Burschenschaft

Burschenschaft is the name of a famous association of German students, at one time prominent in the politics of the Fatherland. The name is derived from Bursch, a word ordinarily meaning 'student' or 'young fellow,' but more properly a student as member of an association. Bursch is itself from the Lat. bursa, 'purse,' the common fund of a company of students living at a common table in the universities of the middle ages. The burschenschaft was a club of students who had fought in the great war of liberation, and was founded at Jena in 1813. The motto was 'Honour, Freedom, Fatherland,' and the aim was in contrast to the mainly convivial character of other student clubs, to cherish the higher ideals of patriotism, and especially of German national unity. At a great festival at the Wartburg in 1817, almost all the other German universities sent representatives; and the burschenschaft soon comprised students of fourteen universities. It was inevitable that in the time of reactionary policy the club should be suspected of revolutionary tendencies; Sand, the murderer of the unpopular Kotzebue, was an old member; and in 1819 the burschenschaft was dissolved by the Prussian and other governments. The result was the formation of numerous secret and really revolutionary associations, in consequence of which hundreds of students were prosecuted and imprisoned (some for years), and several condemned to death (though not executed). It was not till 1840 that Prussia gave an amnesty to those implicated in the associations; and after 1848 all kinds of student clubs were freed from the severe restrictions that had so long created mischief, and allowed to conduct themselves very much in their own way.