Reading about the Burschenschaft got me thinking about what it would take for students today to become more politically active. The Burschenschaft are interesting because a large percentage of students were in one of these organizations at some income level, or so it seems. This many politically motivated youths is not unprecedented, but it is strange in the way that it came about. Usually youth movements are somewhat unorganized and unstructured, see hippies in the 1960's, but this movement was well organized with a specific goal in mind, the unification of Germany. It really surprises me that college students were so politically minded, especially about something like the unification of the country. It is hard for me to understand the sort of political spirit that was behind the Burschenschaften. I realize that times were tough and political sentiment to unify Germany was high, but to put a political organization together with such success is still impressive. I am trying to think of an issue that would lead students to the same sort of organization in America; I realize that a lot of students do organize politically, but I got the sense with the Burschenschaft incorporated a majority of students. I really can't see American college students getting motivated for anything like this even if the economy got a lot worse. With so many distractions for young people today I just don't think there is a will to get political goals accomplished. We will vote for Obama or Ron Paul but there isn't an activism like the Burschenschaft and there probably never will be again.