Student history

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Founding resolution of the university archive of the German Student Union (1919)

The student history is a research field of university history and deals with the cultural and social history of the students from the Middle Ages to the present day. In the German-speaking area, for a long time, it was mainly run by historians and barefoot historians from the area of student associations . Recently, student history issues have also attracted increasing interest in academic discourse and have now developed into a "separate, increasingly distinctive research field".

development

The preoccupation with the history of students and their customs began in German-speaking countries towards the end of the 19th century. Its initiators were often corporate lay scholars and antiquarians , but also studied historians such as Wilhelm Erman , Wilhelm Fabricius and Paul Ssymank . The latter received a teaching position for university and student history for the first time in Göttingen in 1920, where he founded the Institute for University Studies - which was later moved to Würzburg . The permanent establishment of the new discipline of higher education failed, however, initially due to a lack of money and - after 1933 - to the political influence of the National Socialist Reich student leadership : In 1936, they ordered the establishment of a new research institute in Würzburg, in which the holdings of the (formerly Göttingen) institute with confiscated archives several corporation associations, with filings from the German student body , the German student union and the NS student union as well as purchased private collections were combined. Plans to set up a chair at the local university , however, were dashed again.

After the Second World War, it was again the corporate student historians who resumed their annual conferences in 1954, which had been founded in 1924. Around the same time, in addition to the Society for Fraternity History Research, which had existed since 1909, other associations were established that primarily dealt with the history of fraternity : for example the Association for Corps Student History Research (1956), the Student History Association of the Coburg Convent (1959) the Austrian Association for Student History (1969), the Association for German Student History (GDS, 1974) and the Swiss Association for Student History (SVSt, 1984).

At the same time, university history began to be interested in the topic since the 1960s: Based on Thomas Nipperdey , Wolfgang Zorn and Michael H. Kater , numerous studies were initially published, in particular on the development of right-wing radicalism in the student body of the Weimar Republic . Since the 1990s at the latest, there has been a more intensive preoccupation with student history topics, whereby these are increasingly embedded in general mentality, intellectual and cultural history contexts. It took another decade before research on the role of corporates in the Third Reich began. A comprehensive student historical account of this period, which takes into account perpetrators, victims and resistance fighters from the ranks of the corporates, is of course still pending.

The German Student History Foundation was established in 2005 by the GDS to promote student historiography .

Current state of research

This article or section needs to be revised. Details should be given on the talk page. Please help to improve it , and then remove this flag.

In contrast to the history of science , student history has not yet been offered as an independent subject in German-speaking countries and still leads a “shadowy existence”.

The main research areas of student history are the socialization of students in student associations , the history of student associations and women's studies, and the political attitudes of students. Studies on everyday life and the students' self-image are still largely lacking, as is their actual study behavior.

While the mediaeval student history is already relatively well understood, the literature and sources for the period of the early modern period between the Reformation and the French Revolution are only very rudimentary. In contrast to that of the 19th century and that of the first half of the 20th century, the student history of the time after the Second World War has also been little researched and still represents a “painful research desideratum ”.

The literature on student history of the Empire period is largely concerned with corporate history. Regardless of its origin, it is often written very one-sidedly, as it mostly comes either from interested corporates or from critics of liaison fixed on criticism of ideology .

Corporation history

For a long time, the main focus of research on the history of students was the history of corporations, mainly carried out by historians and barefoot historians from the field of student associations, especially the history of student associations in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. This is attributed, on the one hand, to the cultural needs of the connections and, on the other hand, to the good source situation; this is how the student historian Harald Lönnecker describes :

“While the student who does not belong to any corporation only enriches the statistics and is hardly tangible for historical research due to the lack of sources, joining a connection - the“ active reporting ”- has the character of an (ideological) commitment. The student takes shape by standing up for the principles of his connection and living them. But by maintaining the traditions of the corporations, he also survives, he remains visible in his time for the following generations, becomes an example. "

From this and from the focus on the history of the corporations, it follows that even today a large part of the German-speaking student historians themselves belong to a student association . The historian Michael Gehler stated that “a large part of those who [...] deal with student history in general and corporation history in the narrower sense are liaison members [...], an interest group that shares 'their' history - often very critical and objectively - wants to write himself and mostly want to see it presented from their perspective, which means that access to student history [...] is not always easy for freelance students, non-incorporated historians. ”The sociologist Norbert Elias cites as an explanation why“ social structures of this kind ”from Historians and sociologists paid relatively little attention to the fact that the symbols for membership of a student association, which are taken for granted by corporates, are "almost only known to the initiated and often not quite understandable for outsiders".

Clubs, associations and institutions

Student historian in front of the Huttenschlösschen (1954)

See also: List of student museums

literature

  • Friedhelm Golücke : Author's lexicon for student and university history . (Treatises on Student and Higher Education, Vol. 13). SH Verlag, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-938031-13-1 .
  • Dietmar Klenke : The great benefits of a tradition-conscious student history in the light of the current university crisis , in: Claus-A. Revenstorff (Red.): Contributions to the 67th German Student History Conference from 5. – 7. October 2007 in Giessen . Hamburg 2008 (= Der Convent , special issue), pp. 21–26.
  • Harald Lönnecker : "The topic was and remained without parallel appearance in German historical research" - The Burschenschaftliche Historische Kommission (BHK) and the Gesellschaft für Burschenschaftliche Geschichtsforschung e. V. (GfbG) (1898 / 1909–2009) - A history of people, institutions and science. (Representations and sources on the German unity movement in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, vol. 18). Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8253-5672-9 .
  • Matthias Stickler : New publications on student history since 1994. A research report on a field in university history that is sometimes underestimated . In: Yearbook for University History . Vol. 4 (2001), pp. 262-270.

Web links

Wikisource: Student History  - Sources and Full Texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Matthias Asche , Stefan Gerber: Modern University History in Germany. Lines of development and research fields . In: Helmut Neuhaus (ed.): Archives for cultural history. 90th Volume, Issue 1, 2008, pp. 153–202, here: p. 197.
  2. ↑ Tobias Kaiser: Jena's students in upheaval from 1989/90 and after. On the significance of student history for university history, or: what is the point? In: Robert Gramsch, Tobias Kaiser (ed.): Engagement and disenchantment. Jena students from 1988 to 1995 . Jena 2009, pp. 35-46.
  3. ↑ Burschenschaftsgeschichte: To the origin of a history of the students
  4. ↑ Eberhard Dünninger, Irmela Holtmeier, Karen Kloth (eds.): Handbook of historical book stocks in Germany. Volume 13. Olms-Weidmann, 1997, p. 143.
  5. ^ A b Christian George: Studying in ruins. The students of the University of Bonn in the post-war period (1945–1955) . V&R unipress, 2010, p. 21.
  6. ^ Sebastian Sigler : Corps students in the resistance against Hitler . Duncker & Humblot Berlin, 2014.
  7. ^ A b c Sylvia Paletschek : Status and perspectives of recent university history. In: NTM Journal for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine. Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2011, ISSN  0036-6978 , pp. 169–189, here p. 173.
  8. ^ Rainer Müller : Student Culture and Academic Everyday Life . In: Walter Rüegg (ed.): History of the University in Europe: From the Reformation to the French Revolution (1500-1800). CH Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-36953-7 , pp. 263-267, here: p. 263.
  9. ^ Christian George: Studying in ruins. The students of the University of Bonn in the post-war period (1945–1955) . V&R unipress, 2010, p. 22.
  10. ↑ Stephan Fuchs: "From the blessing of war". Catholic educated in World War I. A Study of the Interpretation of War in Academic Catholicism. Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden 2004. ISBN 3-515-08316-2 . P. 21.
  11. ↑ Harald Lönnecker : Special archives, special users, special literature. Archives of academic associations. In: The archivist. Bulletin for German archives. 55/4, 2002, pp. 311-317.
  12. ^ Michael Gehler : Students and Politics. The struggle for supremacy at the University of Innsbruck 1918–1938 . Innsbruck research on contemporary history, Vol. 6, Innsbruck 1990, p. 10f.
  13. ↑ Norbert Elias : Civilization and informalization. The satisfactory society. In: Michael Schröter (Ed.): Norbert Elias. Studies on the Germans. Power struggles and habitus development in the 19th and 20th centuries. Frankfurt am Main 1989, pp. 61–158, here p. 112.
  14. ↑ Student history association of the Coburg Convent on the Internet
  15. ^ Society for Student History and Student Customs (GGB)
  16. ↑ IDS on Facebook