Free student body

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Board of Directors of Wildlife at the University of Zurich , 1908

As a free student body (also: Free Student Union , Finke shaft or wild shank ) designated the mergers of nichtkorporierten students who - according singled previous approaches - increasingly since the 1890 's under the influence of the youth movement at German universities spread. The free student movement is considered - after the original fraternity and the liberal progress of the 1840s - as the third important reform movement within the student body of the 19th century and at the same time as a pioneer of today's student self-administration .

precursor

Since the times of the original fraternity there had been repeated efforts to bring together those students who did not belong to any student union to form a general interest group. Above all in the 1840s and 1850s, in the course of the so-called progress movement , so -called wild life emerged at many universities . B. 1859 in Göttingen .

The name Wildschaft (later increasingly also Finkenschaft ) was based on terms from the traditional lads ' language, in which the non-incorporated were mockingly referred to as savages, finches, camels or obscurants . From around 1900 onwards, the neutral term `` free student body '' increasingly prevailed.

After the aforementioned early mergers proved to be short-lived, there was a renewed wave of foundings from the 1890s, e. B. in Freiburg 1892, Leipzig 1896, Halle and Königsberg 1898, Berlin and Stuttgart 1899. After the founding of the umbrella organization German Free Student Union in 1900, the movement spread to almost all universities in the empire in a short time.

Social origin of the free student body

The families of origin of the free students consisted to a large extent of the new middle classes, to which "commercial employees, lower civil servants, non-academic teachers and technical professions are counted". They also came from more liberal homes. Like the wandering birds  , they were encouraged to rebel against the traditional forms of student life. The free student body was therefore often perceived as a class struggle movement.

Pioneer of general student representation

Although mocked by the established student associations as an association of the non-members, the free students originally did not see themselves as a new corporation alongside others, but instead sought - like the original fraternity and the student progress - to create all-student representatives on the basis of general elections. After lengthy disputes with university authorities and corporations who saw their claim to sole representation threatened, the free student bodies finally limited themselves to representing the interests of the non-corporations in order to be able to form the first general student committees on this basis together with the connections . The creation of a student representation at the national level only succeeded after the First World War in the form of the German student body founded in 1919 .

Self-help and the principle of tolerance

Since, unlike in the mostly elitist associations, it was not uncommon for students of petty-bourgeois origin to be active in the free student bodies, they developed various forms of self-help for fellow students in need (lending libraries, discounted shops, employment agencies, canteens ), which were later developed by the the written student bodies or the student unions were continued. In addition, the free student movement advocated a contemporary reform of the course ( Studium Generale as a supplement to the specialist course) and committed itself to the social opening of the university, for example through the establishment of so-called workers' education courses .

In general political questions it initially committed itself to strict neutrality - on the one hand, because it already felt itself to be a preliminary form of the general student representation to be created, and on the other hand, it rejected the intellectual mobilization of some corporations (especially fraternities and VDSt ): "The free student body takes religious and party political matters under no circumstances ”, it says in their Weimar guidelines from 1913 .

Dissolution after 1918

After the First World War, the free student body quickly lost its importance as an independent movement, especially since it had achieved its main goal with the nationwide establishment of constitutional student bodies from 1920 . Many free students now devoted themselves to practical social work in the newly established student unions or became involved in the university groups of the political parties. On the other hand, the patriotic -minded wing of the free student body was for the most part absorbed into ethnic-nationalist groups ( Young German Order , German Guild , German University Ring ).

Well-known freelance students

Walter Benjamin , Walter A. Berendsohn , Arnold Bergstraesser , Immanuel Birnbaum , Rudolf Carnap , Eugen Diederichs , Alfred Döblin , Fritz Elsas , Ludwig Feuchtwanger , Wilhelm Flitner , Hans Freyer , Adolf Grimme , Romano Guardini , Ernst Heilmann , Karl Korsch , Carl Landauer , Susanne Leonhard , Kurt Lewin , Helmuth Plessner , Gustav Radbruch , Bernhard Reichenbach , Hans Reichenbach , Alexander Rustow , Alexander Schwab , Paul Ssymank , Otto Suhr , Arnold Zweig

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Georg Heer : History of the German Burschenschaft. Third volume: Die Zeit des Progresses from 1833 to 1859. Heidelberg 1929, p. 26.
  2. ^ Hans-Ulrich Wipf: Student policy and cultural reform. History of the free student movement 1896-1918 , Schwalbach / Ts. 2005 p. 226
  3. ^ Hans-Ulrich Wipf: Student policy and cultural reform. History of the free student movement 1896-1918 , Schwalbach / Ts. 2005 p. 31ff.