Truth to the bond, truth to the Fatherland!
Though rocks and oak-trees shiver,
We, we will tremble never!
Strong like the tempest see the youths go by,
For Fatherland to combat and to die!
The laws of the Burschenschaft, or its constitution, bore the name--"Custom of the Burschenschaft." Amongst other things stand the following:
"In the German Fatherland we will live and move. We will perish with it, or die free in it, if God's great call ordain. Live the German speech for ever! Flourish the true chivalry! Let Germany be free!
"He who avows these ideas, and is willing to contend for their advancement, is our beloved brother. To accomplish these high endeavours, there must be a universal free Burschenschaft throughout all Germany.
"There can no salvation come to our beloved Germany unless through such a free and universal Burschenschaft, in which Germany's noblest youth continues intimately fraternized, in which every one learns to know his duty--and which Burschenschaft shall always find the Gymnastic schools its defence and alarm-post.
"We will never apply the word Fatherland to that state in which we were born: Germany is our Fatherland; the state in which we are born is our Home.