Student associations in the GDR

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In the post-war period after the Second World War in Germany , the traditional student associations were regarded as a refuge for the bourgeoisie and thus the class enemy . They remained banned and were pushed to West Germany . In the 1980s at the latest, however, the SED leadership recognized certain “progressive lines of tradition”, at least in the history of the national revolutionary fraternities , which could be separated from the “reactionary lines of tradition” and preserved separately. This backing enabled the secret establishment of student associations in the GDR , some of which survived until the fall of the Wall and the peaceful revolution in the GDR . These new connections existed, for example, in Jena, Leipzig, Halle (Saale), Erfurt, Tharandt, Dresden, Freiberg, Magdeburg and Greifswald. In East Berlin and Rostock there seem to have been no such connections. Today most of the GDR student associations are united in the Rudelsburg Alliance .

Soviet occupation zone

Appreciation of the Wartburg Festival

After the Second World War, some of the most important and traditional universities in the German-speaking area were located in the area of ​​the Soviet occupation zone . In addition to the Humboldt University in East Berlin, these were above all the universities of Jena , Halle and Leipzig . But student traditions were also cultivated in Rostock and Greifswald , as well as at the technical, forestry and mining universities in Dresden, Tharandt and Freiberg.

For the Soviet occupiers and the German communist ruling class of the post-war period - similar to the National Socialists - the traditional student associations represented a "yesterday's", conservative group that pursued reactionary goals and with which no revolution could be made.

After the National Socialists had banned all student associations and integrated their members into comradeships within the National Socialist German Student Union , the days of student associations in Germany were over for the time being. In some places, for example in Leipzig, however, secretly and within the framework of the comradeships, it was possible either to maintain the life of connections or to re-establish connections, so that towards the end of the war there were still student structures at the universities in some places.

But soon after the Soviet administration began its work, it became apparent that an existence on the soil of the Soviet occupation zone would not be possible. The connections based here tried to bring as much material and historical memorabilia as possible to the West and to establish a new existence at a university in the emerging Federal Republic. The Berlin connections moved to the newly founded Free University of Berlin or to the Technical University of Berlin in the western part of the city.

The members who were already in professional life (“old men”) who did not go to the West did not make their affiliation to the traditional student system public. The connections that had been reestablished in the West kept in contact with the "old men" in the GDR only in a very discreet way so as not to politically disavow them. Thus, within a few years, the culture of fraternity students in the area of ​​the GDR completely disappeared from the public's awareness.

GDR: turning away from bourgeois tradition

Even in the early phase of the GDR, former fraternity students - without addressing their past - were represented in the leadership elite of the new state. Quite a few had received ideological training in antifa schools during the Soviet captivity . Examples are the corps students Wilhelm Feldmann (politician) , Heinrich Homann and Karl Hans Walther , who was first general doctor of the Wehrmacht and then major general of the NVA . Homann was chairman of the National Democratic Party of Germany from 1972 to 1989 and deputy chairman of the State Council of the GDR from 1960 to 1989 .

Reinhold Lobedanz , a member of the Corps Lusatia Leipzig , was President of the GDR Land Chamber from 1949 until his death in 1955 . Johannes Dieckmann , member of the VDSt Berlin, was one of the founders of the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany in Saxony . He was deputy chairman of the LDPD, president of the People's Chamber of the GDR (1949-1969), deputy chairman of the State Council of the GDR (1960-1969) and president of the Society for German-Soviet Friendship (DSF) (1963-1968).

In the case of students in the Federal Republic of Germany , the connection to the parts of the country located in the GDR was not broken despite the division. Particularly close relationships existed with the “refugee” connections, the connections in Berlin or the connections at universities near the border, such as Göttingen . It is known from fraternity students from Berlin that they carried out escape aid campaigns and tunnel excavations under the wall. Sometimes friends and relatives were provided with medication and food. A corps student was brought before a West German court because he is said to have shot a GDR border guards in a firefight after a failed escape aid operation. (Only after reunification did the files show that the deadly bullet had been fired from a Stasi weapon.) For decades, Göttingen fraternity students did voluntary work in the Friedland Aid in the Friedland transit camp a few kilometers away .

At the universities in the GDR and among the younger population, knowledge about the student union traditions disappeared. According to the official doctrine of the SED leadership, the GDR was a “workers and peasants state” and the universities were now primarily open to the children of the working population, Marxism-Leninism determined the content of the courses. This was celebrated as the victory of the working class over the rich bourgeoisie , with fraternity as a symbol of this hated social class.

This attitude became clear with the help of a "cantata", which was performed at the behest of Walter Ulbricht , the then First Secretary of the Central Committee of the SED and later State Council Chairman of the GDR, on October 19, 1959 on the occasion of the 550th anniversary of the University of Leipzig :

Where yesterday only sons of the rich sat
Where yesterday blasé, cut up food
Blown by the haze of the last pub,
When the peasant sat studying, there sat the proletarian.
The cook now began to rule the state
And sent the son and daughter to study
As Vladimir Ilyich said:
To usurp the power and education.
It won on this last length
The proletarian dictatorship.

Turning to the student tradition

Development of student songs

But as early as the early 1960s there were tentative attempts by students in the GDR to learn something about the traditions. At the beginning the main interest was in the old student songs . The few old Kommers books were partially copied by hand. Contacts with existing connections in the Federal Republic did not exist and were obviously not sought at the time.

Especially in the Protestant and Catholic student communities (ESG / KSG), which offered non-state students a certain amount of freedom, traditional student songs were increasingly sung. In some cases, attempts were made to bring the songs to public events, but this remained difficult and was not approved by all sides.

The possible development of independent student traditions was also effectively prevented, since the socialist youth should be organized in the Free German Youth (FDJ) and thus controlled by the party and the state. The establishment of self-administered student structures stood in the way of the party's claim to leadership.

Acquisition of couleur items

Invention of the GDR student associations: beer cords

There was no literature and seldom color available. Many students found old heirlooms, ribbons, caps or beer mugs from their father or grandfather at home. The students of that time could not do much with these couleur objects .

Contemporary witnesses report that interested students began to look for old couleur items through encrypted newspaper advertisements. A student cap also appeared on the loaner wardrobe of the Dresden theater , which seamstresses at a local textile factory had copied in large numbers for a fee and donations in kind.

Sometimes colored items (student hats, beer mugs, beer and wine tips, etc.) were offered in antique shops or directly at household liquidations.

The chronicles of the early GDR connections show that the appearance of the students during the secret get-togethers at the time was more like dressing up in historical costumes and reenacting traditions, especially since the color was still worn in mixed colors or as an amateur, as found in the attics was sewn together.

Due to the lack of literature on old traditions, new ones soon formed. One of the GDR connections' own creation was, for example, the use of the "beer cord". A cord around 30 centimeters long was given to all participants in a Kommerses . A knot was tied into the beer cord after each salamander . The beer cord is still in use after the reunification .

Drinking and partying

In addition to singing the old songs, the old customs of drinking and partying were soon imitated, as far as this was possible with the knowledge of the time. The first Kommerse in Couleur also took place in the student booths or in remote forest huts. An appearance in public bars was not yet possible.

First foundations

The student coat of arms of the KDStV Salana Jenensis symbolizes the re-establishment of student connections on the soil of the GDR

While there was a general cultivation of student traditions in the 1960s and 1970s, the first associations with traditional names and with the increasing use of traditional identity symbols were established in the early 1980s, all in secret, of course. No recourse was made to connections that were previously located at the university locations in question, and the information about the previous conditions was only available in fragments. In the first half of the 1980s there were also no contacts with the “refugee” associations or their umbrella organizations in the West. Apparently, there had never been any contact with the old gentlemen living in the GDR who had previously been established there and who could have conveyed the tradition.

In 1985, the nl series of the Berlin publishing house Neues Leben published the paperback Blind like in the times of the emperor - Säbel, Seidel, Schmisse: Neue “Burschenherrlichkeit” ( ISBN 3-355-00410-3 ) by the author Klaus-Dieter Stefan, in his The blurb says:

“They are not knights of sad stature fighting against windmills. They are not tragic, not funny, but extremely dangerous - if resistance does not prevent them. They drink, bawl and fight like in the old days and fight their way through to the center of power. From the scale to ministerial or monopoly, always on a crusade against progress and peace. They are relic and reality in one and make headlines like seldom before - fraternities and corporations in the FRG. "

- Klaus-Dieter Stefan

This work makes no reference to the development of the establishment of student associations in the GDR itself, but treats the topic exclusively as a phenomenon of the capitalist society of West Germany. The subject matter and argumentation are similar to those of the corresponding literature critical of the relationship from the political left in the Federal Republic ( see also: Burschi-Reader ).

Unaffected by this, the representatives of the new GDR connections ventured to supraregional meetings as early as the next year and risked their efforts being blown up.

1986

New casting of the Ergo bibamus monument in Jena (2006)

On February 8, 1986, students from Leipzig founded the GDR's first Catholic student union in Wermsdorf, the KDStV Germania Leipzig , which has been a member of the Cartell Association since 1991 .

On May 29, 1986 , the first official meeting of representatives from various associations from Dresden, Erfurt, Freiberg, Halle, Jena, Leipzig and Magdeburg took place in Schmiedeberg in the “Zur Schmiede” inn.

In that year the first edition of the first student song book published in the GDR was published, edited by the curator of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena , Günter Steiger. The Gaudeamus igitur song collection . Let's be happy. Historical student songs had a total of three editions by 1989.

A memorial that was erected in Jena in 1986 on the site of the former university brewery in the fountain next to the anatomy tower (Leutragraben) was expressly named after the student song Ergo bibamus composed by Goethe . The sculpture depicts a student drinking beer who is riding on a beer barrel from whose bunghole a devil figure emerges. The monument was created by the Jena artist Freimut Drewello . As the material DDR typical "plastic" (was plastic ) selected.

The official reason for the erection of the monument was the commemoration of the academic brewing and licensing law from 1548 , the rose privilege of May 21, 1570 for the bar "Zur Rosen" and the academic brewery that existed from 1594 to 1903. The reference to the Goethe text was also officially mentioned. Unofficially, the burgeoning interest in pre-socialist student traditions may have played a role. Jena was one of the main locations.

1987

Beer promotions in the student associations of the GDR
Invitation to the 170th anniversary of the Wartburg Festival of the Urburschenschaft

Further highlights in the history of the student associations in the GDR were the so-called beer promotions. After Wolfgang Kupke from Halle (then Kröllwitzer Senioren-Convent) was awarded a Dr. cerium. doctorate, the public defense of the quite amusing "doctoral thesis" of the founding senior of Salana Jenensis , Helmut Gabel, took place on January 23, 1987 in the Moreauschänke in Dresden . In the local pub of what was then Dresdensia (now Eques Aureus Dresdensis or Cimbria Dresdensis) there were fraternity students from all over the GDR.

On June 20, 1987 , the association (later KDStV) Salana Jenensis organized the first "Allianzkommers" of the GDR student associations on the Rudelsburg . Only 19 participants were present at this event, some of whom had come to the Saale on rafts and in zinc bathtubs. This should refer to the tradition of boat trips on the Saale, which can be seen on old depictions. This Kommers was the first official traditional student event registered with the police in the history of the GDR .

The state authorities reacted: In autumn 1987 the FDJ wanted to celebrate the anniversary of the Wartburg Festival of 1817 for the first time in 20 years , at which fraternity members presented their ideas of freedom, civil rights and German unity to a broader public for the first time.

But already on the weekend before the FDJ anniversary event, from October 17 to 18, 1987, the actual anniversary date, several GDR student associations celebrated a Festkommers in Eisenach at the invitation of the Salana Jenensis . The Kneiport was on the Wartenberg , known for the book burning during the Wartburg Festival in 1817, in the clubhouse of the allotment garden “Am Ziegelfeld”. The Kommers was temporarily interrupted by a task force of the German People's Police , but was then able to continue. The following day, the participants moved from the Eisenacher Markt in Couleur and with self-sewn flags, including a replica of the flag of the original fraternity from 1816 (red-black-red), to the Wartburg , where they took part in a guided tour of the castle. The attempt at a short speech in the ballroom by the founding senior of Salana Jenensis, Helmut Gabel, was canceled by the staff. Then you walked through the Eisenach forests past the “Waldschänke” excursion restaurant to the fraternity monument . Before the participants entered this otherwise locked monument, a police car emerged from the forest path that had just been taken. After the inspection, the people's police recorded the personal details of the man who had the key to the fraternity monument.

The official anniversary event of the FDJ was carried out a week later in typical GDR style in the blue shirt of the FDJ, but in the surrounding area attempts were made from several sides to show traditional songs and old couleur in public, which the officials also tolerated to a certain extent has been.

That year the Central Council of the FDJ published the FDJ student songbook in the Junge Welt publishing house in East Berlin , which combined socialist songs true to the line with traditional Kommers songs in one volume. This edition would have been inconceivable without the preparatory work of the Jena student historian Günter Steiger.

1988

Invitation to the alliance commuter in 1988
Song for the closing of the Moreauschänke

In January 1988 in Halle (Saale) under the supervision of the party and state leadership of the GDR, the Friends of Student Cultural History were founded in the GDR's Kulturbund , which only existed until May 1989. This was to ensure that the new tendencies remained under the sovereignty of the state authorities. The emergence of self-administration - as has always been the basic principle with student associations - should be prevented or reversed. Contemporary witnesses report that this appropriation did not succeed sufficiently, because it was precisely this traditional self-determination of the associations that was the reason for their re-establishment in the GDR. In this circle of friends, mainly members of the Kröllwitz Seniors' Convent founded in 1986 (today: German Student Association (D.St.V.) Saxo-Ascania Hallensis) worked. Under the protection of the Kulturbund, the members of the “Kröllwitzer Seniors Convent” carried out several high-profile events, including a public pub on December 1, 1988 in the Turm student club of the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg .

The second Allianzkommers took place in 1988 in the hall of the Burgblick restaurant in the municipality of Saaleck (Naumburg) because the restaurant on the Rudelsburg had unexpectedly closed. Some sources suggest that official government agencies have tried to cancel the event without officially banning it.

In Leipzig the old gentlemen 's convention Saxonia Leipzig and the invited Halle association D.St.V. Kröllwitzer Senioren-Convent held a Kommers on October 15, 1988 to commemorate the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig . They sang u. a. the song When a ghost descends today by Ludwig Uhland after the melody Are we united at the good hour .

The couleur warden of the Kröllwitz Seniors' Convent, Gerhard Richwien, wrote new texts in 1988 on the way of singing old student songs:

  • the parody The god who made hops grow based on the song of the fatherland by Ernst Moritz Arndt (1813); the song was published with a fictional letter from Freiherr von und zum Stein to Arndt in the association newspaper and sung at the third Allianzkommers in 1989 (see below).
  • a song with current reference to the political changes ( mutatio rerum ) in the GDR based on the melody O alte Burschenherlichkeit " . In the fifth verse it praised the new student life in the connections at five universities in the GDR.

In December 1988, the Moreau tavern in Dresden , which was important for connections in the GDR, closed its tap forever. On this occasion, on November 4th, 1988 , the Dresdensia hosted a death and death check in which many fraternity students from various cities in the GDR took part.

1989

The third Allianzkommers in 1989, in which over 100 people from East and West took part, was even announced in the government-compliant press. So wrote the newspaper "Der Morgen", organ of the block party LDPD , local edition Halle, on May 19, 1989:

On the Rudelsburg
Response to “Gaudeamus” call: Interest in tradition
Under the heading “Gaudeamus with colorful caps” we were able to report to our readers on December 20, 1988 from Halle about the establishment of a working group “Student Cultural History” assigned to the university group of the Kulturbund, the aim of which is to continue the progressive traditions of student leisure time, as they remembered the Wartburg meeting of students in 1817. The example in Halle caught on: In constant contact with FDJ student clubs at the Martin Luther University in Halle, the first results of the revival of student cultural history were achieved. a. also includes a collection of the attributes of earlier academic sociability. In the meantime, fellow students from other university towns in the GDR have come together who are also interested in such work within the framework of the GDR Cultural Association. On 20./21. May the Kommersbrüder get their colorful hats off the shelf again and meet at the Rudelsburg for a hike to Jena. This is the establishment of an umbrella organization within the framework of the Kulturbund work, which will make contributions to the history of universities and colleges in the GDR through an exchange of ideas. ...

According to this official presentation, the initiative came from the FDJ, which was looking for "interested parties" who wanted to participate. The response that this idea found was praised as a success of the FDJ, although it had started as a protest against the “uniformity” of the youth organization that conformed to the government. This official version also made the western media suspicious, which saw the process as a measure by the SED leadership to recolor German history in the spirit of socialism and to incorporate the traditions.

So wrote Die Welt on May 25, 1989, a few days after the third alliance commuter:

SED wants to advertise with fraternities
Rudelsburg in Thuringia, a historical academic meeting place in the Naumburg-Weimar-Jena triangle, had a memorable society within its walls. Students from Leipzig, Halle, Jena and other university locations in the "GDR" came together for a preparatory foundation meeting high above the Saale. Among the onlookers were mobs from the State Security Service, but the first "Allianzkommers Rudelsburg 1989" had been properly registered with the police in Naumburg.
With brightly colored hats and ribbons, like the ones the students wore in Central Germany before the war, over a hundred members of the new "GDR" connections went to the castle. ...
There are already around ten corporations in the "GDR", although they cannot be compared with the student associations that exist in the Federal Republic of Germany. The new "GDR" connections do not continue the tradition of former Central German corporations. They were only allowed to be founded on the condition that they were incorporated into the working groups for student historical cultural history at the respective university district leaderships of the Kulturbund and in the student clubs of the universities.
The SED wants to promote its politics with the acceptance of controlled fraternity history among the academic youth. It was therefore not surprising in the universities that the newspaper of the Liberal Democratic Party announced the meeting at the Rudelsburg in its local section in Halle on May 19. According to reports, the newspaper had received a corresponding hint from SED agencies that it was opportune to publish the event: an umbrella organization would be founded. However, this did not happen with the Kommers on the Rudelsburg, who was beaten by the representative of the Leipzig association "Saxonia". The intention of the SED to infiltrate an umbrella organization immediately with informants was suspected among the students. Therefore, a careful selection of people was required and the "constitution" of the "Alliance" was postponed to June 1990 - at the same time the 175th anniversary of the founding year of the original fraternity in Jena, which had written the elimination of particularism in Germany on its colors.
The new connections want to work to shape the future in Europe while preserving the progressive traditions of German history. This was also emphasized by the keynote speaker, who quoted the Jena philosopher Immanuel Hermann Fichte [sic, meaning Johann Gottlieb Fichte ] (" Speeches to the German Nation "). Beer glasses with Gorbachev photos stuck on were swung at the pub table. This raised the question to the observers whether the “Allianzkommers” could attain a meaning similar to that of the original fraternity in Jena in 1815?

In the same issue of the newspaper "Die Welt" the same journalist wrote a commentary on the subject, in which he denounced the attempts of the SED to co-opt the efforts to establish self-governing student associations in traditional forms for undemocratic purposes, but expressed his hope on the other that the young people will be able to prevent:

Comment: Jena 1989
So far nothing has been heard from Central German universities about the right to self-determination. Not even reforms in the "GDR" were discussed. The fact that a few days ago students from several universities met openly at Rudelsburg in Thuringia after registering with the police deserves special attention. Certainly the SED has been trying for some time to win over the academic youth by tolerating its own connections within the framework of the communist cultural association. This includes the acceptance of fraternity history. But that costs the party ideologues Volten, because the colors of freedom that the fraternities wore have nothing in common with those of today's totalitarian regime on part of German soil. Why else would the SED have had the hammer-and-compass emblem stamped on the black / red, gold-decorated flag of the Wartburg Festival? At the Wartburg in 1817 the unity of the student youth against foreign rule and for the unity of the German nation was demonstrated. Over a century and a half later, students are again looking for ways to alleviate and overcome the division of our country.
The message of the people gathered from Leipzig, Halle and Jena and other university locations was at the “Allianzkommers” that they did not intend to submit to the SED ideas of an organized student body. ...

Even the fraternities based in West Germany did not find it easy to distinguish between the efforts of the young people to break away from the harassment of the SED and FDJ and the attempt by the GDR leadership to co-opt the history of the German freedom movement. Under the heading "An unsuccessful attempt", a Braunschweig fraternity member spoke out against the questioning in a letter to the editor in Die Welt on June 8, 1989:

“Erich Honecker's increasingly obvious attempts to portray his regime as the only legitimate successor to German history reached a new high point of audacity with the incorporation of the fraternity freedom movement. ... But the East Berlin wall guard should not be mistaken. His conception of German democracy has nothing in common with the goals of the original fraternity, which are still valid today. His 'GDR' fraternities are a joke, even if their members have limited freedom to think independently. … The German fraternity members, who today count more than 20,000 academics and students in the free parts of Germany, have not fought for unity and freedom for almost 175 years in the ups and downs of German history under their colors black, red and gold so easy to usurp . What the German fraternity, in contrast to some western clinic cleaners, thinks of the political situation in central Germany, will be made clear not least at this year's central event on June 17th in Fulda. And for the 175th anniversary in Berlin in May 1990 - as will be the case in the future - the flag of the original fraternity will be there without the dishonorable "hammer and circle" emblem. "

- Letter to the editor, Die Welt, June 8, 1989

Scale lengths

Henner Huhle (2010)

The Cologne fencing master Henner Huhle received a letter from Halle / Saale in mid-April 1989 from students who wanted to do “cramming” and “ scales ” and asked for literature. In July 1989 Huhle went to Halle, where he was received by a group of students in Couleur whom he was to instruct in student fencing. To do this, he had smuggled blades across the border in the car and sent baskets, bobble helmets and gauntlets in the mail ahead. On site, however, there was already equipment (“ timpani ”) that had been assembled with the means of the GDR based on old pictures. Blades were made of flat-ground reinforcement bars, gauntlets made of motorcycle gloves, masks made of safety helmets with coarse wire mesh, and so on.

A group from the connections "Kröllwitzer Seniorenconvent Halle" and "Saxonia Leipzig" wanted to introduce fencing and steer the drum business in a regular way. Fencing master Huhle suggested they found a fencing community based on the model of gymnastics father Jahn, who was accepted as a historical legacy in the GDR. On July 23, 1989, they founded the “Academic Fechtgemeinschaft Halle / Leipzig” (AFG) as an obligatory connection with the colors blue-white on silver and the circle in the form of a stylized bell striker. They eagerly drilled themselves in. Active people also wanted to introduce fencing in the Silvania Tharandt Forest Academic Association.

The development could no longer be stopped. The SED increasingly lost control of socio-political developments in the GDR. The appropriation of the GDR student associations (as feared even in the West) failed because the rulers lost power. The events culminated on November 9, 1989 when the Wall fell .

On December 2nd, at the invitation of the Palatia Heidelberg , students from all over the GDR took part in the Heidelberg Castle Commers.

1990

Alliance stone on the Rudelsburg

On February 10, 1990 , the connections that had met regularly at the Rudelsburg founded the Rudelsburg Alliance in Halle (Saale) . The alliance color is “white” as the “sum of all colors”, motto “In varietate unitas!” Members can only be those connections that had a tradition in the GDR before November 9, 1989 - “regardless of ideological, political or other orientation of the individual associations and their members and regardless of their affiliation to the various umbrella organizations ”.

The connection Saxonia Leipzig celebrated on April 21, 1990 its second Stiftungsfest Kommersbuch with around 120 participants from the pack Burger Alliance and the West German corporation associations.

For the 12./13. May 1990 the Academic Fechtgemeinschaft Halle / Leipzig invited to a Central German Arms Students' Day in Nordhausen . Those interested in fencing from the Silvania Tharandt Forest Association and the newly established Plessavia Leipzig fraternity also took part. Deputies of the Corps Lusatia Leipzig zu Berlin ( KSCV ) and Borussia Clausthal ( WSC ) and the Landsmannschaft Preußen Berlin ( CC ) had arrived . They crammed with the Central German students and appeared with them publicly while strolling through the city in Couleur . The Corps Thuringia Jena was the first West German student union to return from Hamburg to Jena before the so-called reunification .

On June 9, 1990, the last Allianzkommers took place in the GDR. The KDStV Salana Jenensis invited again to this . Not only the connections of the Rudelsburg Alliance , but also connections from the Federal Republic of Germany and from other European countries took part in this event with more than 100 participants . It was a sign of the future of fraternity in a united Germany; Because here, striking and non-striking, colored and non-colored, denominational and politically oriented connections discussed and celebrated with each other. Since then, the Rudelsburg Alliance has held its Allianzkommers on the Rudelsburg on the first Saturday after Whitsun.

To commemorate the foundation of the original fraternity, which was historically significant for all corporations 175 years ago, the GDR connection Saxo-Ascania Halle (formerly Kröllwitzer SC) invited to a celebration in Jena on June 16, 1990 as a suburb of the Rudelsburg alliance. Corporation students of all associations in color from both parts of Germany and Austria dominated the streetscape. The rector welcomed the corporations at the ceremony in the auditorium. The Lord Mayor also appeared at the Kommers in the fully occupied Volkshaus (950 seats). At the end of the Kommerses, which was tightly conducted after the comment from the Rudelsburg Alliance, the participants enthusiastically sang the Deutschlandlied. A train through the city to the historic “ Grüne Tanne ” restaurant , where the Landsmannschaften founded the original fraternity in 1815, ended the first major corporate student event in the GDR.

With the support of the Landsmannschaft Preußen Berlin, the active members of the Academic Fechtgemeinschaft, which had meanwhile been renamed the Academic Landsmannschaft Sachsen zu Leipzig , fought five sharp fights on September 22, 1990, i.e. before reunification, on the first and only day of the GDR's history Scale lengths. The counterparts were provided by two Berlin compatriots and the GDR association D.St.V. Markomannia zu Greifswald.

At the invitation of the GDR association KDStV Germania Leipzig , the representatives of 19 old Leipzig corporations, who were now living in exile in the West, met with the three in Leipzig on September 29, 1990 in the traditional student bar " Thüringer Hof " in Leipzig Leipzig active connections. Greetings from the Auxiliary Bishop of Dresden-Meißen and the GDR Prime Minister Lothar de Maizière were read out at the Kommers . Old and new connections sang the Germany song together .

reunion

After reunification in October 1990, the situation for the GDR connections changed. As early as the spring and summer of 1990, the first connections, which had originally been established on the territory of the GDR and moved to the West in the post-war period, moved their headquarters back to their old homeland. These connections had mostly existed for decades in the West and a comparatively wealthy old rulers. Virtually all of them had had their own corporation house in the west , which was now being sold in favor of buying a new property in the east. For the potential offspring, a connection equipped in this way was often more attractive than a financially weak start-up. A new connection scene arose, the GDR connections were no longer pioneers and exotic, but were now more of a copycat and free rider. And that, although a few months ago they were considered experts in student cultural history in the GDR.

The individual compounds reacted differently. Some joined student umbrella organizations from the west, but that didn't always work. Some tried to go on their way alone, as in GDR times. Others accepted an offer from the west to continue the tradition of a connection that wanted to move from the west to the east. All connections established in the GDR can now become members of the Rudelsburg Alliance , regardless of which solution they have chosen. But not all of them accepted this offer. Some of them have meanwhile stopped their active operations and only exist as an old man association.

Two GDR connections divided into active groups who, after mutual separation, took different corporation student paths: In the obligatory Academic Fencing Community Halle / Leipzig, a corps student direction had already developed in addition to the country team majority in the GDR period. A few weeks after the reunification, the senior, the consenior and a fox left, became active in the Kösener Corps Lusatia and, since November 1990, formed its first fox line in Leipzig. The majority went to the Coburg Convent as Landsmannschaft Sachsen, then Saxo-Afrania Leipzig. In Tharandt, a group of active members of the Silvania forestry association, who had already learned to fence during the GDR era, reconstituted the old Silvania corps in the Kösener SC association, while the majority, as the non-defeating forest academy hunting corporation Cervidia, chose to join the Werniger or Jagdkorporationen-SC.

In 1997, the member associations of the Rudelsburg Alliance erected a memorial stone on the Rudelsburg to mark the tenth anniversary of the first joint public appearance of student associations in the history of the GDR.

See also

literature

Before 1990

  • A Germany is, should be and will remain. Festival of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena for the 135th anniversary of the Wartburg Festival for German students . 18./19. October 1917 to 18./19. October 1952. Written and compiled by a collective of students and aspirants in the fields of history, education and German studies, Jena 1952.
  • Günter Steiger: Departure - Urburschenschaft and Wartburg Festival . Urania-Verlag, Leipzig 1967.
  • Klaus-Dieter Stefan: As blind as in imperial times - Saber, Seidel, Schmisse: New “Burschenherrlichkeit” , (nl-specific No. 65) Berlin (GDR), New Life. 1st edition 1985, 2nd edition 1987 [1]
  • Gaudeamus igitur. Let's be happy. Historical student songs , compiled, edited and commented on by Günter Steiger and Hans-Joachim Ludwig, 1st edition Leipzig 1986, 3rd edition Leipzig 1989.
  • FDJ student songbook . Published by the Central Council of Free German Youth through the Junge Welt publishing house. Berlin 1987.
  • Wolfgang Kupke (ed.): O new lad glory. Contemporary historical texts from fraternity in the GDR , self-published by Saxo-Ascania Hallensis, Halle / Saale, June 1990 (archive of the Corps Lusatia Leipzig).

After 1990

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Franz Stadtmüller (ed.): History of the Corps Hannovera zu Göttingen 1809-1959 . Göttingen 1963, p. 324 ff.
  2. ^ GDR history, studies
  3. ↑ History of FAJC Cervidia
  4. ↑ https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41VtVgV8D7L._UY250_.jpg
  5. ↑ Academia (journal) 3/2011, page 28.
  6. ↑ "Unity in Diversity!"