Association of German Student Associations

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Association of German Student Associations

coat of arms logo
Association of German Student Associations Logo.svg VvDSt Zirkel.svg
Basic data
Surname: Association of German Student Associations
Abbreviation: VVDSt
Represented in: GermanyGermany Germany
Links: 40 (list)
Type of members: Men's leagues
Position to the scale : not striking
Motto: With God for the people and the fatherland!
Color status : Black-white-red (colored)
Conditions: VSSt, VDH

The Association of German Student Associations (VVDSt), also known as the Kyffhäuser Association (VVDSt-KV), is a corporate association with around 40 member associations. The member corporations call themselves the Association of German Students (VDSt).

structure

The clubs German students are not beating , colors leading compounds in which male students and academics member can be who feel the German language and culture connected. The latter is interpreted broadly; in fact , students of non-German origin are also accepted. The colors of most of the associations of German students and the umbrella organization are black, white and red , the motto of the umbrella organization is "With God for the people and the fatherland!"

The connections are divided into an active union for the active, student members and the associated senior gentlemen's union , in which the active gentleman is accepted as senior gentleman after completing his studies . The highest organ of the VVDSt is the annual association conference.

The VVDSt is linked to the Schleswig Students Association (VSSt) and the Association of German University Students (VDH) through a friendship agreement. From 1955 to 2012 there was a working agreement with the German fraternity . The central concern of the “Heidelberg Agreement” was the common commitment to reunification. Since this is a reality and the agreement was not filled with life for decades, it was considered to be fulfilled in terms of content at the association conference in 2012 and a continuation was not considered sensible.

Association magazine

Academic Leaflets logo

Since 1886 the VVDSt has had its own association magazine, the Academic Papers .

Principles

The VVDSt has laid down its principles in so-called principles .

  • Life covenant principle: Membership usually begins with your studies and ends with death.
  • Black principle: colors are not worn in the ribbon and hat.
  • Political principle: The members should be educated to be responsible citizens.
  • Convent principle: All decisions are made democratically.
  • Men Bunds principle: a member of a VDSt can only male students.
  • Principle of tolerance : All members should practice mutual tolerance.
  • Association principle: As a rule, there is only one member corporation at each university location, all association members address each other as " Bundesbruder ", the Duz-Comment applies throughout the association and when changing universities, an active member automatically becomes a member of the local VDSt.

The association is politically neutral and not affiliated with any denomination.

aims

The goals of the association are laid down in the association statutes of the VVDSt. According to these statutes, the associations of German students set themselves the task of imparting political knowledge to their members, promoting personal commitment and awakening critical awareness.

In particular, the members should enter:

  • for the basic democratic order,
  • for law and freedom in all areas of state, political and social life (...),
  • for a just social order that strives for balance,
  • for the preservation of an environment worth living in and
  • for maintaining the German language and culture,
  • for a politically and economically united, free and democratic Europe of peoples with equal rights,
  • for the inalienable and inviolable human rights as well as the rights of ethnic minorities in their traditional homeland to their independent language and culture,
  • especially for the solidarity with all members [of the German people ] through political support, cultural promotion, social help and human encounters.

Color

Ribbons and hats are traditionally not worn. However, most members use the colors as tips . The batch wich is worn on festive occasions . Pubs and Kommerse are celebrated, but follow a form that has been greatly simplified over the generations. Further symbols, which can be used across all associations in all VDSt groups, consist of the association circle and the association triangle. The association circle can be led by any VDSter in addition to the circle or the federal circles. As a rule, however, it is customary for only members of the suburb and other high-ranking officials to lead this circle. The association triangle acts as the association's "emblem"; it represents a triangle, which can be seen with the point downwards and from the outside to the inside bears the colors black-white-red. It can be worn in the form of a bandage needle on the left lapel and thus serves as an identification mark with which one can also be recognized as a VDSter in public.

history

The first associations of German students were founded in Berlin in 1880 and in Halle , Leipzig , Breslau , Greifswald and Kiel in 1881 . This movement was initiated u. a. through anti-Semitic propaganda by court preacher Adolf Stöcker (Christian Social Party) and publications by historian Heinrich von Treitschke as well as through the so-called Berlin anti-Semitism dispute . The immediate cause was an anti-Semite petition initiated by Bernhard Förster and Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg in 1880, among others , which called on the Chancellor to withdraw the legal equality of Jews. From the “Committees for the dissemination of the petition among the student body”, the associations of German students emerged who were politically active in the sense of anti-Semitic agitation and who claimed representation for all students .

Under the leadership of Diederich Hahn and Friedrich Naumann , around 800 students met on August 6, 1881 at the first Kyffhauser . On the occasion of this meeting, the VDSt joined forces to form the “Kyffhäuser Association” or the “Association of German Student Associations” (VVDSt). The main ideas of the associations of German students were Germanness , monarchy and Christianity . This manifested itself in the motto of the VVDSt ("With God for Emperor and Empire"). The VVDSt supported the social reform in the sense of Bismarck and saw his ideas realized in the Imperial Social Message of Wilhelm I of November 17, 1881. This bond was expressed by the inauguration of the embassy memorial stone on the Kyffhäuser at the 16th association conference in Kelbra in 1896. At the place where the association was founded, a Bismarck column was erected in 1906 right next to the Rothenburg castle ruins . The tower designed by Wilhelm Kreis was financed with donations from the association. Bismarck supported the association by having the university order the recognition of the VDSt over the head and against the resistance of the largely liberal Senate of Berlin University.

At the end of the 1890s, the associations of German students turned away from parliamentary anti-Semitism and became the bearers of not only anti-Semitic, but also extremely ethnic attitudes. Anti-Semitism was seen as a positive component of a völkisch conviction and apparently scientifically justified by racism. In 1896 an Aryan paragraph was included in the statutes of the Kyffhäuser Association, with which the associations of German students no longer only excluded Jews, but also students of Jewish origin. The associations of German students promoted the acceptance of ethnic thinking among the bourgeoisie and paved the way for organizations such as the Pan-German Association . Many Pan-Germans, but also active opponents of women's emancipation, had been active as students in the VDSt or were associated with it as old men or honorary members. With the nationalist, there was also an anti-Slavic orientation. With the Deutscher Ostmarkenverein , which, like the Academic Papers, called for a depolonization of the German eastern provinces, the Kyffhäuser Association has maintained close substantive and institutional cooperation since it was founded. The Kyffhäuser Association also joined the German Defense Association and called for Ludwig Schemann to join the Gobineau Society . In 1910, the lawyer Karl Kormann (1884–1914) was able to record as a success of the VDSt that "the idea of ​​social anti-Semitism [today] has pretty much become a common property of all academic circles".

The VDSt saw itself as an offer for politically interested students. They did not want to form a new corporation alongside the existing ones, not an association in the student body, but to represent the German student body itself. Corporates and non-corporates came together in the clubs. This explains the name “Association of German Students” and that is why the VDSt chose the colors of the Reich “ black-white-red ” as the association colors, rejecting the ribbon and cap .

After the Kyffhäuser newspaper, which was founded in 1881, was discontinued after a few years, in 1886, at the suggestion of the then suburban chairman Rudolf Heinze , who was later to become Vice Chancellor and Reich Minister of Justice in the Weimar Republic , the journal Akademische Blätter was founded .

In addition to the beginnings and expansion of nationality work, another problem in the history of the association played a role at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the discussion of party politics. This question became acute when Friedrich Naumann established a political foundation with his National Social Association in 1896 and found a not inconsiderable following among the VDSters, so that the public could temporarily get the impression that his National Social Association was the continuation of the Association in practical life. That this view was not correct was expressly stated at the association meetings of 1897 and 1898 in order to preserve the party-political neutrality of the association. There was so much dispute within the VDSt on the question of Friedrich Naumann's political activity that he decided to leave the VDSt (so-called Naumann dispute). An extraordinary association meeting in January 1907 in Leipzig, at which the idea of ​​party political neutrality prevailed again and liberal and conservative ideas were recognized as having equal rights in the association, finally ended this internal dispute.

First World War

Years before, the VDSter had expected a war that was felt to be inevitable. Many of them went enthusiastically to the First World War : one in ten volunteered to join the war in 1914, and another tenth went to the front as reserve officers . The hope for a quick victory soon gave way to disillusionment. Instead of announcing a victorious return home after a few months, the Akademischen Blätter published obituaries for years and heroized the victim's death. Now it was necessary to persevere. Since most of its members had been called up and "Invalidenvereine" only gradually emerged, the active life of most of the clubs was idle during the war. Those who persevered cultivated contacts with the federal brothers at the front. Letters, “gifts of love” and academic papers became links. Morally, the theologians in the Kyffhäuser Association backed the front at home. They propagated a “holy war” and its “cleansing” power for the “rebirth” of the German people. Because the VDSter had already criticized the Wilhelmine system in the pre-war period, they are now promoting Germany's “renewal”. National education of the youth and the formation of a national community were their demands. The monarchical idea gave way more and more to the leader idea. Confidently believing in victory, influential VDSters also excelled with exaggerated territorial claims. But even in the face of the defeat, the VDSter remained true to each other. For them it was a matter of “fighting, collecting and helping to build on the new German future”. In the end, 800 out of 5,800 VD stars had fallen. A hall of honor in the Bismarck Column of the Kyffhäuser Association of German Students' Associations on Rothenburg am Kyffhäuser was dedicated to the memory of the fallen and missing . The names of the VDSter who died in World War I were immortalized in a book of honor.

Weimar Republic

The collapse of 1918 and the end of the monarchy in the German Reich confronted the VDSt with the question of conscience as to how a supporter of the monarchy should face the new form of government.

While many old men served the young state as civil servants and held the highest state offices, the active generation of the Weimar Republic developed a negative attitude towards the republic and democracy.

Many old men were active in the conservative parties DVP and DNVP at this time , for example Otto Most and Rudolf Heinze in the DVP and Kuno Graf von Westarp , Otto Hoetzsch , Paul Baecker and Reinhard Mumm in the DNVP until Hugenberg came to power . Other old men, such as Ferdinand Friedensburg and Wilhelm Heile , worked in the left-wing liberal DDP , which was co-founded by VD stars Friedrich Naumann and Hellmut von Gerlach . The diplomat Rudolf Nadolny became head of the office of the Reich President under Friedrich Ebert . Rudolf Heinze was Vice Chancellor and Reich Justice Minister in the Fehrenbach cabinet . In the final phase of the Weimar Republic, Kuno Graf von Westarp, Karl Maßmann and Hermann Ullmann were among the closest employees of Reich Chancellor Heinrich Brüning .

Despite this cooperation of some VDSter in the state, the republican form of government was rejected by a majority; Ferdinand Friedensburg was even excluded from the old gentlemen's association in 1926. The student members in particular developed an increasing rejection of the Weimar Republic. With the onset of the global economic crisis , the attitude of the active became radical, and there was already selective cooperation with the NSDStB on the university policy level , with which there has also been the first personal overlap since that time. For example, Gustav Adolf Scheel joined the VDSt Strasbourg-Hamburg-Rostock in the winter semester 1928/29. In 1929 he became a member of the NSDStB.

time of the nationalsocialism

In 1933 the VVDSt started a process of self- alignment . So in the association u. a. introduced the leader principle . The leadership of the association was taken over by the NSDAP Gauleiter Wilhelm Kube until 1935 . His successor was Johannes Wotschke , who was also a long-time member of the NSDAP. The political enthusiasm for National Socialism was borne primarily by the students ( Aktivitas ), while the old gentlemen were more reserved. A number of VDSt members took on leadership positions in the Nazi state. Gustav Adolf Scheel became Reich Student Leader in 1936 and Gauleiter in Salzburg in 1941. Hans Fritzsche received leading positions in the Reich Propaganda Ministry under Goebbels. Members of the VDSt were particularly well represented in the management staff of the German Christians . Both the first Reichsleiter of the German Christians, Joachim Hossenfelder , and Reichsbishop Ludwig Müller had joined a VDSt during their studies. Leading VD members were also members of the Confessing Church , such as the later regional bishops Otto Dibelius and Kurt Scharf .

Despite all the enthusiasm for National Socialism, the Kyffhäuser Association made every effort to maintain its independence. In addition, the aggressive criticism of Christianity by many National Socialists met with rejection. In October 1935, association leader Johannes Wotschke declared that any attack on Christianity was incompatible with the association's goals.

The NSDAP's totalitarian claim to power did not tolerate any independent communities next to it in student life either. The Hitler Youth was forbidden to work with the corporations, and their members were also not allowed to enter into any association. On May 14, 1936, Rudolf Hess banned all members of the NSDAP from belonging to a student corporation. This led to the fact that the dissolution of the association was announced at the 57th association meeting in 1938.

Since 1945

In the years 1948–1950, individual active associations of German students emerged at West German universities, initially under different names. The first post-war VDSt was the "Cosmopolitan Association of German Students at the Technical University of Hanover - ORBIS". There were also a number of start-ups. At the first association conference after the Second World War in February 1951 in Bonn , the Association of Associations of German Students (VVDSt) was re-established. The new motto was “With God for the people and the fatherland”.

In the Federal Republic of Germany , too, VDSter assumed the highest political responsibility, for example Hermann Ehlers as President of the Bundestag , others worked on the reconstruction of Germany, for example Karl Maßmann .

The VDSter Hermann Ehlers, Ferdinand Friedensburg and Hans Egidi were decisive for the spiritual direction of the VVDSt after the Second World War. In its political goals, the association took into account its own history and the events of the National Socialist era . The democratic form of government in the Federal Republic was affirmed and supported. A united Europe and a Germany reunified in peace and freedom were the aim. According to its statutes, the VVDSt opposes "against any discrimination or exclusion of people, for example for political, religious or racist reasons" and "against any form of anti-Semitism".

In 1954, the Witzenhauser program was decided at the association conference , according to which the reunification of Germany should be placed at the center of all political action. The main working topics of the VDSt should be questions of reunification, communism, state and social life as well as nationality and European unification. The VDSt Königsberg-Mainz, founded in 1957, moved into its Königsberg house in 1968 , a successful combination of student residence and corporation house .

On the occasion of the student riots in 1968 , the association's goals were discussed again internally in the VVDSt and reformulated in 1970 or adapted in line with the times. The VDSt Frankfurt was excluded from the association in 1969 due to right-wing extremist efforts.

In the GDR , traditional student associations and thus also the VDSt were forbidden. Therefore, the East German VDSt were (re) founded only after the reunification of Germany in 1990. In the political reunification of Germany, one of the VDSter's main goals was realized. Today, as at the time the first VDSt groups were founded, the primary goal of the VDSter is to allow the political unification to follow suit. With this in mind, the VVDSt is committed to a united Europe with equal rights for all European states, peoples and ethnic groups .

Today the VVDSt is represented in 38 university cities, 32 of them in Germany, 5 in Austria and 1 in Hungary. The idea of ​​European unification is expressed in cooperation with similarly structured student associations, for example with the Schleswig Students Association (VSSt) in Denmark, the associations of German students in Poland with Ratibor and Opole , the association of German students in Romania with Timişoara , in Hungary with Budapest and in Croatia to Agram .

The United Nations (UN) has awarded in 2006 VDSt Academy for the commitment to "Education for Sustainable Development". The “Knowledge for Europe” project was selected by the National Committee for the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development as the official “Decade Project”. On February 1, 2008, the project received an award for a further two years.

Corporate development

The VVDSt and its member unions are committed to the traditional traditions of corporate student traditions without Bestimmungsmensuren to practice. However, they gave satisfaction on sabers in honorary trades until 1953. In addition, the associations of German students are " black connections ", that is, they do not wear their colors, like many other connections, in a ribbon and hat . This is explained by the history of the VVDSt. Since the first associations were initially inter-corporate associations of politically interested students, the founders chose the imperial colors black-white-red as the association colors in 1881. After the associations of German students had developed into student associations, they kept the colors, but the wearing of ribbons and hats did not prevail. From then on, the Black Principle was linked to the idea that VDSers do not want to distinguish themselves from society through external signs. The only exception is the VDSt in Vienna "Philadelphia", which has black, red and gold as the colors and is colored. On festive occasions, those charged with the VVDSt usually wear jerks with black, red or white pekeschen .

Associations of German students

literature

  • Eva Gottschaldt, Dietrich Heither , Michael Lemling: "Trailblazer of Fascism". From the history of the Marburg Association of German Students . History workshop Marburg u. a., Marburg 1992, ISBN 3-926295-04-X ( Marburg contributions to the past and present of student connections  1).
  • Norbert Kampe: Students and the “Jewish question” in the German Empire. The emergence of an academic support layer of anti-Semitism (= critical studies on historical science . Volume 76). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1988, ISBN 3-525-35738-9 (partly also: Berlin, Techn. Univ., Diss., 1983).
  • Hedwig Roos-Schumacher: The Kyffhäuser Association of the Associations of German Students 1880-1914 / 18. A contribution to national associations and political thinking in the empire . 2nd Edition. Academic Association Kyffhäuser, Kiel 1987 ( German academic writings N. F. 7, ZDB -ID 1081271-4 , also: Cologne, Univ., Diss., 1985).
  • Marc Zirlewagen : The Kyffhäuser Association of German Student Associations in the Weimar Republic . SH-Verlag, Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-89498-057-5 ( GDS archive for university and student history, supplement 8, German academic writings NF 8).
  • Marc Zirlewagen (Hrsg.): Emperor loyalty - leader thought - democracy. Contributions to the history of the Association of German Student Associations (Kyffhäuser Association) . SH-Verlag, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-89498-077-X ( GDS archive for university and student history, supplement 10, German academic writings NF 9).
  • Marc Zirlewagen (Ed.): 1881–2006. 125 years of German student associations . Volume 1: A historical review . Academic Association Kyffhäuser, Bad Frankenhausen 2006, ISBN 3-929953-06-4 .
  • Marc Zirlewagen: "To be or not to be for our German people". The Kyffhäuser Association of German Students' Associations in the First World War . In: Marc Zirlewagen (ed.): "We win or we fall". German students in the First World War . SH-Verlag, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-89498-189-1 ( Treatises on students and higher education 17), pp. 223-312.
  • Marc Zirlewagen: Bibliography on the history of the associations of German students . Academic Association Kyffhäuser, Essen 2011, ISBN 978-3-929953-11-4 ( German Academic Writings NF 14).
  • Marc Zirlewagen (Ed.): Practical manual of the Association of German Student Associations - Kyffhäuser Association. 7th edition. Essen 2012, ISBN 978-3-929953-12-1 .
  • Marc Zirlewagen (Ed.): Ferdinand Friedensburg and the associations of German students. Published on the occasion of his 125th birthday. Essen 2012, ISBN 978-3-929953-13-8 .
  • Marc Zirlewagen: “Our place is with the great national movement” - The Kyffhäuser Association of German Student Associations and the national thought. Norderstedt 2014, ISBN 978-3-7357-5779-1 .

Web links

Commons : Kyffhäuser Association  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marc Zirlewagen (Ed.): Practical Guide of the Association of German clubs students - Kyffhäuser Association. 7th edition, p. 469.
  2. ↑ Norbert Kampe: Academic sheets . In: Wolfgang Benz (ed.): Handbook of Antisemitism. Hostility to Jews in the past and present . Vol. 8, Supplements and Register . De Gruyter, Berlin 2015, p. 158.
  3. ↑ Gunther Mai: "For Emperor and Empire". The Kaiser Wilhelm monument on the Kyffhäuser . In: Gunther Mai (Ed.): The Kyffhäuser Monument 1896–1996. A national monument in a European context . Böhlau, Cologne 1997, pp. 158-160.
  4. ^ Nobert Kampe: Students and the "Jewish question" in the German Empire. The emergence of an academic backing of anti-Semitism. V & R, Göttingen 1988, pp. 34-39.
  5. ↑ Werner Bergmann: Völkischer Antisemitismus im Kaiserreich . In: Uwe Puschner, Walter Schmitz, Justus H. Ulbricht (eds.): Handbook on the “Völkische Movement” 1871–1918 . KG Saur, Munich 1996, pp. 459-460.
  6. ^ Helmut Berding: Modern anti-Semitism in Germany . Edition Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1988, p. 118.
  7. ^ Rainer Hering: Constructed Nation. The Pan-German Association, 1890 to 1939 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2003, p. 65 f.
  8. ^ A b Ute Planert: Antifeminism in the Empire: Discourse, social formation and political mentality . V & R, Göttingen 1998, p. 128.
  9. ^ Uwe Puschner : The völkisch movement in the Wilhelmine Empire. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2001, ISBN 3-534-15052-X , p. 113.
  10. ↑ Quoted from Konrad H. Jarausch: Deutsche Studenten 1800–1970 . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1984, p. 90.
  11. ↑ Chronik 100 J. VDSt Str.-HH.-Rost., 1983, p. 126.
  12. ^ Michael Grüttner : Students in the Third Reich. Paderborn 1995, p. 312.
  13. ↑ Home for East Prussian students . Ostpreußenblatt of July 27, 1968, p. 14
  14. ^ Association of German Student Associations: Practical Manual , 5th edition, Schrobenhausen 1992.
  15. ↑ Member associations
  16. ^ Database of the official Decade projects . October 5, 2007.
  17. ^ Database of the official Decade projects . November 4, 2009.