English
12/7/2025
Germany: Bielefeld and the Student Resistance Against University Austerity
"Down with rearmament, up with public education!"
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"Down with rearmament, up with public education!"
Against the Cut of Over 12 Million Euros at Bielefeld University (Already felt in the elimination of tutoring for the History program), a grassroots response emerged. The campaign @bielefeld_unkürzbar began with a massive assembly of more than 200 students who decided to organize independently in the face of the passivity of the authorities and official student groups.
Within weeks, open meetings were held, a political-cultural festival, public actions, the occupation of Lecture Hall 15, and a social media campaign. These initiatives managed to break into local media and brought the defense of the right to education and critical thinking to the forefront.
However, this process also clearly exposed the limits of the university regime. The authorities responded with attempts at co-optation and demobilization tactics, such as trying to define "which student actions are permitted and which are not"—a clear attempt at discipline. They even posted an institutional statement on the university’s website, attempting to divide and break the struggle by pitting students against each other after activists from the Bielefeld Unkürzbar movement occupied the lecture hall. Furthermore, they claimed the action exceeded legal boundaries, leaving open the possibility of sanctions or future use of this precedent. Meanwhile, student groups aligned with the authorities sought to isolate the protest, hiding behind procedural arguments to suppress any grassroots organizing that went beyond institutional frameworks.
Militarism
The flip side of university underfunding is the increase in military spending pushed by Friedrich Merz’s government (CDU), in alliance with the Social Democrats (SPD). This offensive against the university is neither technical nor neutral: it responds to a regime seeking to subordinate it to the interests of the market and the military-industrial complex for war. What is presented as "efficiency" is, in reality, a capitalist offensive against the historical gains of youth and the German working class.
The hollowing-out is deliberate. Scholarships are reduced or eliminated, teaching positions are cut, entire fields of study are defunded, and knowledge is constrained under the logic of "employability" and profit—particularly against the Social Sciences. Meanwhile, universities sign agreements with arms manufacturers, steer research toward military purposes, and normalize the presence of the Bundeswehr (armed forces) in educational spaces.
In this context, the recent student elections reflected a shift to the left in the Student Parliament (StuPa), particularly for ACAB and SDS (Die Linke), as well as a marked decline for the Young Socialists (Jusos/SPD).
For a Plan of Struggle to Defend Public Universities
This is not just about defending the university as an institution, but reclaiming it as a social achievement. The fundamental question is: Who is the university for? For the working-class majority or for economic elites and their power structures?
Public universities cannot be a privilege or a cog in the service of war and capital. They are a social right won through struggle, and only through struggle can they be defended.
Studying and working youth must make their voices heard. Let’s build committees, assemblies, and spaces for deliberation in every place of study. The path is clear: fight for funding and for a public, secular, and tuition-free university.
