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German Students in the First World War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Konrad H. Jarausch
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Type
Symposium: Students and Universities in Germany and Austria During two World Wars
Information
Central European History , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , December 1984 , pp. 310 - 329
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1984

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References

1. Schulte's, A. speech is condensed in Bonner Universitätschronik 40 (1914): 2f.Google Scholar See also Stromberg, R., Redemption by War: The Intellectuals and 1914 (Kansas, 1982).Google Scholar

2. Grabein, P., “Der Student im Weltkriege,” in: Vivat Academia: 600 Jahre deutsches Hochschulleben (Essen, 1931), 236–46 is typical of the cultGoogle Scholar. The classic account is Schulze, F. and Ssymank, P., Das deutsche Studententum von den ältesten Zeiten bis zur Gegenwart, 4th ed. (Munich, 1932), 452–63Google Scholar. For the rich, unexplored pamphlet materials see Institut für Hochschulkunde, , Bestände der Bibliothek (Würzburg, n.d.), F 765–819Google Scholar. Because there is no monographic treatment, the present essay intends to make a beginning by raising some of the central issues.

3. For the longer view cf. Jarausch, K. H., Deutsche Studenten 1800–1970 (Frankfurt, 1984)Google Scholar. Cf. also the special issue of Peace and Change 7 (1981), nos. 1 and 2Google Scholar on “Peace Ideals and the Reality of World War One,” especially the essays by Lutzker and Jarausch.

4. Vondung, K., ed., Kriegserlebnis: Der Erste Weltkrieg in der literarischen Gestaltung und symbolischen Deutung der Nationen (Göttingen, 1980), 11ff.Google Scholar as well as Fusell, P., The Great War and Modern Memory (New York, 1975).Google Scholar

5. For an exploration of the “lost generation” see Wohl, R., The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, 1979)Google Scholar. The generational approach has been accepted too uncritically by the reviewers.

6. Enrollment figures from Herrlitz, H. G. and Titze, H., eds., Datenhandbuch zur deutschen Universitätsgeschichte (Göttingen, 1985)Google Scholar; demographic data in Jarausch, , “Frequenz und Struktur: Zur Sozialgeschichte der Studenten im Kaiserreich,” in: Baumgart, P., ed., Bildungspolitik in Preussen zur Zeit des Kaiserreichs (Stuttgart, 1980), 119ff.Google Scholar and an unpublished case study of the University of Göttingen.

7. Jarausch, K. H., “The Social Transformation of the University: The Case of Prussia, 1865–1914”, Journal of Social History 12 (1980): 609–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. also Craig, J. E., “Higher Education and Social Mobility in Germany,” in Jarausch, , ed., The Transformation of Higher Learning 1860–1930 (Chicago, 1983), 219–44.Google Scholar

8. Paulsen, F., Die deutschen Universitäten und das Universitätsstudium (Berlin, 1902)Google Scholar; and Jarausch, , Students, Society and Politics in Imperial Germany: The Rise of Academic Illiberalism (Princeton, 1982), 234–332.Google Scholar

9. Ziegler, T., Der deutsche Student am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1895)Google Scholar; and Jarausch, , “Liberal Education as Illiberal Socialization: The Case of Students in Imperial Germany,” Journal of Modern History 50 (1978): 609–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Lüdtke, F., “Neunzehnhundertdreizehn,” Burschenschaftliche Blätter 27 (1912–1913): 259.Google Scholar For a sensitive study of the many shadings of academic opinion see vom Bruch, R., Wissenschaft, Politik und öffentliche Meinung: Gelehrtenpolitik im Wilhelminischen Deutschland (1890–1914) (Husum, 1980)Google Scholar. Cf. Jarausch, Students, 384ff.

11. Petition of the Internationale Studentenverein, Marburg University Archive, 305a, Acc. 1950/9, no. 192. In Bonn the university senate rejected an offer of the Internationales Friedensbüro of Bern, Switzerland, to fund vacation courses on pacifism during the summer (in March 1914), Bonn University Archive, Rekt. A 33, 3, 4. Cf. also Chickering, R., Imperial Germany and a World Without War (Princeton, 1975), 163ff.Google Scholar

12. “Liebe Bundesbrüder!” editorial of Akademische Blätter 29 (1914): 3Google Scholar; Poem by , L. R., “Es gilt!” Academia 27 (1914): 205Google Scholar; quote from Schmidt, M., “Ja der Krieg freut mich…,”, Schwäbisches Tageblatt, 11. 19, 1983Google Scholar, and “Gott mit uns!” Akademische Monatsblätter 26 (1914), 202Google Scholar. Cf. Stromberg, Redemption, 177 for a less than convincing explanation.

13. Editorial, “Liebe Bundesbrüder!” Akademische Monatshefte 29 (1914): 3ffGoogle Scholar. (also for the greetings of the nationalist Berlin professors); Schulte in Bonner Universitätschronik 40 (1914): 3ff.Google Scholar; DrWeiss, , “Liebe Cartellbrüder!” Academia 27 (1914): 206f.Google Scholar; “Krieg!” Akademische Monatsblätter 26 (1914): 202f.Google Scholar; “Der Krieg,” Academische Monatshefte 31 (1914): 257–61.Google Scholar

14. Dreysse, W., Langemarck 1914: Der heldische Opfergang der Deutschen Jugend (Minden, 1930), 11ff.Google Scholar (with a watercolor by A. Hitler); Kaufmann, G., Langemarck: Das Opfer der Jugend an allen Fronten (Stuttgart, 1938), 103–14Google Scholar; and for a military account Beumelburg, W., Langemarck (Berlin, 1938)Google Scholar. The political lesson of the sacrifice was that “The youthful blood shed spurs us, the living, to complete the Reich,” Wehner, J. M., Langemarck: Ein Vermächtnis (Munich, 1932), 3–9Google Scholar. Cf. Mosse, G. L., “Soldatenfriedhöfe und nationale Wiedergeburt: Der Gefallenenkult in Deutschland,” in: Kriegserlebnis, 241–61.Google Scholar

15. Figures from Schulze-Ssymank, Deutsches Studententum, 453f.; Marburg examples from Brocke, B. V., “Marburg im Kaiserreich 1866–1918,” in: Dettmering, E., ed., Marburger Geschichte (Marburg, 1980), 531–40Google Scholar. W. Goetz quote in Schulze-Ssymank, above. For a brief sketch cf. Krause, P., “O alte Burschenherrlickheit”: Studenten und ihr Brauchtum, 3d ed. (Graz, 1980), 160–61.Google Scholar

16. Heer, F., Geschichte der deutschen Burschenschaft (Heidelberg, 1939), 4:98ff.Google ScholarDunkmann, K., “Der deutsche Studentendienst 1914,” Internationale Monatsschrift für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technik 12 (1917/1918): 687–702Google Scholar; and A. Gercke, “Wissenschaftlicher Unterricht an der Front,” ibid., 13 (1918/1919): 82–96. Deutsche Weihnacht: Erste Liebesgabe deutscher Hochschüler (Kassel, 1914)Google Scholar and subsequent similar volumes, such as Ostergruss der Rheinischen-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität an ihre Angehörigen im Felde (Bonn, 1916)Google Scholar.

17. Revised figures from Schwarz, J., Studenten in der Weimarer Republik (Berlin, 1971), 20–57 and 409ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and annual rector reports, Bonner Universitätschronik, vols. 40–44 (1914–1918)Google Scholar. The literature on female study does not properly appreciate the importance of womes's gains during the First World War. Cf. Soden, K. v., ed., 70 Jahre Frauenstudium (Cologne, 1979), 18f.Google Scholar See also Hausmann, S., “Das Frauenstudium im Kriege,” Die Frau 25 (1917/1918): 15–24Google Scholar.

18. Anschütz, Rector, “Aus dem Leben der Universität,” in Ostergruss, 6–19Google Scholar; Pinkerneil, A., Die Organisation des Akademischen Hilfsbundes (Berlin, 1918)Google Scholar; and material from the Bonn University Archives, A 50, 16, vol. 1 as well as Bundesarchiv Frankfurt, DB, Geschäftstführender Ausschuss 1913–1918, 3. Cf. also Steiger, G., Geschichte der Universität Jena (Jena, 1958), 509ff.Google Scholar and Heynacher, M., “Studentinnen in der Munitionsarbeit,” Die Frau 25 (1917/1918): 222–25.Google Scholar

19. Prussian government regulations in Bonner Universitätschronik, vols. 40–44Google Scholar; reactions of parliamentarians in the Hauptausschuss in Schiffers, R., ed., Der Hauptausschuss des Deutschen Reichstags 1915–1918 (Düsseldorf, 1981), 2:1060–64Google Scholar; 3:1231–33. Ludendorff, E., ed., Urkunden der Obersten Heeresleitung über ihre Tätigkeit 1916/18 (Berlin, 1920), 67, 79, 268ffGoogle Scholar. Cf. also Feldman, G. D., Army, Industry and Labor in Germany, 1914–1918 (Princeton, 1967), 172ff.Google Scholar

20. Still authoritative, Schwabe, Klaus, Wissenschaft und Kriegsmoral: Die deutschen Hochschullehrer und die politischen Grundfragen des Ersten Weltkrieges (Göttingen, 1969)Google Scholar. Cf. also Ringer, F., The Decline of the German Mandarins (Cambridge, 1969)Google Scholar and Bonn University Archive, Rekt. A 50, 16, 1. As background now also Chickering, R., We Men Who Feel Most German (Boston, 1984).Google Scholar

21. Figures compiled from Bonner Universitätschronik, vols. 40ff.; material in Bonn University Archive, Rekt. A 20, 5,2. Cf. also Schulze-Ssymank, Deutsches Studententum, 457ff.; and the war issues of the leading student journals such as Akademische Blätter, September 1914 or “Der CV im Völkerkrieg,” Academia 27 (1914): 257ff.Google Scholar

22. Quotes from Witkop, Ph., ed., Kriegsbriefe gefallener Studenten (Munich, 1929), 16, 23, 26, 58, 59, 62, 91, 289, 303, 308, 310, 312, 325, 328, 333, 336, 338, 347, 348Google Scholar. Although the letters printed represent a selection from 20,000 originals, it is not possible to make quantitative judgments about the weight of different currents, since they reflect editorial choices. Cf. also Siegmund-Schultze, F., Ver Sacrum (Berlin, 1919)Google Scholar for another edition of war letters.

23. Witkop, Kriegsbriefe, 19, 83, and “Schlesische vaterländische Studentenversammlung,” Berliner Tageblatt, October 1918, no. 1682/18. For the Reichsverband deutschvölkischer Akademiker cf. the file in the Humboldt University Archive.

24. Quote in Schulze-Ssymank, Deutsches Studententum, 459ff. Linse, U., “Hochschul-revolution: Zur Ideologie und Praxis sozialistischer Studentengruppen während der deutschen Revolutionszeit 1918–19,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 14 (1974): 1–114Google Scholar; and Joel, E. and Mohr, E., Die wartende Hochschule (Munich, 1916).Google Scholar

25. Stanzas two and four of W. Hermanns (Aachen), Studenten-Auszug, published by the Catholic Sekretariat sozialer Studentenarbeit in Mönchen-Gladbach. Other quotations from Toller, Ernst, Eine Jugend in Deutschland (Reinbeck, 1963), 60ff.Google Scholar Wohl, Generation of 1914, 203–37.

26. Loewenberg, Peter, “The Psychohistorical Origins of the Nazi Youth Cohort,” American Historical Review 76 (1971): 1497–1502CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. The generational conflict literature in the Weimar Republic like Mommsen, H., “The Impact of Intergenerational Conflict on the Structural Crisis of the Weimar Republic” (unpubl. MS, Bochum, 1982)Google Scholar and Kater, M. H., “Generationskonflikt als Entwicklungsfaktor in der NS-Bewegung vor 1933,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 11 (1985), no. 2Google Scholar, needs to be refined according to more precise age cohorts.

27. Quote from Kaufmann, Langemarck, 103ff. For an example of the fraternity cult of the dead cf. Palatia, Corps, ed., Pfälzer im Krieg, 1914–1918: Zum Gedenken an verlorne Wehrkraft, Freiheit und Grösse (Munich, 1928).Google Scholar Cf. also the rich Weimar student literaturecited in Jarausch, Deutsche Studenten, 117–63.

28. Bergsträsser, A., “Die Kriegsteilnehmergeneration 1914–1918,” in: Tillmanns, R., ed., Ordnung und Ziel (Stuttgart, 1954), 9f.Google Scholar