Jena Students League 1816 (Germany)

Jenaer Burschenschaft

Last modified: 2005-04-09 by santiago dotor
Keywords: jena students league | jenaer burschenschaft | branch: oak |
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by Andy Weir

• Description

See also:

• Origins of the Colours of the Flag (Germany)
• German Confederation 1815-1866 (Germany)
• City of Jena (Thuringia, Germany)
• Students' Associations (Burschenschaften/Studentenverbindungen, Germany)

Other sites:

• Geschichte der Jenaer Burschenschaft (History of the Jena Students League, German text only) with an image of their flag

During the 1813 war against Napoleon there was a free corps called Lützowsche Jäger (Lützow's Rifles), soldiers —especially students— which became pioneers of the national movement. They wore —by chance— black tunics with red facings. From these colours the first flag of the student movement [Jenaer Burschenschaft] after the war was inspired: Gules, a fess Sable, an oak branch Or [i.e. red with a black stripe and a yellow oak branch]. (...) However black-red-gold would not only stay as colours of a student movement, they were to become the German national colours. (...) Source: Hattenhauer 1984.

Carsten Linke, 24 May 1996

The caption in Smith 1977, p. 118, calls it a studenterkorpsfane, roughly 'student corps colour', from the beginning of the 19th century.

Ole Andersen, 27 January 2001