Heidelberg Senior Citizens' Convention

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Complete General Boys' Commentary of the Heidelberg Corps (1813)

The Heidelberger Senioren-Convent (Heidelberger SC) is the senior citizens' convent of the Kösener Corps at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg . With over 200 years of tradition, it is the oldest still existing student institution in Heidelberg.

Constitution and first comments

Register sheet of Rhenania II (1822)

With the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1803, the right bank of the Rhine Palatinate with the university town of Heidelberg fell to the electorate and later Grand Duchy of Baden. The increasing liberalization of the Catholic university, which was dominated by the Jesuits under the Wittelsbachers , led to a flourishing of student life and to the freer development of corporations, which until then could only operate in Heidelberg to a very limited extent. At the end of the 18th century, student orders had been formed (there is evidence of harmonists and constantists in Heidelberg ). However, various indications already speak for the existence of Landsmannschaft before 1800. The first reliable evidence is available with the establishment of the Rhineland Landsmannschaft on July 23, 1802, which was probably initiated from Giessen or Jena. This "Society of the Rhinelander" (Rhenania I) closed the oldest surviving SC Comment with the Frankobadenia, which was constituted in 1803 . Rhinelander and Franco-Baden recognized each other as the only admissible corporations at the university and, as the executive body, formed the actual senior citizens' convention, which was composed of three of the older members of each country team. It served to coordinate the procedure together "in public affairs". All foreign academics staying or passing through Heidelberg were subject to the comment if they wanted to enjoy the same rights as the students belonging to the SC. More detailed regulations governed the duel and wear and tear system .

Both national teams were decidedly anti-religious. Nevertheless, Rhenania was probably infiltrated by the Constantist Order in 1804 and soon split into two independent country teams of the Upper Rhine (Rhenania superior) and Lower Rhine (Rhenania inferior). Frankobadenia died in 1805. The reorganization of the university under Karl Friedrich von Baden ensured a massive influx of students, especially from northern Germany. Under the rectorate of Anton Friedrich Justus Thibaut , the number of enrolled students doubled from under 200 to more than 400. The result was the successive establishment of further country teams.

Origin of the term "corps"

In the summer semester of 1806, the country teams of the Upper Rhine, Lower Rhine, Westphalia and Swabia existed. They concluded a new comment, which - much more detailed than the previous comment - also regulated the relationships between the Heidelberg Landsmannschaften and other universities and the relationship between the individual students in Heidelberg and the Landsmannschaften and individuals at other universities. An essential aspect was the fight against the medals, which were declared to be worn out per se and received no satisfaction . The legislative power over the students rested in the hands of the entire SC, the judiciary was exercised by the senior citizens . The Comment also were Renoncen subject could take the lesser rights claim for themselves as full members of the SC. They had to "put up with the fact that everyone and every country team conducts a special inspection of their behavior, insofar as this violates or could violate the Heidelberg Comment" . (Art. II.2.6)

The number of country teams was set at four. They delimited their areas of interest for the recruitment of their members through strict cantoning. Each country team was assigned a main canton and several secondary countries. The formation of new country teams could only take place with the consent of the SC and only outside the existing main cantons. At least 12 students had to come together to form a new country team. After the Swabians left, subject to the reconstitution of their compatriot in September 1808, the way was clear for the Curonen, which had been a club in Heidelberg since 1805 . They were constituted on November 8, 1808 under the name Curonia as the Landsmannschaft der Kurländer, d. H. of the Baltic Germans in the SC.

An important turning point in the early history of the Heidelberger SC were the events surrounding the disruption of a scale between the senior of the Westphalia and the senior of the Kurlanders on Hirschgasse by the Krings university pedel on March 22, 1810; the wooden comment broke out. In disputes between the two compatriots over the question of guilt, there were tumults in the city between supporters of both parties, which did not subside even after the arrest and expulsion of some ringleaders and the threat of requisitioning the military by the Senate. The SC split into two camps, Kurlander and Lower Rhine on the one hand, and Westphalia and Upper Rhine on the other. In order to emphasize their independence, the first two adopted the designation " Corps " instead of "Landsmannschaft" for the first time , which from here spread throughout almost all of Germany within a few years. The senior citizens of the Kurlander Ewald von Sacken and the Westphalian Adolph Carl von Kamptz had their dispute with a pistol duel near Hanau in April 1810 , in the course of which the Kurlander senior was killed. The outcome of the duel and the nature of the unrest prompted a tightened official ban on all connections.

The Kurlanders and the Lower Rhine, who once again assumed the simple name of Rhenania, were nevertheless re-constituted, as did the Vandals on March 23, 1810, who had moved to Heidelberg in greater numbers as a result of the Göttingen gendarme affair of 1809. March 1810 the Swabians . Likewise, members of the Corps Hannovera Göttingen constituted a branch corps in Heidelberg in the spring of 1810 with the Corps Hannovera Heidelberg , after they had already existed as a club in Heidelberg in the winter semester 1809/1810. These five connections were called “Corps” from then on and agreed on June 1, 1810 a new joint comment that was binding for the entire student body. In June the district director Friedrich von Manger was entrusted with the supervision of the dissolution of the connections as sovereign commissioner. Other members were evicted, and the two Vandalia officers were imprisoned at Dilsberg Fortress . The military suppressed new unrest without the corps being completely dissolved.

Extracts

Theodor Verhas : Torchlight procession of the Heidelberger SC on January 30, 1857

The repression of the riots of 1810 was not the first encounter with the military. As early as July 12, 1804, after a conflict between students and soldiers, the entire student body moved to Neuenheim under the leadership of the SC . The guilds and the magistrate asked the city director for their return. After consulting the elector, the rector promised satisfaction. The move to Neuenheim was the first of three cases of this form of student protest in Heidelberg.

A conflict with the museum society over the membership status of students led to the move to Frankenthal in 1828 , and in the context of the revolutionary unrest the Corps Vandalia and Nassovia took part in the move to Neustadt an der Haardt decided by the General Student Union in 1849. In this context there was another split in the SC, as Saxoborussia and Guestphalia refused to move out. An arbitration tribunal made up of three foreign SC decided the dispute in favor of Vandalia and the former Nassovia, newly constituted in January 1849 under the name Rhenania (IV). Saxoborussia joined the SC formed from Vandalia and Rhenania on May 5, 1849, followed in July by Guestphalia and Suevia, who had temporarily left the SC before the dispute over the move.

After arguments between corps students and members of the recently founded Wingolfsbund , five corps boys were relegated in 1856 and solemnly comitted to Ladenburg by the SC . After a violent dispute with the Ladenburg citizens there, all corps were dissolved by the academic senate (Ladenburg scandal). Due to the advocacy of the Vice Rector Achilles Renaud , the readmission took place in the following winter semester. As a thank you, the SC Renaud brought a torchlight procession.

Position in the 19th century

Exit of the Heidelberger SC to Bergstrasse (1861)
Philipp Franzmathes, SC servant, with striker in the colors of the five Heidelberg Corps and their scaling rackets (1896)

In the first half of the 19th century, the SC was recognized as a representative of the student body by non-affiliated students and was occasionally called upon as an arbitration tribunal. Until 1844, the non-corporates, the "savages", used to get permission from the SC when they held a torchlight procession. The declarations of disrepute issued against citizens were also generally regarded as binding. The university also approached senior citizens of the country teams or corps as mediators in the event of impending conflicts.

In October 1859 the Corps suspended Rhenania temporarily and could not reconstitute until 1862. The short-lived Helvetia established in this phase was the last new corps to be established in Heidelberg. Since its suspension, the SC consisted of the five corps Suevia , Guestphalia , Saxo-Borussia , Vandalia and Rhenania . This composition remained unchanged when the SC was dissolved in 1935.

Heidelberg took a leading position within the senior citizens' convention at German universities and was often called on as arbitrator and mediator in conflicts within other SC or between different SC (from Gießen, Marburg, Würzburg and other southern German universities). In December 1821, the SC decided to send its communications and reports to the corps in Bonn, Tübingen, Landshut, Halle, Jena, Leipzig, Erlangen and Breslau in the future. In 1848 the corps of various German universities met at the initiative of the Heidelberg vandal senior Friedrich von Klinggräff in Jena for the first joint congress and agreed common goals. The association constituted in this way received the name "Kösener SC Association" after its conference location in Kösen an der Saale. With the Heidelberg Club , former Heidelberg Corps students founded one of the early sociable associations of old men in Hamburg in the 1840s; it is considered the forerunner of the Academic Club in Hamburg .

In the imperial era, the Heidelberger SC was considered "particularly exclusive" due to its membership structure. Saxoborussia, which was mainly recruited from the Prussian nobility, had numerous high officials in the state and administration among its members. At Vandalia, mainly sons from Mecklenburg families, including many from the rural landowning milieu, were active. Guestphalia took on a similar clientele from the kingdom or the province of Hanover and Westphalia, the more upper-class, urban Rhenania, members of industrial and banking families, including a comparatively large number of Jewish origin in the 1850s and 1860s. As a state corps , Suevia primarily provided the leading officials of the Grand Duchy of Baden ; the previously strict cantons only played a subordinate role.

Well-known old men of the Heidelberg Corps were at that time:

Even in the years between the two world wars, the sons of industrialists and great agrarians as well as other upper classes formed the most important recruiting basis of the Heidelberg Corps, which set them apart from other student corporations in Heidelberg.

Weimar Republic and the time of National Socialism

After the First World War, the SC increasingly isolated itself, not only from other corporations in Heidelberg, but also within its own association. In 1922, the SC introduced the controversially discussed Heidelberg resolution that was intended to push back centralization tendencies and interventions by the association in the affairs of the individual SC and to preserve the special position of the individual universities and their SC. The SC largely sealed itself off from the increasing politicization of the student body in Heidelberg. He was politically disinterested and only took a small part in the business of the student council.

In the spring of 1934 the Allgemeine Deutsche Waffenring ordered the implementation of the Aryan regulations. The corps were asked to expel their Jewish and “ Jewish-infused ” members. As one of five Kösener Corps, Vandalia refused this measure and was expelled from the KSCV on May 22, 1934. The Heidelberg asparagus meal on May 21, 1935 caused a massive anti-corps student campaign in the Nazi press ( Der Stürmer , Völkischer Beobachter , Die Fanfare).

After the dissolution of the association in autumn 1935, the corps ceased active operations. The old rulers continued to exist, the corp houses were partially rented out.

In May 1934, on the initiative of the former Heidelberg student leader Gustav Adolf Scheel, the comradeship of Axel Schaffeld was established as the regular comradeship of the Heidelberg NSDStB . In 1938 she already had 20 old men of her own, but was unable to finance itself in the long term. The student tour therefore offered the SC senior clubs to support. In order to prevent their own dissolution, the AH clubs agreed. The takeover took place in May 1939. The comradeship moved into quarters in the summer semester of 1939 at the Schwabenhaus. Relationships that went beyond the payment of contributions hardly developed. No member of the comradeship was taken over when the Corps was re-established after 1945.

New beginning from 1949

Reconstitution of the Corps and restoration of the SC after the Second World War were rather hesitant. The old rulers initially supported new forms of student reform associations, such as Saxoborussia the Heidelberg district and Rhenania the Rhineland district . Vandalia and Guestphalia formed a dinner party. The tendencies were markedly progressive, especially in the overwhelming rejection of the scale length . The Heidelberger Corps initially spoke out against the re-establishment of the KSCV operated by the Association of Old Corps Students . It was not until the beginning of the 1950s that most of the active members of the reform associations decided to return to traditional forms of corps students and, with the support of the re-establishment of the KSCV, also to reintroduce the censorship. In the 1950s, the SC was still one of the founders of the Heidelberg Interest Group (HIG), the special purpose association of corporations with a lean backing to protect their interests vis-à-vis the university. The merger was mainly due to the public pressure from the then still valid allied ban on striking corporations and their rejection by most of the university administrations. In 1958, following a separate agreement between the SC and the rector of the university, it broke with the HIG.

The corps of the Heidelberger SC took a prominent position in the dining room debate. The old gentlemen's associations of Vandalia and Guestphalia already spoke in 1957 for a strict ban on satisfaction with the weapon and, in the event of a contrary decision, offered the association a solution. At the end of the 1970s, the Heidelberger SC, together with some corps of the Green and Blue Circle, pushed the discussion about the abolition of the determination of censorship. In this critical phase, the Heidelberger SC provided Hanns-Eberhard Schleyer , the local spokesman for the KSCV. As the only corps, however, Vandalo-Guestphalia gave up hitting scales in 1972 and resigned from the KSCV and thus also from the Heidelberger SC. Since then the latter has only consisted of the Corps Suevia, Saxoborussia and Rhenania, which no longer question the scale as a basic principle of corps students.

In the perception of their critics, the corps of the Heidelberger SC in their strict isolation from the outside world are still representatives of an “extreme elite idea”. They “are still considered to be particularly 'steep' connections even among the corps.” What is meant by this is a particularly strict regulation of systematic alcohol consumption and subordination to the connection hierarchy.

Corps of the Heidelberger SC

Surname Duration Colours Remarks
Alemannia 1828-1831 black-blue-white, from 9./10. May 1829 black-white-blue Parts absorbed in Palatia II
Curonia 1805-1820 green-blue-white
Frankobadenia 1803-1805 Compatriot
Guestphalia I 1806-1818 green-black-white
Guestphalia II 1818-1935 green-white-black 1951 merged to Vandalo-Guestphalia
Hannovera 1810-1812 blue red Branch corps of the Corps Hannovera Göttingen
Hanseatia 1828-1841 white-red-white
Hassia I 1818-1820 black-green-red Converted to Rhenania II
Hassia II 1821-1825 black-green-red
Hassia III 1829-1836 green-white-red Converted to Rhenania III
Helvetia I 1811-1828 green-red-gold
Helvetia II 1831-1847 green-red-gold
Helvetia III 1859-1862 red-white- (narrow) red
Holsatia 1811-1825 Red White
Livonia 1806 red-white-green
Nassovia I 1813-1818 violet-blue-yellow Converted to Hassia I
Nassovia II 1838-1849 blue-white-orange Converted to Rhenania IV
Palatia I. 1805 Country team, converted into Suevia I
Palatia II 1831-1832 green-white-blue
Palatia III 1842-1844 green-white-blue
Rhenania I 1802-1805 blue White Red Compatriot
Rhenania inferior 1805- blue-red-white with gold
Rhenania superior 1805- blue-white-red with gold (later silver)
Rhenania II 1820-1833 blue White Red
Rhenania III 1836-1842 blue White Red
Rhenania IV since 1849 blue White Red
Saxonia 1812-1813 dark blue-light blue-white
Saxoborussia since 1820 white-green-black-white
Suevia I 1805-1808 black-white-yellow (from below)
Suevia II since 1810 black-yellow-white (from below)
Vandalia I 1805-1817 blood red gold
Vandalia II 1836 blue-red-gold
Vandalia III 1842-1935 gold-red-gold 1951 merged to Vandalo-Guestphalia
Vandalo Guestphalia 1951-1972 gold-green-gold Exit from the SC after giving up the scale

Corp. houses and SC premises

Houses

Until the 1870s and 1880s, the Corps pubs in changing restaurants in Heidelberg's old town. In 1874, Saxo-Borussia was the first corps to buy the "Müller-Sattlerei" pub, built in 1802 on the northern slope of the Gaisberg and which had served as the corps' traffic bar since 1825 . The house still exists today with minor changes. Saxo-Borussia was the only Heidelberg corps to not build a new building.

For many years, Suevia had her pub in the "Eisenhardt'schen Keller" on the rise of the Klingenteich. The house, which was originally located directly on the former railway line to Schlierbach, was acquired by the Corps in 1886 and replaced in 1904/05 by the new building of the current house with the magnificent façade facing St. Peter's Church according to plans by the Mannheim architect Rudolf Tillessen . The Corps Rhenania bought the baroque building at Hauptstrasse 231 in 1882, in the place of which a new building in neo-baroque forms was built between 1907 and 1909 according to plans by Eugen Drollinger , which is particularly impressive with its significant Art Nouveau furnishings.

From 1882 to 1892, Vandalia had a castle-like complex built in Gothic and Renaissance styles by the Cologne cathedral builder Heinrich Wiethase at Schlossstrasse 2 . It is dominated by the massive west tower facing the street across from the Bremeneck. In 1886 Guestphalia moved into the neighboring house at Schlossstrasse 4, which the Heidelberg architect Behagel had built entirely in red sandstone with elements from neo-Gothic and Renaissance styles.

Seppl

Since 1884 the Gasthaus Zum Seppl was the official restaurant of the Heidelberger SC. The reason for this award was a dispute between the SC and a local black association in the winter semester of 1882/83, during which the Academic Senate imposed a number of prison sentences, including against almost all members of the SC. This prompted the sending of a delegation from the Heidelberg bourgeoisie under the leadership of Sepplowner Joseph Ditteney to Grand Duke Friedrich I. As a reminder, the corps donated the stained glass windows that were still preserved with the coats of arms of the five corps at that time. On the walls of the restaurant there are mainly lithographs and historical photographs of the Heidelberg Corps.

Theaters

Since the first half of the 19th century, the scale lengths of the Heidelberger SC have mostly taken place on Hirschgasse . At first they often crammed in the forest near Hirschgasse, later in the large hall of the house itself. Because of the strict control of the scale ban in Heidelberg after the First World War, the SC temporarily switched to the "harp" to Neckargemünd or to Neckarsteinach in Hesse , where the Surveillance was less strict. With the relaxation of the legislation in the summer semester of 1933, the mensur days were held regularly in Heidelberg again until the corporation associations were dissolved in 1935/36.

Even after the Second World War it was not possible to fight openly at first. The first scales took place in the corporation houses. Only gradually did the drumbeat return to Hirschgasse. After a fire in the winter of 1954, the interior of the building was redesigned. The drum hall was rebuilt in simpler forms. The last measure there was in 1979. Today the corps of the Heidelberger SC fight almost exclusively on their houses.

See also

literature

  • From the early days of the Heidelberg, Tübingen and Göttingen S [enioren-] C [onvents] 1807–1809. Correspondence between the Heidelberg Swabians Georg Kloß Rhenaniae and Hannoverae Göttingen and Alexander Stein. Once and now , special volume 1963
  • Gerhart Berger, Detlev Aurand: ... Weiland Bursch zu Heidelberg ... A commemorative publication by the Heidelberg corporations for the 600th anniversary of Ruperto Carola . Heidelberg 1986.
  • Corps life in Heidelberg during the nineteenth century. Commemorative publication for the five hundredth anniversary of the university . Heidelberg 1886.
  • Philipp Franzmathes: The scale lengths of the Heidelberger SC from the winter semester of 1880 . Heidelberg 1896.
  • The Heidelberg Student Corps. Her last experiences and eventual suppression by the inner senate of the university in July 1856 . Heidelberg 1856.
  • Ed. Heyck: Heidelberg student life at the beginning of our century. According to letters and files . Heidelberg 1886
  • Lees Knowles: A day with corps-students in Germany . 1913 ( digitized version )
  • Adolf Kussmaul : childhood memories of an old doctor . Stuttgart 1899, chap. 33: The SC (9th edition 1912, 14th – 18th edition Stuttgart 1923, 20th edition Munich 1960). Digitization (Gutenberg project)

Web links

Commons : Senior Citizens' Convention in Heidelberg  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b Heidelberg. Comment from 1803 and 1806 , in: 14 of the oldest SC commens before 1820 . Once and Now , special issue 1967, pp. 24–28.
  2. From the early days of the Heidelberger, Tübinger and Göttinger SC 1807–1809. Correspondence between the Heidelberg Swabians Georg Kloß Rhenaniae and Hannoverae Göttingen and Alexander Stein. Special edition once and now , 1963.
  3. ^ Wilhelm Schack-Steffenhagen: The Convente of Curonia at the Universities of Germany 1801-1831. In: Festschrift der Curonia. Bonn 1958, p. 146 ff.
  4. ^ Wilhelm Schack-Steffenhagen: The Convente of Curonia at the Universities of Germany 1801-1831. In: Festschrift der Curonia. Bonn 1958, p. 147 ff.
  5. Ewald (Carl Friedrich) von Sacken, matriculated October 10, 1808 from Mitau with the remark "is his own master" was a senior of the Kurlanders ( Kösener Korps-Lists 1910 , 111 , No. 4) † 1810, shot by the (by name prescribed) stud. Gambs also mentions Alexander von Dusch in his Fleeting Notes from My Life, written in 1860, as “Prussian”.
  6. Adolph Carl (Ernst) von Kamptz ( Kösener Korps-Lists 1910 , 112 , No. 75) enrolled on November 2, 1808 ex ac. Rostock (enrolled there according to the Rostock registry portal 1806. His father was chamberlain and landdrost in Mirow . Kamptz was a violinist and friend of Carl Maria von Weber ; he died as prime captain in the war of liberation in the battle near Möckern .
  7. See also: Richard Du Moulin-Eckart : History of the German Universities , F. Enke. Stuttgart 1929, p. 66; Franz Stadtmüller : Corps history of the Corps Hannovera zu Göttingen , Göttingen 1964, p. 43, describes the course of multiple setting in avantage particularly vividly ...
  8. Erich Bauer , Friedrich August Pietzsch: Critical to the initial history of the Göttingen and Heidelberg Vandalia in: Yearbook Einst und Jetzt Volume 10 (1965), pp. 108-124
  9. Hanna Feesche, Robert Mueller-Stahl: A ride with consequences. The Göttingen Gendarme Affair (1809). In: Franz Walter / Teresa Nentwig (eds.): The offended Gänseliesel - 250 years of scandal stories in Göttingen , V&R Academic, Göttingen 2016, pp. 40–47.
  10. ^ Karsten Bahnson: Academic excerpts from German university and college locations , Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1973
  11. Florian Hoffmann: "Boys out!" - The move of the Heidelberg student body to Frankenthal in 1828 , in: Frankenthal once and now 1/2, 2000, pp. 48–51
  12. ^ Berthold Kuhnert: History of the Corps Rhenania Heidelberg 1802–1869 . Part I, 1913, p. 95.
  13. ^ A [dolf] Ernst von Ernsthausen: Memories of a Prussian official . Bielefeld, Leipzig 1894, p. 38.
  14. Ed. Heyck: Heidelberg student life at the beginning of our century . Heidelberg 1886, p. 57.
  15. ^ A [dolf] Ernst von Ernsthausen: Memories of a Prussian official . Bielefeld, Leipzig 1894, p. 44.
  16. ^ Robert Paschke : The efforts of the German corps to unite until 1848 . In: then and now. Yearbook of the Association for Corporate Student History Research 3 (1958), p. 11.
  17. Detlev Grieswelle: On the sociology of the Kösener Corps 1870-1914 , in: Christian Helfer , Mohammed Rassem (ed.): Student and University in the 19th Century . Göttingen 1975, p. 356 ff.
  18. Norbert Giovannini: Between Republic and Fascism. Heidelberg students 1918–1945 . Weinheim 1990, p. 80.
  19. Arne Lankenau: "Dark the future - bright the courage!" The Heidelberg student associations in the Weimar Republic 1918–1929 . Heidelberg 2008, p. 56.
  20. ^ Senger: The Heidelberg resolution . DCZ 39 (1922/23), p. 122 f.
  21. ^ Hans Knoerzer: The Heidelberg resolution and the German university ring . DCZ 39 (1922/23), pp. 192-202
  22. ^ W. Breunig: The history of comradeship . In: Mitteilungsblatt der Kameradschaft und Altherrenschaft "Axel Schaffeld" 2 (November 1939), pp. 10-13.
  23. Erich Bauer : The comradeships in the area of ​​the Kösener SC in the years 1937–1945 . In: then and now. Yearbook of the Association for Corporate Student History Research 1 (1956), pp. 5–40, here: p. 26
  24. Student associations in Heidelberg, compilation of the Heidelberg Autonomous Center, item 1.3.1
  25. Herbert Grathwol: Heidelberger corporate houses , in: Gerhart Berger, Detlev Aurand: ... Weiland Bursch to Heidelberg ... . Heidelberg 1986, pp. 264-296.
  26. Florian Hoffmann: 100 years of the Heidelberg Rhenanenhaus. History-architecture-environment . 1909–2009, Heidelberg 2009
  27. Geert Seelig : A Heidelberg boy fifty years ago. From German students, Schleswig-Holstein lawyers and soldiers in Berlin in the Bismarckian Empire . Heidelberg 1933, p. 125.