsruhe. He studied at Halle upon Saale, Erlangen, and Heidelberg, held several pastorates, served as army chaplain in the Franco-German War of 1870–1871 and in 1872 was app ...
Hans Geiger
Johannes Wilhelm Geiger ( , ; ; 30 September 1882 – 24 September 1945) was a German nuclear physicist. He is known as the inventor of the Geiger counter, a device used to detect ionizing radiation, and for carrying out the Rutherford scatt ...
Otto von Gierke
Otto Friedrich von Gierke, born Otto Friedrich Gierke (11 January 1841 – 10 October 1921), was a German legal scholar and historian. He is considered today as one of the most influential and important legal scholars of the 19th and 20th centur ...
Bernhard von Gudden
Johann Bernhard Aloys von Gudden (7 June 1824 – 13 June 1886) was a German neuroanatomist and psychiatrist born in Kleve.
Career
In 1848, von Gudden earned his doctorate from the University of Halle and became an intern at the asylum in Siegbu ...
(1824–1886)
*
Eugen Gura
Eugen Gura (8 November 184226 August 1906) was a German operatic baritone.
Life
Gura was born in Nové Sedlo, Louny District, Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic).
He was at first educated for the career of a painter at Vienna and Munich; bu ...
Jörg Haider
Jörg Haider (; 26 January 1950 – 11 October 2008) was an Austrian politician. He was Governor of Carinthia on two occasions, the long-time leader of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and later Chairman of the Alliance for the Future of Au ...
Wilhelm von Hartel
Wilhelm August Ritter von Hartel (28 May 1839 – 14 January 1907) was an Austrian philologist specializing in Classics, classical studies.
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He was born at Dvorce (Bruntál District), Hof, in Moravia, and studied at the University of ...
Wolfgang Helbig
Wolfgang Helbig (2 February 1839 – 6 October 1915) was a German classical archaeologist born in Dresden. He is known for his studies involving the wall paintings of Campania (Pompeii).
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From 1856 to 1861 he studied philology and archae ...
Heinrich Hertz
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (; ; 22 February 1857 – 1 January 1894) was a German physicist who first conclusively proved the existence of the electromagnetic waves predicted by James Clerk Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism.
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Heinri ...
Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was an Austria-Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist and lawyer who was the father of Types of Zionism, modern political Zionism. Herzl formed the World Zionist Organization, Zionist Organizat ...
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and military leader who was the 4th of the (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful p ...
August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben
August Heinrich Hoffmann (, calling himself von Fallersleben, after his hometown; 2 April 179819 January 1874) was a German poet. He is best known for writing "", whose third stanza is now the national anthem of Germany, and a number of popular ...
Peter Kaiser
Peter Kaiser (born 4 December 1958) is an Austrian politician of the Social Democratic Party of Austria, Social Democratic Party. Since March 2013 he is List of governors of Carinthia, governor of Carinthia and since March 2010 also chairman of ...
(1793–1864)
*
Ernst Kaltenbrunner
Ernst Kaltenbrunner (4 October 1903 – 16 October 1946) was an Austrian high-ranking SS official during the Nazi era, major perpetrator of the Holocaust and convicted war criminal. After the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, and a ...
Francis Lieber
Francis Lieber (18 March 1798 – 2 October 1872) was a German-American jurist and political philosopher. He is best known for the Lieber Code, the first codification of the customary law and the laws of war for battlefield conduct, which serve ...
(1800–1871)
*
Theodor Mommsen
Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (; ; 30 November 1817 – 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician and archaeologist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest classicists of the 19th ce ...
Karl Ludwig Sand
Karl Ludwig Sand (Wunsiedel, Upper Franconia (then in Prussia), 5 October 1795 – Mannheim, 20 May 1820) was a German university student and member of a liberal Burschenschaft (student association). He was executed in 1820 for the murder of the ...
(1795–1820)
*
Carl Schurz
Carl Christian Schurz (; March 2, 1829 – May 14, 1906) was a German-American revolutionary and an American statesman, journalist, and reformer. He migrated to the United States after the German revolutions of 1848–1849 and became a prominent ...
(1829–1906)
*
Otto Skorzeny
Otto Johann Anton Skorzeny (12 June 1908 – 5 July 1975) was an Austrian-born German SS-''Standartenführer'' in the ''Waffen-SS'' during World War II. During the war, he was involved in a number of operations, including the removal from power ...
(1908–1975)
*
Lorenz von Stein
Lorenz von Stein (18 November 1815 – 23 September 1890) was a German economist, sociologist, and public administration scholar from Eckernförde. As an advisor to Meiji period Japan, his liberal political views influenced the wording of the ...
(1815–1890)
*
Gustav Stresemann
Gustav Ernst Stresemann (; 10 May 1878 – 3 October 1929) was a German statesman during the Weimar Republic who served as Chancellor of Germany#First German Republic (Weimar Republic, 1919–1933), chancellor of Germany from August to November 1 ...
Karl Ludwig Sand
Karl Ludwig Sand (Wunsiedel, Upper Franconia (then in Prussia), 5 October 1795 – Mannheim, 20 May 1820) was a German university student and member of a liberal Burschenschaft (student association). He was executed in 1820 for the murder of the ...