Representative Convent

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Gymnastics associations of the representative convention 1911

The Representative Convent (abbreviated VC) was a corporation association of obligatory and color-bearing student associations founded in 1872, initially under the name Cartell Association of Academic Gymnastics Associations . It was the umbrella organization of the academic gymnastics associations at German universities. At times it comprised over 80 member associations at almost all German universities and, with the Vereinigung Alter Turnerschafter (VAT), had an association network of the old men in many cities.

Alignment

Like its member tournaments, the representative convent was basically apolitical, but an integral part of the predominantly conservative to right-wing liberal bourgeoisie and students at the time of the Wilhelmian Empire. Even at the beginning of the Weimar Republic , the VC did not represent any political goals to the outside world, but its orientation can be classified as part of the restorative-conservative-minded civil society and academic society of that time, which was rather skeptical of the republic. On the other hand, at the beginning of the 1930s he played alongside the Deutsche Burschenschaft (DB) "a special role to the right of the NSDStB " and, alongside DB and the German Singers' Association, was one of the key operators in the split of the General German Arms Ring and the establishment of the "Völkischer Waffenring" at the end of 1934 . In the course of the advancing tendencies towards conformity with the NS, the VC dissolved itself in 1935.

Meeting place

Former grandstand of the VC stadium

While the annual large association meetings initially took place at different locations, the city of Bad Blankenburg in the Thuringian Forest became the central meeting place of the VC from 1926 by a resolution of 1925 . There he developed a wide range of construction activities. In particular, the town hall (built in 1931) and the VC stadium (built in 1932), a state-of-the-art sports facility for the time (today: Thuringian State Sports School), and in 1928 the VC or gymnastics memorial in the tower of the Greifenstein castle ruins were built and still are today available.

Fusion with the German Landsmannschaft

In 1950 the members of the former German Landsmannschaft (DL) and the former VC merged to form the Coburg Convent (CC). The gymnastics associations of the former VC are currently clearly in the minority there, as a number of gymnastics associations fell into the aftermath of the student unrest around 1970, so that the gymnastics movement split up: The majority of the member associations remained in the CC, but some gave the academic one Fencing actually started and founded the Marburg Convention (MK). Gymnastics associations of the former representative convent can be found today as member unions in the Coburg Convent (CC), in the Marburg Convent (MK) or as non-union connections.

See also

literature

  • EH Eberhard: Handbook of the student liaison system. Leipzig, 1924/25, pp. 217-218.
  • VC association of gymnastics associations at German universities. Charlottenburg 1926.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Anselm Faust: The National Socialist German Student Union , Volume 2, Düsseldorf 1973, p. 29.
  2. ↑ Hrsg. Hochschulpolitisches Amt des VC: Verband der Turnerschaften at German universities , self-published by the VC, Charlottenburg 9 / Spandauer Berg 9, 1926/27, p. 3 ff.
  3. ↑ Erich Müller: Turnerschafterbuch , Verlag des Turnerschafterbuches Mainz, 1933, p. 277 f.

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