Law Reich Government, under the Enabling Act

Student Bodies Law

Gesetz über die Bildung von Studentenschaften an den wissenschaftlichen Hochschulen

Law on the Formation of Student Bodies at the Academic Institutions of Higher Education

Recognised the student body (Studentenschaft) at each university as a legal part of the institution, representing all students, but defined its members by ‘German descent and mother tongue’ rather than citizenship. Ethnic Germans from Austria, Czechoslovakia or elsewhere were included; German citizens of Jewish descent were not. The student bodies, already dominated by the National Socialist German Students’ League, were to help ensure that students did their duty to ‘people, state and university’, and played a leading part in the book burnings of 10 May.

Dated: Saturday 22 April 1933
Published in: Reichsgesetzblatt Teil I, no. 40, Saturday 22 April 1933, p. 215
Citation: RGBl. I S. 215
In force: 23 April 1933, the day after promulgation (the law has no commencement clause, so Article 3 of the Enabling Act applies)

On the day pages

Published Day 83, Saturday 22 April 1933

RGBl. I S. 215. Commons record

The text

Gesetz über die Bildung von Studentenschaften an den wissenschaftlichen Hochschulen.

Law on the Formation of Student Bodies at the Academic Institutions of Higher Education.

Vom 22. April 1933.

Of 22 April 1933.

Die Reichsregierung hat das folgende Gesetz beschlossen, das hiermit verkündet wird:

The Reich Government has enacted the following law, which is hereby promulgated:

§ 1 Die bei einer wissenschaftlichen Hochschule voll eingeschriebenen Studenten deutscher Abstammung und Muttersprache bilden unbeschadet ihrer Staatsangehörigkeit die Studentenschaft dieser Hochschule.

§ 1 The students of German descent and mother tongue who are fully enrolled at an academic institution of higher education form, irrespective of their citizenship, the student body of that institution.

§ 2 Die Studentenschaft ist Glied der Hochschule und vertritt die Gesamtheit der Studenten. Sie hat mitzuwirken, daß die Studenten ihre Pflichten gegen Volk, Staat und Hochschule erfüllen.

§ 2 The student body is a member of the institution and represents the students as a whole. It shall help to ensure that the students fulfil their duties towards people, state and institution.

§ 3 Das Nähere über Aufbau und Arbeit der Studentenschaften regeln die Studentenrechtsverordnungen der Landesregierungen und die Satzungen der Hochschulen und der Studentenschaften.

§ 3 Details of the organisation and work of the student bodies are regulated by the student law ordinances of the state governments and the statutes of the institutions and of the student bodies.

Berlin, den 22. April 1933.

Berlin, 22 April 1933.

Der Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler

The Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler

Der Reichsminister des Innern Frick

The Reich Minister of the Interior Frick

About this text

The full text is given. Transcribed from the RGBl. scan (issue 40, p. 215); no independent transcription was found to compare against.

The English translation was made for this site and is not an official translation. ‘Wissenschaftliche Hochschule’ covers universities and technical universities and other institutions of university rank; it is translated ‘academic institution of higher education’ and shortened to ‘institution’ where the text repeats it.

German laws and decrees are official works and not protected by copyright (§ 5 UrhG).

Terms

deutscher Abstammung und Muttersprache: ‘Of German descent and mother tongue’: the test was ethnic, not legal citizenship. In practice the ‘Aryan’ rules of the Civil Service Law were used to decide who counted, which shut Jewish students out.
Studentenschaft: The student body: the corporate organisation of all students at an institution. Prussia had withdrawn state recognition from its student bodies in 1927 in a dispute over their ‘völkisch’ membership rules; this law restored recognition nationwide on those terms.
Volk, Staat und Hochschule: ‘People, state and university’: the phrase placed the student body at the service of the nation and state, not of academic self-government.

Sources

Reichsgesetzblatt 1933 Teil I, Nr. 40 (22. April 1933), S. 215 (Reichsministerium des Innern; scan on Wikimedia Commons)

Gazette scans: public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.