NSDStB, National Socialist Deutscher Studentenbund eagle WWII Germany Third Reich

NSDStB, National Socialist Deutscher Studentenbund, (National Socialist German Students League)

In 1926 the Nazi Party founded the National Socialist German Student League (Nationalsozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund). The league was to foster ideological training at universities and to implement paramilitary training disguised as exercise and work details. The ideal Nazi student was intended to be a man or woman of action, not an idle thinker. Nazi campaign posters from 1932 appealed especially to male students as one of the two pillars of the burgeoning movement: “Workers of the Head and the Fist [Arbeiter der Stirn und der Faust].”

Responding to this call, members of the National Socialist German Student League distinguished themselves by wearing brown shirts and by living together in association houses (Kameradschaftshäuser), mimicking the traditions of German all-male student fraternity groups (Burschenschaften). These fraternities had long ranked among the most nationalistic elements of German society. Their members embraced National Socialism in disproportionately high numbers. However, members of the fraternities saw themselves as social elites. They were often at odds with the tactics of street politics employed by the Nazi Student League, even while embracing the party’s agenda. These overlapping interests along with territorial disagreements created a turbulent atmosphere of feuding rivalries among student groups in early 1933.