Marburg Manifesto

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The Marburg Manifesto is a declaration of April 17, 1968 in which 35 professors from the Philipps University of Marburg oppose the transfer of the parliamentary system of proportional representation - that is, the proportional representation system including student representatives - to the universities and against a "democratization" of the universities Put up a fight. Another 1,500 conservative and traditionally employed university professors from around 30 universities in what was then West German federal states followed.

Starting position

An early starting point for this “declaration of protest” is the material expansion of the (West) German university landscape recommended by the Science Council at the beginning of the 1960s, which proved to be necessary and therefore necessary due to the increased number of students, the expanded range of subjects and more modern equipment was implemented accordingly by the Standing Conference (KMK). At first, the traditional structures of a so-called “full-time university” were not touched, but only questions about university teachers' salaries, among other things, were clarified.

Against the background of the West German student movement of the 1960s, however , this conservative attitude could no longer be maintained and the universities were required to take into account the increasing efforts of students to participate. The state of Hesse played a pioneering role: on May 11, 1966, it was the first federal state to pass a new general higher education law, which, among other things, stipulated the participation of students in the election of the rector. This did not go far enough for the Socialist German Student Union and it came to the demand for a " functionally appropriate participation of the groups involved in research and teaching, including the students ", which advanced as equal participation under the catchphrase "democratization" to the battle term. The then rector Otfried Madelung then proposed in December 1967 that the Senate approve parity participation, which in the "Marburg model case" resulted in 40% professorships, 20% non-ordinaries, 20% academic staff and 20% student representatives in the "constitutional" Senate .

On January 9, 1968, the West German Rectors' Conference adopted a reform program for the universities that met the demands of the student body for the democratization and modernization of university operations, and recommended expanded information and advice rights. Shortly thereafter, a written memorandum was created by initially 23 professors from the Marburg University of Applied Sciences, in which the student spokesmen assumed a kind of seizure of power under ideological aspects. It said it was "one to believe error, the University body could be a mirror image of a democratic body politic be ". On February 26, 1968, the professor for church and dogma history Ernst Benz also articulated his " objections to the application of so-called democratization to the university " in the newspaper Die Welt . As a result, there were massive protests, especially by the Humanist Student Union based in Marburg and the AStA chairman Christoph Ehmann , but also by individual members of the teaching staff. This in turn prompted the professor of civil law Ernst Wolf to threaten the AStA chairman with a lawsuit for damages and to accuse his colleague Wolfgang Abendroth of lacking loyalty to the constitution.

On April 10, 1968, the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs resolved new “principles for modern higher education law and for a structural reorganization of the higher education system”, which were intended to give all groups of universities more say and to limit the privileges of university teachers. As a result, Wolf, Benz and 33 other colleagues finally drafted the “Marburg Manifesto”. In this manifesto , in a slightly weaker form than in the first memorandum, they spoke out against full student participation and overly broad reform efforts.

Content

The 35 Marburg professors expressed their serious concerns about the “democratization of the university” in six sections in the Marburg Manifesto, and they now renounced the overly aggressive formulations that were initially contained in the “Memorandum of 23”. For example, historically charged terms such as “seizure of power” or “national body” no longer appear. The paragraphs describe the following aspects in detail:

  1. The demand for a fifth or even third participation of student representatives in relevant university committees contradicts the freedom of scientific research and teaching guaranteed by the Basic Law and thus of university self-administration. Furthermore, the authors deny the students the legitimation to replace parliamentary representatives and at the same time question whether a student body as a compulsory organization with a political mandate is at all legal.
  2. If a system of proportional representation were introduced, the organizational structure of the universities would break down into interest groups, in which people would sit who were first preparing to learn science and who also only stayed briefly at a university as students. From the point of view of the authors, it could not be that sworn university lecturers who are responsible under disciplinary law should be treated on an equal footing with students who lack specialist knowledge and who are also released from any legal responsibility, since there is no effective student disciplinary law and thus state liability would have to arise for student representatives who are not themselves liable .
  3. If a system of proportional representation were introduced, the university committees would swell to an unclear size and, in endless debates, would become incapacitated and more expensive, which could wear down the work ethic of scientists and researchers. In addition, there would be a discrepancy between the competence and the responsibility for decisions, since the student representatives wanted to have a say in decisions, but the implementation of the decisions would only be expected of the university lecturers.
  4. The Marburg model case would not only mean a constitutional amendment, but would create a completely new institution, for whose legal validity the old university constitution, the main features of which was supposed to be unhinged, could not be used. In addition, this process is incompatible with Article 5, Paragraph 3 of the Basic Law, since such a reorganization of the university constitution would endanger scientific research and teaching in a manner contrary to fundamental rights.
  5. The university professors considered it unlawful and incompatible with their oath of office to be loyal to constitutional changes that made it impossible to fulfill their duties to the best of their knowledge and belief, as they were contrary to the requirements of the oath of office.
  6. In paragraph 6, the authors point out that no “ civilized states ” on earth had the idea of ​​democratizing their universities. No society can afford to force its highly qualified specialists to make their substantive decisions dependent on members who are bound by instructions, are not competent and are not responsible. These dependencies and the time-consuming meetings in the institute councils would also lead to a dangerous competitive disadvantage for the private sector. The signatories agree that a democratization of universities would result in a weakened German university landscape. On the other hand, they are in favor of a reform in which, in addition to the ordinaries, non-ordinaries and academic staff can also be given a graded say in accordance with their qualifications, but finally emphasize once again the rejection of the learner's right of participation in questions of research and teaching.

Reactions

After the manifesto was signed in Marburg on April 17, 1968, it was put into circulation by the "Working Group for the Protection of Freedom of Research and Teaching" and signed by around 1,500 university lecturers, ultimately more than a quarter of all professors at around 30 universities in West Germany. From a statistical point of view, these were predominantly male university professors who were born at the beginning of the 20th century and were largely shaped by a Prussian upbringing and the experience of the Weimar period and the period of National Socialism .

At the Marburg University, however, resistance to the theses of the manifesto and their possible acceptance in politics grew. The Marburg sociology professor Werner Hofmann as well as Wolfgang Abendroth and other university professors founded the Association of Democratic Scientists (BdWi) in the same year , which was supposed to secure the university's autonomy and promote further democratization.

In return, a large number of those who signed the manifesto joined the Bund Freiheit der Wissenschaft e. V., which was founded in Bad Godesberg in 1970 as a reaction to the student movement and opposed a politicization of science known only from totalitarian systems. The Marburg lawyer Ernst Wolf also considered a constitutional lawsuit against the political plans, but was given no chance. Abendroth saw in the conservative prejudices of the manifesto a contradiction to the Basic Law and Hofmann interpreted the manifesto as the swan song of the "Ordinarienuniversität", that is, the university constitution , which until the early 1970s was traditionally dominated exclusively by the professors . Ultimately, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled in a landmark ruling of May 29, 1973 that structuring universities according to groups with a say is constitutional and does not automatically restrict academic freedom. In this way, the organizational form of the group university was anchored in principle , albeit only with a majority of professors under constitutional law.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Torsten Bultmann: Protest of the professors . linksnet.de, March 25, 2015
  2. ↑ BVerfGE 35, 79 (University judgment of May 29, 1973).
  3. ↑ Can the democratization of the university be against the constitution? on: studis-online, April 14, 2009