Republican student cartel

The Republican Student Cartel (also: Reich Cartel of the German Republican Student Union , from 1928: German Republikanischer Studentenbund ) was an amalgamation of left and liberal student associations during the Weimar Republic .

The establishment of the cartel on July 31 and August 1, 1922 in Jena was an immediate reaction to the murder of the liberal Reich Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau and the "openly expressed sympathy that many students harbored for the assassins". The main aim of the cartel was therefore the fight against rampant nationalism and anti-Semitism within the student body and the advocacy of the endangered republic.

The cartel was mainly supported by the university groups of the Weimar coalition parties , i. H. from the SPD -related Association of Socialist Students , the Reich Association of German Democratic Students and the Working Group of Republican Center Students ; in addition there was the German Pacifist Student Union . The communist student groups, who also tried to get accepted into the cartel, were denied this "because of their lack of republican reliability."

At the universities, the local cartels competed with joint lists of candidates for the annual AStA elections, but in the long run were unable to prevail over the predominantly right-wing student associations and völkisch-nationalist associations such as the German University Ring.

Not least because of this, the cartel was transformed into a more tightly organized student union on the basis of individual membership at the beginning of 1928, which was chaired by the later mayor of Frankfurt, Walter Kolb . At times the federal government worked closely with the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold and organized joint political rallies with it, including a Republican Wartburg Festival in May 1929. However, its influence within the universities remained minimal and the rise of the National Socialist German Student Union ( NSDStB) ultimately do not prevent it.

Kartell and Studentenbund temporarily published their own magazine, Die Junge Republik .

literature

Wilhelm Kreutz: Students fighting for the Weimar Republic. From the 'Reich Cartel of Republican Students' to the 'Republican Student Union' (1922–1933) , in: Yearbook for University History Vol. 17 (2014), pp. 185–199.
Franz Walter: Socialist academic and intellectual organizations in the Weimar Republic , Bonn 1990. ISBN 3-8012-4009-6 (on the RSK: pp. 69-76)

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b F: Walter: Socialist academic and intellectual organizations in the Weimar Republic , p. 70.
↑ The latter was of course a numerically small spin-off of the " Reichsverband Deutscher Zentrumsstudenten ", which was the official university association of the Center Party, but was fiercely opposed by the Catholic corporation associations (CV, KV). See Golücke, Studentensprachebuch , Graz 1987, pp. 34 and 367.

[a-1] A ^b F: Walter: Socialist academic and intellectual organizations in the Weimar Republic , p. 70.

[2] The latter was of course a numerically small spin-off of the " Reichsverband Deutscher Zentrumsstudenten ", which was the official university association of the Center Party, but was fiercely opposed by the Catholic corporation associations (CV, KV). See Golücke, Studentensprachebuch , Graz 1987, pp. 34 and 367.