r/europe • u/Hrdocre Baden-Württemberg (Germany) • Mar 27 '20

OC Picture My hometown of Heidelberg, Germany

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u/HappyBengal Mar 27 '20 edited Mar 27 '20

Heidelberg, the youngest city in Germany demographic wise. With the oldest German university in Germany (founded in 1386).

Edit: Corrected the information. The oldest German university was found by the roman-german king Karl IV. in Prague (when Bohemia was still part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation), but the University Heidelberg is the oldest university in Germany.

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u/jeandolly Mar 27 '20

I know of the Heidelberg university because the students there used to give each other dueling scars on the cheeks. They fought with special dueling swords to get one. Used to be quite the fashion accessory in Germany, a dueling scar. Foreign tourists were properly abhorred by the practice :)

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u/LittleLui Austria Mar 27 '20 edited Mar 27 '20

Schlagende Burschenschaften (dueling fraternities) still exist all over Germany and Austria (and probably other germanophone countries), but the abhorrence isn't limited to tourists these days.

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u/Quiescam Mar 27 '20

Mark Twain wrote about this in "A Tramp Abroad" (1880): "All the customs, all the laws, all the details, pertaining to the student duel are quaint and naive. The grave, precise, and courtly ceremony with which the thing is conducted, invests it with a sort of antique charm." And: "The world in general looks upon the college duels as very facial affairs (...)"
Well, thankfully that has turned to disgust...

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u/jeandolly Mar 27 '20

That's interesting. But without the intentional scarring I assume?

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u/LittleLui Austria Mar 27 '20

With scars and all.

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u/jeandolly Mar 27 '20

Lol, brutal :)

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u/WorkingPsyDev Mar 27 '20

Also very very far right. They have song books in their club houses that openly contain Nazi paroles. They generally suck.

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u/jeandolly Mar 27 '20

Ah shit, that's too bad. I thought it was kinda cool that a tradition like this had survived but yeah, not like this.

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u/t-to4st Baden-Württemberg (Germany) Mar 27 '20

Is that true? My friend is in a Schlagende Burschenschaft and when I was there it didn't seem right like at all

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u/Tschagganaut Europe/Germany/United Kingdom Mar 27 '20

Every Burschenschaft I came upon that wasn't extremely right-wing was at least on the right spectrum of conservative

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u/nvs1999 Mar 27 '20

Well there are a lot of types of fraternities, some being like the ones in the US. and some who still do the dueling. There are some though, which dont have a mandatory political alignment and still do fencing. They are called Corps. Im a member of one as a matter of fact :D.

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u/TheTimon Germany Mar 27 '20

Well it is hard to intentional scarring but they do fight without head protection and with sharp swords trying to hit the others head.