A-Infos (en) Germany, Osnabrück, LIKOS - Speech against right-wing structures in our neighborhood (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Our speech at the demo "Against right-wing structures in our 
neighborhood - close down the Arkadia Mittweida fraternity on 
Herderstrasse" on November 23, 2024: ---- Student associations are 
reactionary men's associations. Or to put it with Kurt Tucholsky: 
"Fraternity students are a bunch of incited, misguided, drunken, 
color-wearing young Germans!" And they have been around (unfortunately) 
for a very long time. A look at history helps to better classify these 
organizations. In contrast to France, there was never a bourgeois 
revolution in Germany. In contrast to France, nationalism, as directed 
against the nobility, was never in any way progressive. The founding of 
Germany did not come about with a bourgeois revolution, but through the 
so-called Imperial Wars of 1864, 1866 and 1870/71. Historically, a 
central and unifying moment in fraternities and many student 
associations is precisely the rejection of France and the associated 
ideals of "liberty, equality, fraternity". It is no coincidence that 
from 1813 to 1815 many fraternity students and corps members fought 
against Napoleon, not for any reasons of freedom, but because France 
disempowered the church in Germany and introduced the civil code.

A central founding moment in the history of fraternities is the Wartburg 
Festival in 1817. During the book burning there, the Code Napoleon, the 
most progressive civil code at the time, and works by Jews were burned, 
among other things. They were accused of betraying Germanness, and more 
and more anti-Semitic resolutions, particularly with regard to Jewish 
membership, were passed in the decades to come. And yes, it is true, 
there was a short phase in which parts of the student associations 
advocated at least civil-democratic positions, but the common 
denominator was "the German people" and the unification of Germany. And 
part of the story is that they were unable to assert themselves within 
the movement. After the failed revolution of 1848/49, these currents 
lost the power struggle within the student associations. The heyday of 
the fraternities was the German Empire, when they were eagerly involved 
in Germany's attempt to become a colonial power.

And it is not surprising that after the First World War, fraternity 
members were on the side of the counter-revolution, i.e. they helped to 
suppress the revolutionary uprisings and revolts of left-wing workers, 
were organized in the right-wing Freikorps and in 1923 proudly boasted 
in their newspapers that members had been involved in the failed 
Hitler-Ludendorff putsch. In the Weimar Republic, they were monarchist 
or fascist, in any case anti-democratic and strictly anti-communist. 
Many of their members were part of the National Socialist German Student 
Union even before the Nazis took power. In the 1930s, all student 
associations were then incorporated into the National Socialist German 
Student Union. They like to claim today that they were "brought into 
line" or banned. That is a lie! The fraternity students had no problem 
with the Nazi state, they were allowed to keep their houses and if you 
look at the membership dates you will see that people also joined the 
fraternity between 1933 and 1945. What they did have a problem with is 
that they saw their class snobbery being attacked, because when the 
Nazis took power, people who were not part of the elite could now also 
go to university if they were particularly loyal to the party line.

This look at history shows that fraternity members and, as a rule, 
fraternity students were always on the side of the rulers, usually on 
the most reactionary form of rule. And to this day they are training 
cadres for reactionary parties and organizations and career ladders for 
getting into important positions in politics and business. If you don't 
believe that, we recommend you take a look at Austria: In addition to 
his previous membership in a Nazi military sports group, the former Vice 
Chancellor Strache was a member of a German nationalist student 
association with always close contacts to fraternities.

Fraternities were and are central organizations of reaction, they are 
dangerous, no matter how silly they look, and should be attacked. Take 
the space away from the right-wing - take the house away from Arkadia 
Mittweida!

https://likos.noblogs.org/2024/11/24/gegen-rechte-strukturen-in-unserer-nachbarschaft-redebeitrag/
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