But, as Deutsche Welle notes, in addition to affordability and convenience, another feature of German dorms is the atmosphere of freedom: here, for example, no one knows what a dorm superintendent is. True, this does not mean that residents are allowed everything.
In October 2015, a student from Munich was shocked: she received a letter demanding that she move out of the dorm. She was given two weeks to find a new apartment. The reason for the termination of the contract was that the student was renting out her room on the Airbnb portal.
"I didn't expect such a reaction. In our dorm, some people illegally rent out rooms, and it hasn't bothered anyone so far," she comments on an online forum. But in Germany, subletting rented accommodation to a third party is only possible with the landlord's permission.
Renting out a dorm room, when such housing is subsidized by the state and difficult to obtain, is extremely immoral, according to the Munich Student Services Association, which allocates places in city dorms. For the same reason, students have already been evicted in Hamburg. Notices in Berlin dorms also warn of severe consequences for enterprising individuals.
"Of course, subletting a dorm room to a third party is an absolute taboo," emphasizes Robert Anders from the Bonn Student Services Association in an interview with DW. "Other than that, there are not many conditions that students must adhere to. The main thing is compliance with the house rules (Hausordnung), which exist in any German apartment building. 'When receiving a dorm room, the student signs a rental agreement, thereby agreeing to these rules,' explains Robert Anders. Residents are asked to treat each other with respect, not to make noise from 10 pm to 7 am, and not to harm the health of others, for example, by not smoking in common areas.
These rules are not designed to make life difficult; they reflect care for the students themselves. For safety reasons, for example, residents are often not allowed to place their own washing machines in the dorm or use portable electric stoves. Bicycles are asked to be parked not on the landing but in special parking areas. Many dorms prohibit keeping pets.
On the other hand, you can receive guests in your dorm room whenever you want, and no one will check their identity. However, attitudes towards overnight stays by outsiders vary in degrees of tolerance: while in Bonn there are no restrictions, in Heidelberg, for example, you can only host guests overnight once a week.
"German student dormitories have their own rules. The main one is that the students themselves resolve emerging problems. And tolerance among residents is important here," notes Robert Anders. At the same time, there is a student self-government body (studentische Selbstverwaltung) in these associations in German university cities. Students themselves organize daily life in the dorms. "This developed historically, when the first dorms appeared in Germany 80 years ago," explains Robert Anders. "Only later did the Student Services Association begin to handle organizational matters on a professional level."
To ensure everything runs smoothly, dorms have senior tutors (Senioren), tutors, and mentors. They are elected by the students themselves at residents' meetings. The senior tutor is the contact person for the Student Services Association when discussing important issues. Tutors are responsible for specific areas, such as working with foreigners or newcomers. Finally, mentors organize cultural events and help solve everyday problems, like setting up internet or sorting trash. Students perform these functions on a voluntary basis, and in return, they get the opportunity to live in the dorm for a few semesters longer than the allotted time.
If disagreements do arise among residents, most often, according to Robert Anders, it is about common areas. "In Bonn, every second dorm resident is a foreigner. Due to cultural differences, there are disputes about how to clean, how to cook, how to throw parties," the expert specifies. "You can't avoid talking to each other."
What to do if arguments don't help? "If the conflict escalates, which happens extremely rarely, then we step in," says a representative of the Student Services Association. "The resident gets a warning, may be offered to move to another room or another dorm. But termination of the contract occurs only as a last resort."
However, significant damage to dorm furniture or equipment can have financial consequences. When moving into a dorm, students pay a deposit (Kaution). The Student Services Association has the right to deduct from the deposit an amount that at least partially compensates for the damage.