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Before the Great War
Between 1830 and 1870, total enrollment in German universities remained steady at around twelve to thirteen thousand, but after unification the student population grew dramatically, nearly tripling by 1900.Many of the new students came from non-aristocratic backgrounds. Dueling clubs became very popular, as the right to carry a sword was traditionally reserved for the aristocracy. A dueling scar identified the bearer as sympathetic to (and deserving of sympathy from) the professionals and military officers who ran Germany.
The dueling societies at the University of Heidelberg are legendary, and in 1885 a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wrote a report describing the first-year experience of a typical German student:
He arrives at the University, and, as a general rule, has no inclination for study; so, for the first year or two, devotes his time to the amusements which the place affords …He very soon gets acquainted with other students, and is soon initiated into their habits. The first thing which occupies his mind is a mania for dueling, and, if he has plenty of money, and the inclination, he joins a corps; if not, generally some private dueling society.
A few years later another student noted that Heidelberg banned football as too dangerous an activity!
Kovalevskaya
Because of archaic practices, the University of Heidelberg missed the opportunity of being known for something more productive than dueling: it could have been the school that graduated Sofia (or Sonya) Kovalevskaya (January 15, 1850–February 10, 1891), born Vasilyevna (“Vasily's daughter”).
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