Undergraduate Page
AN ENGLISHMAN AT BONN
By PETER WILDE (St. Edmund Hall, Oxford)
THE predominant impressions which strike an English student at a German university, suddenly transported into a world having a purpose similar to his own yet utterly different in atmo- sphere, are of colourlessness, age and seriousness. I soon grew accustomed to the lack of colour at Bonn University, where I have just had the privilege of spending half the winter semester. It is merely a question of clothes, cosmetics and paint. And the delightful children's procession through the dusk of St. Martin's Day, bright with many-coloured lanterns and accompanied by all the church bells of the town, indicated that the sense of pageantry is far from lost. The high average age of students, too, is a tem- porary phenomenon, though one which is lasting longer than in England. Oxford's faces are today noticeably younger than they
were a couple of years ago ; the majority at Bonn are older. Courses
customarily take a year longer than in England, and prisoners of war have not been returning in more or less homogeneous age- groups. This fact, along with the German propensity (encouraged by Hitler) to treat life very seriously—even in the gay Rhineland— accounts for much of the present-day earnestness of students. Having already passed a good many futile years, they are anxious to settle down and enjoy what meagre pleasures life has to offer. The easiest way of doing so is to cram one's studies into the shortest possible period, acquiring the prized qualifications as soon as may be.
All this leads to an unbalanced sort of life. The tendency is for each student to shut himself up in his attic (if he has any coal for his stove) and see as little of his fellows as possible. The part played by sport and club-life in the social business of rubbing the corners off the individual is smaller even than before the war in Germany, and much less important than at an English university. Lectures in unheated buildings, starting at 7.30 a.m. and continuing until 8 p.m. or even later, have the disadvantages of gregariousness without the benefits of fellowship. The situation is aggravated by the shortage of lecture-rooms. Bonn is fortunate in having had its Great Lecture Hall reopened just before Christmas, but, before that, conditions at heavily attended lectures were intolerable. I speak with considerable feeling, having, on one series of lectures, rubbed elbows with the lecturer, crouched in the top shelf of a bookcase, and stood helpless at the back of the hall wedged in a mass of humanity. Note- taking under these conditions is a physical impossibility. There were, of course, seats for those who cared to sit through the two preceding lectures, wasting their own time and excluding others who might have wished to hear the earlier lectures.
Books, too, are a heart-breaking problem. Invariably the books one needs are out of the libraries, which have suffered under the depredations of both Nazism and the war. The books one might be tempted to buy axe prohibitively dear and, with isolated exceptions, made from exceedingly bad paper. Voluntary agencies in Britain have done a certain amount to remedy the shortage. Nor do we quite realise in England how dependent academic work is on a constant supply of electric current. Compared with electtic break- downs, the screeching of a circular saw in the courtyard, the chugging of a mortar-mixing machine, and the hammering, drilling and inci- dental effects of the builders are sweet music. If not exactly con- ducive to mental effort, they do at least herald a serener future.
None of these shortcomings, however, is as important as the basic problem of merely keeping alive. There are in Germany no Government grants or scholarships as we understand them in Britain. It is possible to obtain the remission of one's fees, but, as these are in any case very low, this is not so useful a concession as it would be here. There remain two possible sources of income—one's family or oneself. The currency reform (although generally accepted as beneficial) swept away savings intended for education ; but, even so, the problem is much simplified if one's parents live in the university town concerned. One possibility is to work during vacations (August-October and March-April), or through one semester, or concurrently with one's studies. Whichever method is chosen, academic work suffers. Special arrangements are made for students to eat in their Mensa. Even this, though comparatively cheap, is prohibitively dear for many. A Hoover grant from America provides hot, thick soup free daily in the main university building.
Norway sent a huge consignment of herrings to German students, which were distributed free during my stay. And Sweden has sent considerable quantities of clothing, which are distributed through the A.S.T.A. or Students' Committee.
What activities are there outside academic work ? I have said that there is little social life, in comparison with a British university, but this does not mean that there is none. Small political groups exist owing allegiance to all the main parties. There are more, and somewhat larger, religious groups, mainly Roman Catholic in the Rhineland, though not exclusively so. Bonn has its football team as well as its enthusiastic followers (compare this with the fifty-odd teams which can at almost any time be called on in Oxford). But I got the feeling that all these activities were in some way sponsored, and scarcely the spontaneous creations of students themselves. This was disappointing until one realised the difficulties. Apart from the discouraging factors already mentioned, the practical difficulty of obtaining a room in which to hold meetings is almost insuperable. Once again I speak with very real sympathy, having felt personally some of the tribulations awaiting the potential organiser. In these circumstances the wider circle of acquaintances sharing common interests is replaced by smaller, more intimate groups of friends holding somewhat austere private parties, by faculty balls, and once a year, at Shrovetide, by the Rhenish carnival, which I am assured is far from austere even in these straitened times.
One star does shine more brightly than the rest in this somewhat gloomy firmament. Partly as a result of the international student conference held in Oxford last Easter and international courses of a more formal nature held in Bonn in the summers of 1947 and 1948, a group of students have formed an I.S.S.F. circle. Its long-term aim is world federation ; in the meantime it is hard at work arranging student exchanges with many European countries and hopes to build an international student hostel in Bonn. The ideological problems discussed at its inaugural meeting bewildered a somewhat earthy Englishman, but that first tendency has been belied by subsequent events. Here, too, is an opportunity for D.P. students to meet Germans on more or less equal terms. At Bonn there are about four hundred of these people from Eastern Europe, in a total uni- versity population of something approaching five thousand. They have a whole series of problems of their own, in no way comparable to those of the foreign student in Britain.
What then, of the future ? One immediate practical prospect is disquieting. There are far too many doctors for the hospitals and clinics to employ. In a prosperous and well-organised country they would doubtless be absorbed in a national health scheme, but even the most optimistic see little chance of this for a long time to come in Germany. At present, if they wish to practise their art, all young doctors must spend years on a miserable pittance before there is the slightest hope of their acquiring a practice. Much the same applies to other types of scientist, for whom industry and the war- machine have now no use, while university laboratories are over- crowded. Nor can we, nor must we, forget that the vast majority of present-day students are the product of Hitler Youth and the B.D.M.* It would be pleasant, but highly dangerous, to consider that past as buried and forgotten. The quite innocent remark of one highly intelligent ex-Hitler Youth visitor to Britain, that he had expected to see more of the "Nordic type" here than in fact he did, is evidence of the legacy of Nazi doctrine which, with the best will in the world, is not to be eradicated in a year or two. Dark though the immediate outlook is, however, hope is not entirely denied us. The Report of the Commission on the Universities of the British Zone, published last December, does at least propose a long-term policy tending to fit the German universities into the framework of a new German society, as envisaged by representative and not unduly idealistic experts. May their vision be quickly fulfilled.
* Bund Deutscher Miidchen.
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