Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Partying outlives the party Date: Wed, 25 Nov 92 16:20:05 EST Message-ID: Lines: 70 \SE A;WORLD \SS (WS) \HD Partying outlives the party \SH E. Germans join once-banned frats \BY Philip Sherwell \CR LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH \DT BERLIN BERLIN - Outlawed first by the Nazis and then by the communists, ancient all-male student fraternities with a penchant for fencing, drinking and debating are flourishing once again at historic universities in east Germany. After decades of enforced exile in the West, traditional "burschenschaften" and "corps" are returning to their old homes in cities such as Jena, Halle and Greifswald while new ones are getting established. "Honor, Freedom, Fatherland" proclaims the coat of arms of the Burschenschaft Jenensia, the most successful of the fraternities founded in the east since the fall of communism. There are signs that some burschenschaften, seeking to capitalize on the swing to the right among German youth since unification, see an opportunity to harness a new nationalism. There are 110 "fighting fraternities" in Germany today that attract members for many reasons, "but mostly out of a sense of needing to belong in a student society which appears on the surface somewhat aimless," said Hartwig Hillert, one of the Old Boys. From its embryonic days when the first planning meeting was held in the bar of the communist youth movement in Jena in early 1990, the fraternity of the Burschenschaft Jenensia has grown to 37 members and has its own rooms in the building. Its red-and-black flag with gold trim flutters on the roof. A Munich fencing teacher has just arrived to teach young east Germans eager to learn the ways of the saber. In the male bonding that is at the heart of burschenschaft life, fencing plays a pivotal role. A fuchs (fox), as the new recruit is known, must learn to fence before becoming a fully fledged bursch (lad), from which the name for the fraternities originates. In the bar that is the focus of house life, Sven Kramer, 24, a history student recently elected Jenensia coordinator, points to the scars on his cheek and forehead, the result of his two duels. By definition and history, burschenschaften are political organizations dedicated to the fatherland, their roots traced to the wars of liberation against Napoleon. An idealized notion of unity of the German volk remains central to the burschenschaften creed, arousing unease in regions such as Upper Silesia, which is now part of Poland. Although he insists that he wants no change of borders, Stephan Kohler, a Jena restaurateur and one of Jenensia's founders, refers to the former communist German Democratic Republic as Middle Germany. The umbrella association, Deutsche Burschenschaft, says the fraternities have a duty to work for the fatherland "independent of state borders." It backs "a peaceful union of all parts of the German people in a single state or in another form in a free united Europe." This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM