Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association

German Students in the First World War

Author(s): Konrad H. Jarausch
Source: Central European History, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Dec., 1984), pp. 310-329
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of Conference Group for Central
European History of the American Historical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4546024
Accessed: 20-09-2016 04:15 UTC

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 German Students in the First World War

KONRAD H. JARAUSCH

war tradition. Although they had played only a marginal military

INrole,song
the Freeand tale,WarGerman
Corps ofthe of Liberation instudents
1813 against Na?were fond of glorifying a long
poleon became legendary in a popular tune: Lutzows wilde, verwegene
Jagd... ! Half a century later students hesitated to engage in the fratri-
cidal conflict against Austria, but academic youths rushed to the colors
in impressive numbers during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. Even if
the fighting turned ugly after the initial victory of Sedan, only a few
hundred of the several thousand student volunteers were wounded or
killed, so that the triumph over the Erbfeind on the other side of the
Rhine could assume mythical proportions. Celebrated in patriotic holi-
days, this perception of war as heroic epic generated in successive stu?
dent cohorts the expectation that their turn to prove their patriotism
would come in due time. In an actual crisis, adult authorities like the
rector of Bonn University Aloys Schulte could successfully appeal to
this ingrained response: "We stand at the threshold of a difficult strug?
gle, and that grand spirit ofthe wars of liberation is renewing itself in
us and around us." To a cohort steeped in this kind of history, the July
crisis of 1914 therefore appeared as its rendezvous with destiny: "May
we be worthy ofthe generations of 1813 and 18701"1
This legacy of academic nationalism was so strong that the experi?
ence of German students in the First World War came to be seen in
terms of larger-than-life heroism. "Unselfish love for the fatherland
and German people, a belief in the justice of their cause, the unshake-
able hope in victory inspired them all." The cult ofthe dead fastened
particularly on students and created a veritable myth of academic sac-
rifice.2 However, the reality ofthe bloody trenches or ofthe unheated
1. A. Schulte's speech is condensed in Bonner Universitdtschronik 40 (1914): 2f. See
also R. Stromberg, Redemption by War: The Intellectuals and 1914 (Kansas, 1982).
2. P. Grabein, "Der Student im Weltkriege," in: Vivat Academia: 600 Jahre deutsches
Hochschulleben (Essen, 1931), 236-46 is typical ofthe cult. The classic account is F. Schulze

310

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 Konrad H. Jarausch 311
lecture halls was more prosaic and problematic. Probing beneath th
legend raises some troubling questions. Given the current pacifism
many academic youths, one wonders, for instance: where did the una
mous wave of war enthusiasm come from in the summer of 1914?
Much has been written about effect ofthe Kriegserlebnis on soldiers
intellectuals. But the precise nature of their experience at the front
at home has proven elusive and ambivalent.4 The involvement of a
major countries in the World War meant that students had to bea
considerable share ofthe fighting everywhere. Was this common du
enough to fashion a "generation of 1914," set apart from its elders,
did academic youths react to the Great War in different ways accord
to class, religion, and nationality?5 Homage to the dead demands n
reaffirmation of patriotic myths but a critical look at the actual w
experience.

On the eve of the First World War, German students were rapidly
increasing in number and becoming more demographically diverse.
While they still constituted only 1.63 percent ofthe 19 to 23 year old
age cohort, they had grown to over 60,235 in 21 universities plus an?
other about 20,000 in Technische Hochschulen and other institutions of
higher learning. Over two-fifths of them were enrolled in the philo?
sophical faculty (including the humanities, sciences, and various prac?
tical subjects like pharmacy and agriculture), whereas around one-fifth
was studying law, one-quarter pursuing medicine, and the rest (one-
tenth or less) enrolled in theology. The average age of freshmen had
risen to over 20 years, while the typical milieu was no longer a town

and P. Ssymank, Das deutsche Studententum von den dltesten Zeiten bis zur Gegenwart, 4th
ed. (Munich, 1932), 452-63. For the rich, unexplored pamphlet materials see Institut fiir
Hochschulkunde, Bestdnde der Bibliothek (Wurzburg, n.d.), F 765-819. 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. K. H. Jarausch, Deutsche Studenten 1800-1970 (Frankfurt,
1984). Cf. also the special issue of Peace and Change 7 (1981), nos. 1 and 2 on "Peace
Ideals and the Reality of World War One," especially the essay s by Lutzker and Jarausch.
4. K. Vondung, ed., Kriegserlebnis: Der Erste Weltkrieg in der literarischen Gestaltung und
symbolischen Deutung der Nationen (Gottingen, 1980), nff. as well as P. Fusell, The Great
War and Modern Memory (New York, 1975).
5. For an exploration of the "lost generation" see R. Wohl, The Generation of 1914
(Cambridge, 1979). The generational approach has been accepted too uncritically by the

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312 German Students in the First World War
but a city over 100,000 inhabitants. Protestants were slightly overrep-
resented (at over two-thirds), Catholics were underrepresented, and at
5.6 percent Jewish students were more than five times as numerous as
in the general population. Despite the complaints of traditionalists, the
classical secondary school (Gymnasium) was losing its monopoly and
modern high schools prepared over one-third of all students. After long
struggles, women also finally gained access to higher education and
numbered about 7 percent ofthe student body by 1914.6
Although academics continued to assert their claim to be ' leaders of
the nation," their social composition had become considerably more
open during the enrollment expansion. Despite the neofeudal tenden?
cies of some fraternities, less than 2 percent ofthe students were nobles
in the last prewar years. Between one-third and one-fourth still hailed
from elite families with bureaucratic or economic control over others.
Only one-tenth ofthe students had an agricultural background and one-
sixth came from industrial circles. Almost one-quarter stemmed from
commercial backgrounds, but the dominant milieu was made up of
public officials whose families accounted for almost one-half ofthe stu?
dent body. Nonetheless university-educated parents had declined to 22
percent, drastically reducing academic self-recruitment. The proper-
tied middle class sent more of its children to college, amounting to
around one-third. However, the lower-middle class, especially of white
collar workers and lower-middle officials and teachers made consider?
able progress, almost reaching one-half of all students at the eve ofthe
war. True enough, the working-class half of the population remained
virtually excluded. But students were no longer the elitist lot which
their "social-aristocratic" pretentions might suggest. Instead they were
becoming ever more kleinburgerlich.7
Since German students were less regimented than Anglo-American
collegians, they had developed an extraordinarily rich and diverse sub-
culture dominated by corporatism. During the last prewar years around

6. Enrollment figures from H. G. Herrlitz and H. Titze, eds., Datenhandbuch zur deut?
schen Universitdtsgeschichte (Gottingen, 1985); demographic data in Jarausch, "Frequenz
und Struktur: Zur Sozialgeschichte der Studenten im Kaiserreich," in: P. Baumgart, ed.,
Bildungspolitik in Preussen zur Zeit des Kaiserreichs (Stuttgart, 1980), H9ff. and an unpub?
lished case study of the University of Gottingen.
7. K. H. Jarausch, "The Social Transformation ofthe University: The Case of Prussia,
1865-1914," Journal of Social History 12 (1980): 609-36. Cf. also J. E. Craig, "Higher
Education and Social Mobility in Germany," in Jarausch, ed., The Transformation of
Higher Learning 1860-1930 (Chicago, 1983), 219-44.

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 Konrad H. Jarausch 313
one-half of all students belonged to some kind of corporation. Thes
German fraternities formed a strict hierarchy, led by the duelling V
bindungen such as the exclusive Corps, the formerly liberal Bursche
schaft, the traditional Landsmannschaft, or the gymnastic Turnerschaft.
second tier was formed by the non-duelling but color-carrying corp
rations, largely of religious inspiration such as the Protestant Wingolfor
the Catholic CV. The lowest rung on the ladder was composed of loos
associations like the scholarly Ver eine ofthe Deutsche Wissenschafter Ver
band, glee clubs, athletic groups, and so on. This corporatism was exce
sively formal, stressing colorful caps, bands, stylized address, ete. It also
had an elaborate set of rituals such as a pledge system, drinking cu
toms, and the controversial mock-duel (Bestimmungsmensur), foug
with rapiers over alleged insults in carefully controlled conditions so
to test courage by drawing blood and creating visible marks in the co
eted facial Schmisse. Corporations were instinctively traditionalist, heark
ening back to feudal and medieval forms (even if these were newly i
vented). The effect of such a corporate subculture on academic you
was a sense of social superiority and a strong political loyalty to the im
perial German system, making most Old Boys gravitate to the cent
and right of the political spectrum.8
German student politics in the last prewar years was largely a conte
between nationalist, anti-Semitic, and neoliberal currents. The erst-
while radical Burschenschaft had tried hard to lose its subversive flavor b
developing its older nationalism into a more modern imperialism, su
porting German Weltpolitik. Other corporations like the Turnerscha
also turned nationalist and even formerly critical groups like Catholi
associations embraced the national consensus. In the early 1880s a wa
of anti-Semitism swept over German campuses, leading to the found
tion ofthe Ver eine Deutscher Studenten which propagated a curious gos-
pel of monarchy, religion, and anti-Jewishness. These VDSt manage
to capture student self-government due to superior organizational ta
tics. In contrast, socialist currents were rigorously repressed by the gov?
ernment and the growing SPD remained skeptical of academic yout
Around the turn ofthe century a neoliberal current surged through t
independent students and made them coalesce into a loosely organiz
Freistudentenschaft. Although it contributed valuable ideas to student we

8. F. Paulsen, Die deutschen Universitaten und das Universitdtsstudium (Berlin, 1902); an

Jarausch, Students, Society and Politics in Imperial Germany: The Rise of Academic Illiberalism
(Princeton, 1982), 234-332.

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314 German Students in the First World War
fare, this Finkenschaft did not dare promote its progressive views poli-
tically. The ensuing struggles such as the Hochschulstreit of 1905 over
the legitimacy of Catholic student organizations demonstrate the hold
of the corporate, nationalist, and anti-Semitic tendencies over the ma?
jority of German students.9
The threatening "thunderclouds in East and West" which foreshad-
owed the war in the early years of this century therefore met with
concern and confidence among German students. As a result of the
formal political training ofthe university and ofthe informal corporate
influences, young and old academics embraced an enthusiastic nation?
alism of varying ideological shadings. This fundamental conviction ofa
special national mission ofthe educated created a sense of responsibility
for maintaining the domestic unity and foreign strength of the Bis-
marckian empire. The symbolic celebrations like the centennial of the
Leipzig victory over Napoleon and the quarter-century of William II's
reign in 1913 were national sacraments which drew students together
across religious, organizational, and political barriers. A considerable
number of young academics was also infected by a widespread milita-
rism, which was evident in the preeminence of the reserve lieutenant
title over academic degrees such as the Dr. Phil. on calling cards.
Treitschke's social-Darwinistic teaching of war as the father of all things
found considerable resonance among the younger generation, since it
was popularized through such widely-read war writers as General von
Bernhardi. Moreover, the naval and eventually also army agitation of
several hundred professors indoctrinated the students not only in public
rallies or the press but also in classroom teaching. The hardening tone of
the foreign political articles in the student-corporation press during the
last prewar years indicates not only a growing readiness for defensive
but in some cases also offensive war.10
In contrast, liberal free-student circles and more so, socialist sympa-
thizers, opposed naked Weltpolitik. But they failed to develop a system-
atic critique of imperialism and in the final analysis also shared the
national consensus. Only a miniscule minority of pacifist students and

9. T. Ziegler, Der deutsche Student am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1895); and
Jarausch, "Liberal Education as Illiberal Socialization: The Case of Students in Imperial
Germany," Journal of Modern History 50 (1978): 609-30.
10. F. Liidtke, "Neunzehnhundertdreizehn," Burschenschaftliche Blatter 27 (1912-13):
259. For a sensitive study ofthe many shadings of academic opinion see R. vom Bruch,
Wissenschaft, Politik und offentliche Meinung: Gelehrtenpolitik im Wilhelminischen Deutsch?
land (1890-1914) (Husum, 1980). Cf. Jarausch, Students, 384ff.

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 Konrad H. Jarausch 315
professors completely rejected war as political means. The internatio
Student Association, inspired by Norman Angell, dared merely to "prop-
agate friendly relations among students of all nations" and to awake
understanding for foreign culture rather than tackle nationalism he
on.11
Growing numbers and social diversity of German students in the last
prewar years therefore made for a broad spectrum of opinion. Their
organizations were quite fragmented according to form or ideology,
but held together by a common tendency toward corporatism. Al?
though German student politics were less violent than in Austria, they
were nevertheless sharply contested. But all camps were united by a
common sense of national mission, which made it somehow appear
un-German to question the resort to arms in cases of emergency. A
sizable minority of German academics hoped for a Weltpolitik ohne Krieg
like the liberal imperialists around chancellor Bethmann Hollweg. But
in a national danger, they stood ready, across all social and religious
divisions, to respond to the call of the fatherland.

During the July crisis of 1914 the majority of students fell back on this
ingrained patriotic tradition and responded with remarkable enthusiasm
and unanimity. Academic youths were more visible in demonstrating
crowds in Berlin or Bonn than workers, among whom some inter-
nationalism lingered. As far as their feelings are reflected in published
sources, students overwhelmingly supported the war, even those Cath?
olic groups which had earlier rejected the popular Bismarck homages as
excessive chauvinism. If there were doubts, they were largely personal:
"Am I ready, as I often vowed in word and song, am I willing to lay
down my life for my people and my country .. . ?" Most were caught
up in a powerful wave of patriotism:
Give me arms, lead me to the field
Make me a hero, a shining shield;
For my country, my people, my Germany
Join the struggle toward victory.

li. Petition ofthe Internationale Studentenverein, Marburg University Archive, 305a,

Ace. 1950/9, no. 192. In Bonn the university senate rejected an offer ofthe Internationales
Friedensbiiro 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 R. Chick-
ering, Imperial Germany and a World Without War (Princeton, 1975), i63ff.

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316 German Students in the First World War
For instance in the quaint university town of Tiibingen, "the air seemed
charged with electricity," students paraded through the streets and gave
patriotic speeches before the Uhland monument, on the market square
or in front ofthe rector's house: "There was no one whose eyes did not
gleam with the wish to join, no one who did not wait for, even hope for
the declaration of war; all shared the burning desire to put their practice
with the sword to good use." War appealed as escape from boring
duties, a renewal of national community, a heroic adventure which
would give meaning to life. The emotional power of this collective
feeling of uplift and excitement silenced all lingering qualms. "It was as
if the whole nation marched to the border in the same rhythm of unity
and patriotism."12
Professors and student corporations understood the outbreak of the
war as a test of their national education. The August issue of the Akade?
mische Blatter (the journal of the anti-Semitic Verein Deutscher Stu?
denten) put the issue unmistakeably: "Now the hour has come when
that seed must grow and bear fruit which our organization planted in
many young hearts and carried into other circles ofthe nation in long
decades of quiet work." For the Bonn Rector Schulte the patriotism of
academic youth proved the success of university training: "The joyous
enthusiasm, the serious dedication and the courageous enlistments show
that Germany was right to educate its sons in the noblest civic virtue?
the unconditional sacrifice for state, fatherland, emperor, and king." To
be sure, explanations of the conflict differed among student groups.
Catholics considered the war a defensive struggle "for the protection
and glory of our fatherland" or "for our right to exist." Corps members
saw its purpose as "freeing our nation from the encirclement of our foes
and gaining new respect for its name in the entire world." VDSt nation?
alists went even further: "We know it is a matter of survival for the
German people. Moreover, the entire future of Germandom is at stake."
The defensive war slogan of the imperial government which failed
abroad succeeded in mobilizing young and old academics at home:
"Nobody doubts that German students will do what they consider their
duty," asserted the pan-German historian Dietrich Schafer proudly. His
Berlin colleagues Adolph Wagner, Wilhelm Kahl, and Gustav Roethe

12. "Liebe Bundesbriider!"editorialo?Akademische Blatterig (1914): 3;Poem byL.R.,

"Es gilt!" Academia 27 (1914): 205; quote from M. Schmidt, "Ja der Krieg freut mich...,"
Schwdbisches Tageblatt, Nov. 19,1983, and "Gott mit uns!" Akademische Monatsbldtter 26
(1914), 202. Cf. Stromberg, Redemption, 177 for a less than convincing explanation.

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 Konrad H. Jarausch 317
called out to the departing volunteers: "After an age of talkers and scrib
blers this will be an era of heroes!" Many students who had opposed
another before now intoned together: "Forward with God, forward f
Kaiser and Reich!"13
The Fichtean resolve, "not to win or die, but to win at all costs!"
logically led academic youths into the carnage ofthe trenches. The a
tack of the so-called "children's regiments" of volunteers at Lange-
marck on November 11,1914 grew into a symbol ofthe students' sa
rifice as well as of its military pointlessness: "Dawn comes, a yell, fir
on the right, then everywhere, on the whole front?the signal to a
tack ... ! Relieved we climb out ofthe trenches, form our ranks. No
decision is near," a survivor recalled the desperate attack, ordered
hopes of breaking through to the Channel coast. "Hurrah ... ! Bulle
hail upon us. Machine guns and infantry fire. Grenades howl above u
roar and burst.... Again we are in a swarm of missiles. Rushing, m
sink and fall. Some quietly, some with a cry. Our cheers are soon s
lenced, smothered by iron. Our rows are mowed down." And yet t
spirit of these hastily assembled students, high school graduates an
young workers, would not break. "In the most horrible hours of t
battle, when death leads entire columns away and the Flemish canals run
red with blood, when impotent despair creeps through the corpse-strewn
meadows, a singing arises, which makes dying eyes sparkle and relen
lessly drives the living forward, which sounds above the battle and li
the doomed crowds beyond reason: Deutschland, Deutschland uber all
iiber alles in der Welt_" This pathetic and somewhat stylized narrat
ofthe Langemarck attack demonstrates the intensity of student natio
alism which made it possible for the supreme command to dispose
academic youth at will. But this passage also reveals the military dub
ousness of attacking in parade-ground fashion enemy trenches, defended
with machine guns and barbed wire, in which manpower reserves w
simply thrown away. The former rather than the latter reason made the
courage of these students legendary and created a powerful nation
myth which was exploited time and again by the Right in subsequ
decades in annual Langemarck commemorations. The military ceme

13. Editorial, "Liebe Bundesbriider!" Akademische Monatshefte 29 (1914): 3ff. (also

the greetings ofthe nationalist Berlin professors); Schulte in Bonner Universitdtschro
40 (1914): 3ff.; Dr. Weiss, "Liebe CzrteUbiudeil" Academia 27 (1914): 2o6f; "Krie
Akademische Monatsbldtter 26 (1914): 202f.; "Dei Kxieg,"Academische Monatshefte 31 (19
257-61.

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 318 German Students in the First World War
teries with their ordered death and natural settings became central cult
places for nationalism.14
A whole cohort often semesters studied less in the lecture halls than
on the battlefields. Ofthe about 79,225 tertiary students in the summer
semester of 1914 as many as 39,585 went to the front, i.e., about one-
half. In the summer semester of 1918 there were 57,382 soldier students
ofthe 84,636 enrolled, i.e., more than two-thirds (67.8 percent). Figured
for German males only, war participation at the University of Bonn was
an astounding 78.25 percent, a four-fifths rate that surpassed earlier wars
not only because of the greater national enthusiasm but also the more
thorough manpower mobilization of total warfare. About 16,000 stu?
dents paid with their life for their patriotic idealism, not to mention the
wounded and maimed. About one-fifth of one academic generation
therefore died in the trenches?a higher proportion than of any other
social group. For instance, 464 Marburg citizens were killed in the First
World War and welfare had to support 166 widows among roughly
20,000 inhabitants. But four professors as well as 580 ofthe 1,700 student
volunteers died?one-quarter ofthe male students of 1914! Although
not all students lived up to their heroic self-image, many felt obligated
to assume a special leadership role. The Leipzig historian Walter Goetz
called upon them, "inspired by their great task, animated by deep patri?
otism and burning with the fire of youth, to be the backbone ofthe army
together with the officers." Many students were promoted to reserve
officers and many more won military honors such as the Iron Cross. The
socially coveted Einjdhrige-Freiwillige privilege of only one year service
as officer trainee now exacted a frightful price, since students were pre?
cisely those junior officers directly involved in leading men in battle.
Hence they were also most likely to be decorated?or killed. Despite
this higher risk observers agree on their exceptional valor.15

14- W. Dreysse, Langemarck 1914: Der heldische Opfergang der Deutschen Jugend (Minden,
1930), nff. (with a watercolor by A. Hitler); G. Kaufmann, Langemarck: Das Opfer der
Jugend an allen Fronten (Stuttgart, 1938), 103-14; and for a military account W. Beumel-
burg, Langemarck (Berlin, 1938). The political lesson ofthe sacrifice was that "The youth-
ful blood shed spurs us, the living, to complete the Reich," J. M. Wehner, Langemarck:
Ein Vermdchtnis (Munich, 1932), 3-9. Cf. G. L. Mosse, "Soldatenfriedhofe und nationale
Wiedergeburt: Der Gefallenenkult in Deutschland," in: Kriegserlebnis, 241-61.
15. Figures from Schulze-Ssymank, Deutsches Studententum, 453f.; Marburg examples
from B. v. Brocke, "Marburg im Kaiserreich 1866-1918," in: E. Dettmering, ed., Mar?
burger Geschichte (Marburg, 1980), 531-40. W. Goetz quote in Schulze-Ssymank, above.
For a brief sketch cf. P. Krause, "O alte Burschenherrlickheif': Studenten und ihr Brauchtum,
3 d ed. (Graz, 1980), 160-61.

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 Konrad H. Jarausch 319
Once the excitement of danger wore off and the routine of milita
life had established itself, the Kriegserlebnis of most students was not u
lifting, but brutalizing. Academic, intellectual, and spiritual conce
were curiously remote from the trenches?shadows of another wor
Soldier students were thrown in with youths of lower social classes
had to struggle for physical survival. News ofthe war was sparse, c
sored, and unreliable. To counteract this innere Verrohung and to br
through their isolation, students and young academics banded togeth
in courses or even founded regular Etappenhochschulen, such as the
dier university of Conflans close to Metz. When professors, corporat
brothers, and families at home began to understand this spiritual hunge
they attempted to maintain intellectual contact and provide psych
logical support. The Deutsche Studentendienst 1914, organized by
Burschenschafter Dr. Gerhard Niedermeyer, sought to supply bro
sheets, distribute a journal, establish war libraries, and provide coun
for about 50,000 student soldiers. With the coming ofthe first wint
the German government published a collection of essays on Deutsc
Weihnacht to lift sagging morale. The breadth and enthusiasm of t
volume demonstrate the strength ofthe professorial commitment to the
war. Beyond providing heartwarming Christmas spirit, the essays
the leading imperial scholars such as Max Lenz ("we shall win, beca
we must win, because God cannot desert his children"), Adolf Dies
mann ("you are . . . providing world-historical lessons for us and
future"), Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf ("greetings from a h
lenic muse"), Houston Stewart Chamberlain ("every educated Germ
must first become German"), Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster ("cultur
hegemony") provided a variety of transcendent meanings for the c
nage. When the war dragged on, individual universities similarly se
pamphlets into the field "as a sign of loyalty," offering news from
home institution, schoiarly reflections, and above all, moral suppo
"For what do we fight" the Bonn professor Hans Schreuer asked rhe
ically: "The empire defends our bread and soul, protects the noble
creation, even more, the highest development of our spirit." On t
whole, students at the front were, however, so much preoccupied w
immediate survival that they found little opportunity to grow intel
tually or politically.16

16. F. Heer, Geschichte der deutschen Burschenschaft (Heidelberg, 1939), 4:98fF. K. Du

mann, "Der deutsche Studentendienst 1914," Internationale Monatsschriftfiir Wissensc

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320 German Students in the First World War
Students at home also experienced the war as a severe crisis. The drastic
decrease of enrollment almost suspended normal academic business. Al?
though graduating high school seniors continued to enroll (after 1916-
17 they could do so by mail), the increase in nominal student numbers
(after a small initial dip due to the decrease of foreign students and the
military service of graduates without Abitur) was entirely fictitious
(1914: ca. 80,000; 1918: ca. 84,000). Real student numbers declined pre-
cipitously down to 23,041 (1915) and sank to 17,089 (1916), before
recovering with the return of the wounded and an increase of female
students to 21,633 (1917) and 25,079 (1918). Actual university atten?
dance shrank in 1916 to 21.8 percent ofthe prewar level but returned to
33.4 percent by 1918, while technical college enrollment dropped even
more drastically to 19 percent by 1917. For an individual institution this
meant a contraction to under 1,000 students, which decreased town
income, transformed auditoria into military stables, and left many pro?
fessors without much to do. Moreover, this wartime shrinkage drasti?
cally transformed the structure ofthe student body. In Bonn only "the
wounded, the unfit, temporary-leaves, not-yet-drafted 18-year-olds,
women and auditors, priests as well as monks" kept lectures and semi-
nars going. Since the number of women students increased from 4,057
to 7,182, they now constituted between one-third (1917-18) and two-
fifths (1916) ofthe actual student body. While the war brought female
gains in medicine, philosophy, and the sciences, the lesser involvement
of women in outside duties generated some resentment among the male
students fighting at the front.17
Those academic youths who remained at the universities often suf?
fered from a shortage of food which led to the establishment of soup
kitchens in Bonn. Moreover they were forever required to "volunteer"
for munitions work, duty in the Lazarett-Zug (the Bonn hospital train),
or other similar medical enterprises. "The deepest justification for our

Kunst und Technik 12 (1917/18): 687-702; and A. Gercke, "Wissenschafdicher Unterricht

an der Front," ibid., 13 (1918/19): 82-96. Deutsche Weihnacht: Erste Liebesgabe deutscher
Hochschuler (Kassel, 1914) and subsequent similar volumes, such as Ostergruss der Rhei-
nischen-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitdt an ihre Angehorigen im Felde (Bonn, 1916).
17. Revised figures fromj. Schwarz, Studenten in der Weimarer Republik (Berlin, 1971),
20-57 and 409ff., and annual rector reports, Bonner Universitdtschronik, vols. 40-44 (1914-
18). The literature on female study does not properly appreciate the importance of
women's gains during the First World War. Cf. K. v. Soden, ed., jojahre Frauenstudium
(Cologne, 1979), i8f. See also S. Hausmann, "Das Frauenstudium im Kriege," Die Frau
25 (1917/18): 15-24.

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 Konrad H. Jarausch 321
work and toil is the consciousness of having a task in which we hav
persevere, a duty to fulfill towards people and fatherland in orde
help towards victory and peace," thus one female student explained
satisfaction of turning out shells. Since such wartime services came
top of regular studies in badly heated lecture halls (the infamous wi
of 1916-17), there was little enthusiasm for the paramilitary exercis
the Wehrbund which was supposed to prepare students for the fro
Through founding a reading room at Gottingen, establishing a gene
student honor council in Marburg, and constituting an academic au
iary service to help the wounded in Bonn, students also began to t
the initiative in helping themselves. Led by the Burschenschaft, student
at home also created the Akademische Hilfsbund with "the aim of helpin
wounded academic veterans" (Kriegsbeschadigte) through medical tr
men ?:, financial help, and especially through career placement.18
The military and civilian repercussions ofthe war also forced chan
in higher education policy. In order to assure a steady supply of off
trainees and reward soldiers by facilitating their later enrollment,
Prussian and other governments introduced the Notabitur in 1915 w
reduced the difiiculty ofthe high school leaving examination, and
South German states made it possible to skip the final year of sch
entirely. This emergency measure led to a decline of academic stand
at the Gymnasium and aroused the ire ofthe early volunteers who
rushed to the colors without this certificate. Various universities such a
Gottingen began to offer supplementary courses for veterans so t
these could later follow a normal program of study. Although Reich
members considered it "a pointless hardship to force the war part
ipants back into university benches for another half year," the Prus
government was not willing to shorten the term of study in gener
only to interpret existing regulations in an "unbureaucratic spirit."
gravest threat to the universities came from the popular generals P
von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff who demanded in Septemb
1916 "the closing of universities, seminars, etc. as far as the irrefut
need of an individual profession (doctors) permits. This is also an ac

18. Rector Anschiitz, "Aus dem Leben der Universitat," in Ostergruss, 6-19; A. Pin
neil, Die Organisation des Akademischen Hilfsbundes (Berlin, 1918); and material from
Bonn University Archives, a 50, 16, vol. 1 as well as Bundesarchiv Frankfurt,
Geschaftstfuhrender Ausschuss 1913-1918, 3. Cf. also G. Steiger, Geschichte der Univer
Jena (Jena, 1958), 509rE and M. Heynacher, "Studentinnen in der Munitionsarbeit,
Frau 25 (1917/18): 222-25.

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322 German Students in the First World War
justice, so that men incapable of military service and women do not
outstrip in rank and then take away the positions ofthe students now in
the field." Since some parliamentarians like Otto Wiemer (Progressive)
admitted "that we might have to accept the closure," it took all of Vice-
Chancellor Karl Helfferich's stubborn resistance (pointing to "consider?
ations of a cultural nature") to limit the Auxiliary Service duty to non-
school hours. Concerned that "in all professions there will be gaps
which can, if at all, only be bridged by women," the Supreme Com?
mand pressed in January 1917 for additional concessions to soldier stu?
dents, such as abolishing "a fixed minimum study length" for war
participants and calculating front service as seniority for government
jobs. While the Prussian Ministry of Culture agreed to keep the soldiers
in arms from being "disadvantaged," it was unwilling to overthrow the
entire entitlement system of examinations and stubbornly clung to cer?
tain minimum standards.19
For professors the war posed more of an intellectual than a physical
challenge. A number of the younger university teachers and assistants
volunteered or were drafted (about 100 ofthe staff at Bonn during the
first year) and a considerable proportion was also wounded or killed.
"Most of us could only offer our mental power, which we did exten-
sively," reflected the rector ofthe University of Bonn. In the natural
sciences, scholars were busy developing replacements for Germany's
missing raw materials, the so-called Ersatzstoffe (the most famous was
Professor Fritz Haber's nitrogen synthesis from air, the basis for explo?
sives and fertilizer). But the majority ofthe humanists and social scien-
tists defined war as a Kulturkrieg, z spiritual struggle, in which they tried
to present the German case of a defensive war to neutral world opinion.
At home, academics ceaselessly worked to maintain fighting morale and
domestic unity through "patriotic speeches and talks," through journal
articles and proclamations. Many foresook scholarly reserve and con-
sciously politicized their teaching in order to justify the titanic struggle
intellectually, thereby falling into a strident rhetoric which instrumen-
talized their Wissenschaft. In Bonn this heightened academic nationalism

19- Prussian government regulations in Bonner Universitdtschronik, vols. 40-44; reactions

of parliamentarians in the Hauptausschuss in R. Schiffers,ed., Der Hauptausschuss des Deut?
schen Reichstags 1915-1918 (Diisseldorf, 1981), 2:1060-64; 3-1231-33. E. Ludendorff, ed.,
Urkunden der Obersten Heeresleitung iiber ihre Tdtigkeit 1916/18 (Berlin, 1920), 67, 79, 268m
Cf. also G. D. Feldman, Army, Industry and Labor in Germany, 1914-1918 (Princeton,
1967), 172m

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 Konrad H. Jarausch 3 23
led to the bestowal of honorary doctorates on Gustav Krupp von Bohle
und Halbach for constructing "fabulous monsters" such as the 42cm
mortars and on Rudolf Havenstein for the financial mobilization as d
rector ofthe imperial bank. Aware ofthe shortcomings of prewar polit
ical education, many professors demanded a new world political train
ing of students, appropriate to the future imperial role ofthe educate
after a victory. Earlier divisions between the social reformers (influenced
by Friedrich Naumann) and naval imperialists (following Admiral Al
fred von Tirpitz) now opened into a full-fledged rift between repre
sentatives ofa peace of reconciliation and champions of annexations or
unrestricted submarine warfare. Although the former, such as the histo?
rian Hans Delbriick, had closer contacts to the imperial government
the latter around the medievalist Dietrich Schafer were more numerou
by far and their voices were magnified by imperialist pressure group
like the Pan-German League. The war heightened the curiously unpo
litical politics of German academics by focussing all the energies on
external victory and internal unity. Although professors significantl
contributed to maintaining the resolve to fight (Durchhaltewillen), th
majority failed to convey a critical understanding ofthe military an
social consequences of the war to their students.20
Because of the decrease in enrollment and the demands of war ser
vice, the colorful life ofthe student corporations came virtually to a halt.
Smaller associations suspended themselves in August 1914. Over 300
corporation houses were offered to the Red Cross. In Bonn only 22
the 72 prewar associations remained active, while membership decline
from 1,730 to 223 students! Over half ofthe organized students wer
women, who now began to play a larger role on campus and in studen
self-government. Hence only the strongest Corps, Burschenschaften, Cath
olic groups or religious associations such as Unitas (whose members di
not have to serve) could maintain themselves. During the bloody fight
ing at the front, the ritual duelling of the Mensur almost completely
ceased. Only in the oldest corporation strongholds such as Marburg an
Gottingen did associations display their colors. The previously flour
ishing free students (Freistudentenschaft) continued merely at five univer

20. Still authoritative, Klaus Schwabe, Wissenschaft und Kriegsmoral: Die deutschen
Hochschullehrer und die politischen Grundfragen des Ersten Weltkrieges (Gottingen, 1969). Cf
also F. Ringer, The Decline ofthe German Mandarins (Cambridge, 1969) and Bonn Unive
sity Archive, Rekt. a 50, 16, 1. As background now also R. Chickering, We Men Wh
Feel Most German (Boston, 1984).

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324 German Students in the First World War
sities and gradually grew more leftist due to socialist and pacifist in?
fluence. Many associations survived solely through their Old Boys and
their declining journals which attempted to maintain some contact with
their comrades at the front. Celebrations were postponed and even the
centennial ofthe Burschenschaft was not observed. The stronger corpora?
tions established fiinds for war victims and tried to keep their journals
alive by publishing rosters of members at the front, commemorative
lists of war victims and patriotic appeals by professors such as Reinhold
Seeberg and Otto Hoetzsch or generals like Field Marshal von der Goltz.
As student counterpart to the adult Burgfrieden, the corporations and
free students at some universities tried to cooperate across traditional
organizational and ideological divisions in a newly found solidarity.
But the national student congresses of Frankfurt in 1917 and Jena in 1918
failed because of the hoary quarrels about student duelling. The war
constricted academic freedom intellectually and socially, militarized stu?
dents (in the army) and propagandized them (in the chauvinistic associ?
ations). Some also reported anti-German talk, especially by foreigners,
to the police. Forcing students to grow up more quickly, the war largely
destroyed their independent subculture.21

How did German students react to the war experience psychologically?

Letters from the front between August 1914 and October 1918 reveal
the remarkable range and transformation of responses. Initially heroic
enthusiasm dominated: "Yes I enjoy the war as a great personal experi?
ence, as a decisive historical event for our people." The "storm of fire"
(Ernst Jiinger) ofthe fighting could bring positive experiences, such as a
renewal of religious faith or a growing sense of maturity: "Most beauti?
ful of all is the comradeship ofthe front, whose continual proofs lift my
spirit." But the horrible reality of the "treacherous and cruel mass
slaughter" was disillusioning. Hunger, dirt, lice, disease, and lack of
sleep were daily companions ofthe trench warfare. Only in the air war
could a sense of chivalry and single combat survive the anonymous
assembly-line killing. Danger preyed on every one's nerves. "With what
joy and eagerness I went into the fight which appeared as a glorious

21. Figures compiled from Bonner Universitdtschronik, vols. 4ofE; material in Bonn Uni?
versity Archive,Rekt. a 20, 5,2. Cf. also Schulze-Ssymank, Deutsches Studententum,\si^-\
and the war issues ofthe leading student journals such as Akademische Blatter, September
1914 or "Der CV im Volkerkrieg," Academia 27 (1914): 257fF.

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 Konrad H. Jarausch 325
opportunity to live life to the fullest. With what disappointment I s
here, terror in my heart," pondered a student, shortly before his en
The ugly and putrid face of death was all around the student soldier
especially in the cries of the dying comrades in no-man's-land. The
formalized military death ritual could not keep up with the mass o
corpses: "The battlefield is actually nothing but an incredibly large ce
etery." In order to cope with the deprivations, the killing and dying
students fied into a heightened feeling for nature, conjured up pacif
visions of home and sought solace in the classics. But the growing length
ofthe war made the spiritual justification, the intellectual rationalization
of the struggle as defense of thousand-year old German culture ev
more difficult, since victory would not be forced and all sacrifices might
be in vain. Although many rediscovered the reality of Volk and Vate
land in a more meaningful way, the stalemate led to two principal re
tions. The former insisted "now more than ever" on achieving the f
flung war aims completely: "It is my wish that we not put our weapo
down until we have gained a full world victory." The latter, tired
hurrah-patriotism, and disgusted with the "animalistic barbarism an
unspeakable suffering" of "this industry of commercial human slaug
ter" concluded: "This war must be ended at all costs." Rising desire f
peace and internal reform therefore clashed with continuing faith
Germanness and cries for "revenge." The "hell" ofthe fighting even
tually fragmented patriotic unity.22
Although students were initially one of the most loyal groups, t
continued fighting eventually led them to question the Wilhelmian
political system. The astounding self-sacrifices of even those who we
critical of this mass struggle robbed the country of "some of the be
minds" of one academic generation. For the survivors, the collapse
the sheltered youth world in the trenches or the munitions factor
forced students to mature more quickly and to assert their own judg
ment. Politically "no one leaves this war without having changed fun
damentally." Only the direction ofthe transformation was hotly co
tested. Aside from student branches ofthe Vaterlandspartei, the extreme
right founded a Reichsverband deutsch-volkischer Akademiker (a national
22. Quotes from Ph. Witkop, ed., Kriegsbriefe gefallener Studenten (Munich, 1929), 16
23, 26, 58, 59, 62, 91, 289, 303, 308, 310, 312, 325, 328, 333, 336, 338, 347, 348. Althou
the letters printed represent a selection from 20,000 originals, it is not possible to m
quantitative judgments about the weight of different currents, since they reflect edito
choices. Cf. also F. Siegmund-Schultze, Ver Sacrum (Berlin, 1919) for another edition
war letters.

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326 German Students in the First World War
organization of volkish academics) in July 1917 which anticipated many
programs and symbols of National Socialism (down to the swastika). In
the center, students tried to cling stubbornly to their monarchism and to
some hope of victory in order to give meaning to their suffering. One
month before the collapse, an overcrowded student meeting in Breslau
resolved: "In continuing struggle for ultimate survival we would rather
make any sacrifice for power, independence, and security than cowardly
accept a peace which runs counter to our honor and infamously surren-
ders German people and territory."23
On the free-student left, "rationalist, pacifist, collectivist, and subjec-
tivist" trends?in the words of the conservative Professor Joerges?
began to appear. At first Ernst Joel and Erich Mohr ofthe Aufbruch-Kreis
propagated a reformed university of the future, free of Wilhelmian
impurities. But in the last war year many began to demand social and
political reforms as well, and when repressed by the authorities, turned
revolutionary. Politically active students gradually became aware ofthe
shortcomings of Bismarckian semiconstitutionalism when the much
vaunted German system did not prove militarily superior to the decadent
democracies ofthe West. Since the war experience itself provided no
blueprint for realizing the new-found solidarity, the activists polarized
politically, seeking solutions in both extremes. On the one hand, critical
students began to move from liberal to socialist sympathies, seeing the
workers with different eyes. On the other hand this hunger for Gemein-
schaft drove academic youths away from the monarchy towards a new
volkish conservatism.24
The Kriegserlebnis therefore contributed to a generational alienation
which was politically ambivalent. Whatever their ideological proclivity,
academic youths had responded with united enthusiasm to the outbreak
ofthe war. In the words of Wilhelm Hermanns, they left their city of
colorful dreams for the front.

Noch einmal fliegt mein Sinnen

In goldne Zeit zuriick.

23. Witkop, Kriegsbriefe, 19, 83, and "Schlesische vaterlandische Studentenversamm-

lung," Berliner Tageblatt, October 1918, no. 1682/18. For the Reichsverband deutsch-
volkischer Akademiker cf. the file in the Humboldt University Archive.
24. Quote in Schulze-Ssymank, Deutsches Studententum, 459m U. Linse, "Hochschul-
revolution: Zur Ideologie und Praxis sozialistischer Studentengruppen wahrend der
deutschen Revolutionszeit 1918-19," Archiv fiir Sozialgeschichte 14 (1974): 1-114; and
E. Joel and E. Mohr, Die wartende Hochschule (Munich, 1916).

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 Konrad H. Jarausch 3 27
In Jugendrausch und -minnen!
O Burschenglanz und -gliick!
Nun mag der Schlager rosten,
Von Westen und von Osten
Bedrangt der Feind das Land!

In as far as students articulated political goals during the fighting, they

agreed with this Aachen comrade:

Alldeutschlands Adler fliegen,

Alldeutschlands Fahnen wehn.
Wohlan, zu neuen Siegen!
Wohlan, auf Wiedersehn!
Und reisst das grosse Sterben
Auch manchen in den Sand:
Die Kinder sollen erben
Ein freies, deutsches Land!

But the reality of war service at home and fighting at the front slowly
eroded this youthful sense ofa new beginning (Aujbmch der Jugend). The
poet Ernst Toller described his disillusionment: "The war made me a
pacifist. I had recognized that this war is Europe's fate, mankind's scourge,
and the shame of our century." Although they polarized along similar
lines as adults, students reacted more strongly because they had more
fervently believed in the spiritual and moral justice ofthe conflict. "We
are betrayed, our sacrifice was in vain?at this recognition a whole
world collapses within me." Gradually other academic youths began to
share Toller's disenchantment,' 'young people who realize that this 'grand
time' is pitifully small, who rail at the war and its senseless carnage and
have only the one desire to recognize the truth in this morass of lies."
Eventually such critical awareness had to lead to practical action: "Ac?
cusations are pointless, I cry out, there is only one way now, we must
become rebels." One result ofthe war was therefore a deepening and
widening ofthe generational tensions implicit in the youth movement
and the cultural avant-garde before 1914.25
In the long run, the impact ofthe war on students was complex and
contradictory. The participant student soldiers returned prematurely
aged, and more skeptical. The comradeship ofthe trenches made many
25. Stanzas two and four of W. Hermanns (Aachen), Studenten-Auszug, published by
the Catholic Sekretariat sozialer Studentenarbeit in Monchen-Gladbach. Other quota
tions from Ernst Toller, Eine Jugend in Deutschland (Reinbeck, 1963), 6off. Wohl, Genera?
tion ofi9i4, 203-37.

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 328 German Students in the First World War
open for new beginnings, willing to give the Weimar Republic a chance.
But for others the adventurism ofthe fighting also complicated reinte?
gration into civilian life and led veterans into the Free Corps. Curiously
enough, the Great War had an equally profound effect on the next age
cohort, the high school students who matured in the early 1920s. Indoc-
trinated by the chauvinist rhetoric of their teachers, many felt guilty for
not having fought and resented their merely civilian status because of
having missed the great manhood rite of their elder siblings. Many
therefore joined nationalist and volkish organizations, turning the cli?
mate of campus politics decisively to the right by 1923. Some even
participated in the ill-fated Beer Hall putsch.26 The ensuing peace cohort
ofthe mid-i920s had less recollection ofthe war and therefore did not
react as emotionally to its shadow. But by the late 1920s the war expe?
rience began to assume mythical proportions in literature (even All
Quiet on the Western Front can be read as a celebration of everyday
heroism) and in the cult ofthe dead. For participants, the heroic myth
sanctified suffering, made their own experience larger than life. For the
families or friends left behind, the legend gave meaning to cruel death.
And for politicians the cult ofthe fallen provided a platform for drawing
patriotic lessons. Ironically, it was precisely the unheroic reality of the
Kriegserlebnis at home and at the front which eventually required its
heroization. But mythmaking when combined with the economic suf?
fering of the Great Depression, the frustrations of the Diktat of Ver?
sailles, and the unfortunate student policy of Prussian minister of culture
C. H. Becker could have dire consequences, when it was appropriated
by the student right such as the Nazi Student League. In 1938, an NS
propagandist could therefore claim with a semblance of credibility:
"Langemarck was the birth hour of volkish Germany, of National So?
cialism."27

26. Peter Loewenberg, "The Psychohistorical Origins of the Nazi Youth Cohort,"
American Historical Review 76 (1971): 1497-1502. The generational conflict literature in
the Weimar Republic like H. Mommsen, "The Impact of Intergenerational Conflict on
the Structural Crisis ofthe Weimar Republic" (unpubl. MS, Bochum, 1982) and M. H.
Kater, "Generationskonflikt als Entwicklungsfaktor in der NS-Bewegung vor 1933,"
Geschichte und Gesellschaft 11 (1985), no. 2, needs to be refined according to more pre?
cise age cohorts.
27. Quote from Kaufmann, Langemarck, 103 fl For an example of the fraternity cult
ofthe dead cf. Corps Palatia, ed., Pfdlzer im Krieg, 1914-1918: Zum Gedenken an verlome
Wehrkraft, Freiheit und Grosse (Munich, 1928). Cf. also the rich Weimar student literature
cited in Jarausch, Deutsche Studenten, 117-63.

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 Konrad H. Jarausch 3 29
Four decades later, after the experience of another, yet more terrible
war, the political scientist Arnold Bergstrasser pondered the experience
of his own generation. Sadly he concluded that students had succeeded
in coping with the war "at best practically and psychologically, but
hardly spiritually." One would be tempted to add that they failed polit
ically as well.28

28. A. Bergstrasser, "Die Kriegsteilnehmergeneration 1914-1918," in: R. Tillmanns,

ed., Ordnung und Ziel (Stuttgart, 1954), 9f.

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