Der Deutsche Student – The German Student – the official journal of the German Student Association (Deutsche Studentenschaft). Published by Wilh. Gottl. Korn Verlag. Breslau, September 1933 issue. The official issue of the Student Association, published just a few months after the Nazi rise to power, at the pivotal moment in which the German student movement formally aligns itself with Nazi ideology.
An important issue marking the historical turning point in which the German Student Association transformed from a neutral organization into an explicitly nationalist, pro-Nazi body. This occurred under the banner of the event titled “The First Student Day in the National Socialist State, ” held in the city of Aachen, Germany. For the first time in the Association’s publications, the entire issue is written in the spirit of the new Nazi values.
The various contributors refer to the period before and after the Nazi rise to power as a new era, one to which all students across Nazi Germany must now conform. Among the writers is Dr. J. von Leers, one of the Third Reich’s prominent propagandists, who writes about how to “overcome” the Treaty of Versailles in a Nazi spirit. The issue features a report on the 16th Student Day in Aachen, including speeches delivered at the event, in which writer Heinz Roß emphasizes the new ideological awakening that must be instilled among German students in accordance with National Socialist values – contrasting sharply with the past. He also highlights the declared alignment of the student leadership with the goals of the Third Reich.
In his speech at the conference, Paul Hermann Wiedburg stated that within just one year, the German Student Association had completely transformed its character, to the point where no comparison could be made between Student Day in 1932 and that of 1933. He firmly declared that the Association now stood entirely behind the Führer- “the one and only leader” – as had never before been seen in Germany. Don Gerhard Schröder remarked that this was: “The first Student Day following years of struggle against a liberal state and a liberal university – no one expected Student Day to look any different…” He compared the event to the Student Day of 1930 in Breslau, where Nazi supporters had been a minority and an opposition group. He describes how, in the months that followed, the Nazi forces began to gain more and more momentum, culminating in 1933, when they celebrated their final victory.
The German Student Day was an annual gathering of the Deutsche Studentenschaft – the national German Student Association. Prior to the Nazi rise to power, these events included discussions on education, culture, and German nationalism, and reflected a broad political spectrum. However, the 16th Student Day, taking place just months after Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor in January 1933, was the first nationwide student conference under the Third Reich, and symbolized the public and total submission of the student leadership to Nazi ideology. The lectures and addresses at the conference reflected full endorsement of the so-called “National Revolution”, a cultural and spiritual revolution aimed at reshaping academic institutions to fit Nazi ideology. There were explicit calls to “cleanse” universities of “foreign elements”, especially Jews, Marxists, and liberals, and to promote the ideal of the Kämpfender Student (“fighting student”): a fusion of scholarship, patriotic loyalty, and ideological warfare. The conference took place just months after the May 10, 1933 book burnings, also organized by student associations, and the themes of “cultural purification” resonated powerfully throughout the event in Aachen. Official representatives of the Nazi Party participated in the gathering, granting the association practical recognition as an active part of the regime’s apparatus. The role of students as “ideological soldiers of the Reich” was clearly reinforced. In 1933, with Hitler’s rise to power, the Deutsche Studentenschaft underwent a radical transformation. Once a relatively neutral or conservative student body representing diverse views, it experienced rapid Nazification: its leadership was replaced by Nazi Party loyalists, and the organization openly adopted a nationalist, antisemitic, and racist ideology. It became a propaganda tool of the new regime, promoting “racial purity, ” Aryan cultural superiority, and participating in key symbolic events—most notably, the public book burnings of May 10, 1933, aimed at a “spiritual cleansing” of universities and society from “foreign influences.” Thus, the association evolved from a representative student body into a fully ideologically mobilized entity, playing an integral role in building the “New Germany” envisioned by the Nazi regime.
60 [4] pages. Very good condition.
