Association of German Student Unions

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The Association of German Student Associations (from 1975: United German Student Associations , abbreviated VDS or vds ) was the student interest group of the then Federal Republic and West Berlin from 1949 to 1990 . In the beginning, only the student bodies of universities and colleges with the right to award doctorates belonged to the VDS (around 50); after merging with the previously separately organized technical college representatives in 1975, the association had 161 members.

history

After the end of the Second World War , the Allies dissolved the German student body as a Nazi organization ( Control Council Act No. 2 ), but at the same time supported the rebuilding of democratic student bodies at German universities. From 1946 the first student days took place at zone level ; the only all-German student day in Berlin in 1948 was already overshadowed by the emerging East-West conflict . The initially freely elected student councils in the Soviet occupation zone saw themselves increasingly exposed to the power claims of the SED and FDJ . The resistance to this led to the establishment of the Free University in the western part of Berlin as well as to the division of the entire student body. On January 30, 1949, representatives of the West German and West Berlin universities founded the Association of German Student Associations in Marburg , which in July 1949 finally broke off all cooperation with the East German student councils.

In the period that followed, the association was primarily committed to looking after refugee students and fellow students who were politically persecuted in the GDR , to re-establishing contacts abroad and to the social issues of the students. The greatest political success of the VDS is still the introduction of general student support based on the so-called “ Honnef Model ” in 1957, from which today's BAföG later emerged. Later demands for a fundamental reform of the universities, especially for student participation, came to the fore. In 1962, a commission of the VDS wrote a highly regarded memorandum on the establishment and organization of new universities.

The highest organ of the VDS was the annual general meeting , in which the individual universities were represented by their AStA chairmen and, if necessary, other delegates. Between the general assemblies, the delegates' conference (from 1961 delegates council , from 1969 central council ) performed their legislative tasks and controlled the work of the board of directors, which usually consisted of four members . In addition to its office in Bonn, the VDS had several specialist offices, including the Office for All-German Student Issues (AGSF) in West Berlin and a social welfare office in Bonn, which was also responsible for looking after refugees and which later became the Otto Benecke Foundation . In addition, there was the General German University Sports Association (ADH) based in Darmstadt , which performed the tasks of a VDS sports office . In order to perceive technical issues, the local student councils were grouped together to form professional associations , from which today's federal student councils later emerged. In order to represent common interests, the VDS has formed the German Federal Student Association since 1952 with the student associations of the so-called “non-scientific” universities (educational universities, higher business and engineering schools) .

Politically, the VDS saw itself until the 1960s as a neutral representation of the interests of all students. Party political groups played only a minor role at the time, especially since the local student committees did not emerge from list elections for a long time , but - like today again at some East German universities - were made up of directly elected faculty representatives. Even traditional student associations were frowned upon in the VDS at the beginning; It was not until 1956 that a member of a strong connection succeeded in being elected chairman of the VDS. The openness of the VDS at the time is supported by the fact that its successor belonged to the Socialist German Student Union (SDS); Incidentally, both were careful not to be perceived as representatives of their respective group.

In the course of the student movement at the end of the 1960s, however, left groups won the majority in the ASten and VDS. In 1969 the leadership of the SDS tried temporarily to completely smash what they saw as the “reactionary” VDS after its transformation into a “revolutionary task force” had not succeeded. Within a few months, the Bonn office was closed and all assets were sold. After the publication of a "liquidation declaration", the SDS / VDS board finally resigned at the end of 1969, and an emergency board was appointed by the local court. After the self-dissolution of the SDS, other left groups - MSB Spartakus , Sozialistischer Hochschulbund (SHB), Juso university groups , Liberal University Association and grassroots groups - took over the leadership of the weakened VDS in the 1970s . Even the merger with the technical college associations in 1975 could not stop the association's loss of political importance in the long term.

At the beginning of 1990 the United German Student Unions finally broke up in a dispute after the various "currents" represented in it were unable to agree on the future work of the association or on the assessment of the Chinese Tian'anmen massacre in the summer of 1989. After the Juso university groups and (green alternative) basic groups moved out, the VDS were in fact dead; an official dissolution never took place due to the lack of a quorum.

The VDS was a member of the Western European Student Information Bureau (WESIB), today's European Students' Union (ESU).

Successor organizations

The free association of student bodies founded in 1993 is the de facto successor association of the VDS . In addition, the former VDS “Student Exchange Project Area” continues to exist as a registered association and today operates an exchange platform on the Internet. The “Travel Service of German Student Associations” (rds), in which the VDS was a majority shareholder, also exists to this day and acts as the authorized issuer of the ISIC international student card for Germany.

Well-known alumni

  • Hans Altendorf (board member 1972/73, SHB , later director at the Stasi records authority BStU )
  • Rudolf von Bennigsen-Foerder (board member 1949/50, later chairman of the board of VEBA AG)
  • Wolfgang Bergsdorf (VDS social officer 1963/64, former President of the University of Erfurt)
  • Pascal Beucker (Board member 1989/90, RSG , journalist)
  • Tissy Bruns (Board member since 1978, MSB Spartakus , journalist)
  • Joseph Bücker (board member 1953/54, later director at the German Bundestag)
  • Friedemann Büttner (board member 1961/62, later professor of politics at the Free University of Berlin)
  • Dieter-Julius Cronenberg (board member 1954/55, later Vice President of the Bundestag)
  • Frank Dahrendorf (board member 1956/57, later justice senator in Hamburg and interior senator in Berlin)
  • Eberhard Diepgen (Board member 1965/66, later Governing Mayor of Berlin)
  • Jochen Dietrich (Board member from 1977, SHB , author and journalist)
  • Christoph Ehmann (Chairman 1968/69, later, among others, State Secretary in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania)
  • Carl-Heinz Evers (Managing Director "Office for All-German Student Issues" 1950–1952, later School Senator in Berlin)
  • Fritz Fliszar (head of the political department 1966–1968, later federal manager of the FDP)
  • Herbert Gassert (Chairman 1953/54, later Chairman of the Board of BBC AG Mannheim)
  • Volker Gerhardt (Board member 1968/69, philosophy professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin)
  • Paul Leo Giani (board member 1965/66, later SPD politician in Hesse)
  • Helmut Glaszinski (founding chairman 1949, later manager at Mannesmann)
  • Gerhard Grohs (board member 1953/54, sociology professor in Mainz)
  • Rudolf Hartung (board member 1975/76, Juso university groups, SPD politician)
  • Hannes Heer (Board member 1969, freelance author and exhibition organizer)
  • Wolfgang Heinz (Head of Domestic Policy 1964–1966, FDP politician)
  • Ludolf Herrmann (VDS press officer 1961–1963, later editor-in-chief of Christ und Welt and Capital )
  • Otto Herz (board member 1967/68, later, inter alia, GEW federal board member)
  • Walter Hirche (Chairman 1966/67, later Minister of Economics in Brandenburg and Lower Saxony, 2002–2004 President of the German UNESCO Commission)
  • Gerd Köhler (Board member 1970/71, SHB , later until 2006 GEW federal board member)
  • Lothar Krappmann (chairman 1962–1964, later professor at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin)
  • Karl-Heinz Krems (Board member 1977/78, LHV , later SPD politician and State Secretary in North Rhine-Westphalia)
  • Manfred Lennings (chairman 1959/60, later manager in the coal and steel industry)
  • Wolfgang Lieb (member of the "Emergency Board" 1969/70, later State Secretary in North Rhine-Westphalia)
  • Steffen Lehndorff (Board member 1970/71, MSB Spartakus )
  • Klaus Meschkat (Chairman 1958/59, later Professor of Sociology)
  • Günter Meyer (Board member 1961/62, later CDU politician and Minister of State in Saxony)
  • Rolf Möller (2nd Chairman 1955/56, later Secretary General of the Volkswagen Foundation)
  • Bernhard von Mutius (Board member 1970/71)
  • Björn Pätzoldt (Board member 1968/69, publisher)
  • Helmut Reihlen (board member 1957/58, later director of the German Institute for Standardization and president of the regional synod of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg).
  • Ottmar Schreiner (Board member 1973/74, Juso university groups, SPD politician)
  • Dietrich Spangenberg (Head of the “Office for All-German Student Issues” of the VDS 1951–1958, later Head of the Senate Chancellery in Berlin and State Secretary in Bonn)
  • Ernst-Christoph Stolper (Chairman 1984–1986, LHV , later Chairman of the Young Democrats, Green politician, State Secretary in Rhineland-Palatinate, BUND)
  • Leander Sukov (Managing Director 1982–1984, at that time a member of the Juso-HSG, Freudenberger Kreis, now a writer, member of the PEN and the VS )
  • Walther Tröger (1953–1961 Managing Director of the General German University Sports Association (ADH), later President and Honorary President of the National Olympic Committee for Germany)
  • Peter Wahl , Member of the Management Board 1973/74, MSB Spartakus , later co-founder of attac
  • Christian Walther (Board member 1980/81, LHV , journalist)
  • Dieter Wellershoff (editor-in-chief of the Deutsche Studentenzeitung , freelance writer)
  • Dietrich Wetzel (chairman 1960/61, later publicist and Member of the Bundestag for The Greens )
  • Jürgen Wohlrabe , (Berlin state chairman 1960/61, as well as CDU and RCDS member)

literature

  • Uwe Rohwedder: Cold War and University Reform. The Association of German Student Unions in the Early Federal Republic (1949-69). Essen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8375-0748-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Minutes of the VDS founding meeting 1975, pp. 3–6.
  2. ^ Detlev E. Otto: Students in divided Germany. A report on the relations between the student bodies in East and West Germany 1945 to 1958. Bonn 1959 (Schriften des VDS; 1)
  3. ↑ Klaus Meschkat: What is the state worth the offspring? The debate about the model of general student support in the Federal Republic and West Berlin , Bonn 1960 (writings of the VDS; 2)
  4. ^ Students and the new university. Expert opinion of a commission of the VDS for the establishment of scientific universities. Bonn 1962.
  5. ↑ Marianne Krüger-Potratz (Ed.): Foundation for integration! 50 years of OBS - commitment to qualification and participation ; V&R unipress GmbH, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8471-0397-4 .
  6. ↑ Rohwedder p. 61 ff.
  7. ↑ Rohwedder p. 73 ff.
  8. ↑ Less talk. In: Der Spiegel 43/1990 online version
  9. ↑ studienplatztausch.de
  10. ↑ isic.de