An extraordinary congress of representatives of student corporations, held in Stuttgart, dashed the hopes of the German student body united in historical organizations for liberalization of the movement. The 500 delegates of the congress, representing about 100 corporations, yielded to the pressure of the right wing of student organizations. Representatives of liberal-oriented groups found themselves in the minority, failing to achieve the exclusion from corporations of those students who had tainted themselves by membership in organizations whose activities contradict the German constitution. Earlier, right-wing extremists had already succeeded in displacing liberals from a number of important posts in the corporations.
The idea of creating student corporations in Europe arose at the end of the 18th century. These organizations became especially widespread in the German-speaking territory. Since studying at universities was a male prerogative, corporations became a kind of men's club, whose members - besides successful studies - observed many traditions and rituals, fenced, played sports, and spent leisure time together. Two centuries later, the number of corporations open to women is still extremely small.
In recent years, student corporations have increasingly come to the attention of the German public due to various scandals, primarily related to the position of a number of fraternities close to right-extremist views. United into several umbrella organizations - unions, they actively seek to influence politics, under the guise of upholding traditions suppressing any opportunities for liberalization. The most scandalous was the case of an attempt to expel from the Mannheim corporation Hansea a young man born in Germany, whose parents moved to the Federal Republic from China. The scandal revealed little-known details of the life of student corporations: in particular, many associations insist on checking the 'Aryan' origin of their future members. The Stuttgart congress officially legitimized a sad suspicion: adherence to traditional values among a part of the German student body has turned into a dangerous closeness to the 'brown plague'.
OUR REFERENCE
A student corporation (Burschenschaft) is an academic organization, membership in which, beginning during university studies, usually lasts a lifetime. Corporations unite students and graduates of higher education based on the principles of brotherhood, patriotism, pursuit of knowledge, and respect for seniority. The first corporations arose in Germany at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century, finally taking shape in the second half of the century. The first student corporation in Germany is considered to be Onoldia, founded on May 28, 1798 in Erlangen.
As of today, there are about 900 different student corporations in Germany, uniting up to 150,000 members - former and current students. Many corporations distance themselves from politics and religion, being organizations where devotion to traditions and conservatism are combined with democracy and tolerance. For a number of other corporations, the origin, nationality of the student, his political and religious views are of great importance, and can become both an obstacle to joining the organization and a reason for exclusion from it.
Maxim SMIRNOV.
