In their heyday in the middle of the 19th century, “Burschenschaft” fraternities in German speaking countries made rather progressive demands on the ruling class: such as democracy or freedom of the press. Jews were also members of these then vanguard students’ associations. But after 1848 anti-Semitism suddenly spread – and is still present in some of the still existing “Burschenschaften”.
It was in 2012 when the French front-national leader Marine Le Pen visited the Vienna fraternity ball “Akademikerball”, then called the WKR Ball, in the Vienna Hofburg. Host Heinz-Christian Strache from the right-wing populist Freedom Party (FPÖ) obviously wanted to underline the internationality of his fellow nationalist-minded parties in Europe. That very year, the ball took place on the international Holocaust memorial day. The organisers stuck to the date – despite strong protests.
Photo: APA/FPÖ/ROBERT LIZAR
French journalist Dominique Sopo then described the event in an article as an “anti-Semitic ball” of “nostalgics of the Third Reich”. Marine Le Pen sued him, but eventually Sopo won. The court ruled that the descritption was “legitimate”.
Almost ever since fraternities have existed in German speaking countries, they have been attested anti-Semitism. But a closer look into the past of Austrian fraternities shows that this was not always the case. However, the phase in which Jews had a place in Burschenschaft fraternities was very short.
The optimistic years
In the 19th century, national and religious student fraternities, and so-called Corps were formed throughout the German-speaking world. It was the heyday of these students’ associations. Some had quite progressive demands for the time: Freedom of the press, equality before the law or strong demands for democracy. These demands were also relatively well received by Jews who had been allowed to study in the Habsburg Monarchy since Joseph II’s Patent of Tolerance from 1782 onwards – but only certain subjects. Back then, many Jewish students had a German-liberal to German-national outlook. Jewish students especially found a home in frats with a more liberal orientation.
The optimism within the Jewish frat brothers lasted for a while, and especially during the Vormärz, fraternities were increasingly popular with Jewish students, which was largely tolerated at that time. The main focus during this period was on the implementation of liberal demands, not on anti-Semitism.
But the situation came to a head a few years after the failed bourgeois revolution of 1848, when the still latent anti-Semitism was suddenly fueled violently by various factors. Below the surface, the embers of anti-Semitism had been smouldering for even longer, as Austrian right-wing extremism expert Bernhard Weidinger, working for the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance (DÖW) explains: “Anti-Semitism was already in the fraternity’s cradle, through the ideological founding fathers Ernst Moritz Arndt, Jakob Friedrich Fries, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn.”
“The university then and now”
Social circumstances in the 1880s also fueled the anti-Semitic climate: “Signs of crisis, increasing pressure of competition in academic professions in conjunction with a growing proportion of Jewish students,” Weidinger enumerates. “All this leads to the first expulsions of Jews from fraternities around 1880”. Subsequently, several fraternities discussed and decided on introducing “Aryan paragraphs” – in other words: only those who were considered “German” in the eyes of the fraternities were allowed to join. Jews did not fall under this category for several fraternities.
Anti-Semitism became more and more presentable at that time: insulting caricatures, verbal insults and violent attacks were widespread. Nevertheless, many Jews were still Korporierte – members of fraternities. Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, was one of them. His nickname was ‘Tancred’ – a Germanic name. He finally left his fraternity Albia in 1883. The reason for this was a fateful fraternity gathering in the Viennese Sofiensäle.
“There was a mourning event for Richard Wagner,” says Werner Hanak-Lettner, curator at the Jewish Museum Vienna. The exhibition “The University: A Battle Zone” examines the role of Jews in Austrian academia, and also the history of Jews in fraternities is a part of the exhibition. “This gathering of around 4,000 students was directed against the House of Habsburg on the one hand, but mutated into an anti-Semitic event on the other.” The fraternity Albia, of which the founder of Zionism, Herzl, was a member, took part in it. In a letter to the Albia, Herzl gives vent to his anger about the anti-Semitic and announces that he is leaving the fraternity.
Mit Wort und Wehr
Motto of the Jewish Viennese Fraternity “Kadimah”
für Juda’s Ehr!
With word and defense
for Jewish honour!
Jewish students eventually began to form their own fraternities, some of which were fencing and dueling for the purpose of self-defence, as many other fraternities at the time did. Even today, this questionable tradition is still being held up by nationalist and right-wing Burschenschaften and national-liberal Corps fraternities. After the first Jewish fraternities formed in the 19th century, they later became shelters for the followers of Theodor Herzl’s ideas.
(Photo: Ze’ev Aleksandrowicz)
For a certain period, members of Jewish and non-Jewish fraternities dueled each other with sabers – in order to reinstall honour after insults or other “dishonouring” incidents.
Of course, Jews were no less successful in the duels, but in these often bloody, yet strictly regimented fights they could prove that they were not “cowards” – a common cliché among anti-Semites. In 1896, some German nationalist fraternities adopted the so-called Waidhofen resolutions, in which the Jews were declared Jews as nicht satisfaktionsfähig (not worthy for dueling) and henceforth no more duels were fought with them.
The crux of the distancing
The anti-Semitic violence against Jewish students and professors culminated in the interwar period, when not only German nationalists but also Christian Conservatives and National Socialists formed cliques that systematically terrorised leftist and Jewish students. Especially at the Anatomical Institute of the University of Vienna, massive violence is said to have taken place against Jewish students.
Many German-national fraternities thus became pioneers of anti-Semitism at the universities. “The combination of their unconditional desire for the Anschluss of Austria to Germany and anti-Semitism then lead many Burschenschaft members to the ranks of National Socialism in a relatively united manner,” says Bernhard Weidinger. The eventual Anschluss of Austria to Nazi Germany in 1938 sealed the end of Jewish fraternities in Vienna. Also, all other sorts of fraternities were dissolved during the Nazi period, and especially the non-religious and nationalist ones integrated themselves in the Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (NSDStB). Some members of catholic fraternities though were members of the resistance during the war.
After World War II, all kinds of fraternities were refounded. But since the Jewish population either fled or was murdered by the Nazis, Jewish fraternities were no longer to be found. On the other hand, there were numerous former Nazis among fraternity members who have not renounced the Nazi ideology. In Germany, too, all kinds of new fraternities were founded after 1945. But until today, the ideological spectrum and attitudes of fraternities there still seem to be much broader and above all: less radical than in Austria.
Austrian Burschenschaft fraternities still have the reputation of being extreme right-wing, racist or anti-Semitic. Some fraternities still seem to find it difficult to come to terms with their past or to distance themselves from right-wing extremist and racist ideas.
“It is still the case today that fraternity members in Austria want to give the impression that they are the better Germans,” Bernhard Weidinger criticises the radical attitude of some Austrian fraternities and their members. Among other things, the extreme attitude of the Austrians in the umbrella organisation Deutsche Burschenschaft is said to have been the reason why numerous fraternities from Germany have left the umbrella organisation in the course of the last few years. Since then, the DB has been regarded by some quarters as a reservoir for right-wing radicals.
The fact that this radical attitude is celebrated year after year with a ball in the Vienna Hofburg, where the Austrian president has his offices, angers many people. Especially when considering how historically charged the neighbouring Heldenplatz is, where Adolf Hitler held his first speech after the Anschluss.
Each year there are calls for a relocation of the disputed Akademikerball. But it is questionable whether relocating the ball would curb the protests that have been regularly staged against the ball since 2008. Bernhard Weidinger is sceptical: “As a symbolic step, it would of course be desirable for people whose primary concern is the reputation of the Republic.” But even if the ball were to take place somewhere else: the ideology celebrated there would remain the same.
Published on 27 January 2016 on fm4.ORF.at
and as a radio report in FM4 Connected
