Living in Bonn
Most of you who are not from the area will already have thought about where you are going to live in Bonn. Compared to Cologne, for example, the city is not incredibly large, but this makes the housing situation all the more difficult. To find a good apartment, you sometimes have to pay a lot of money or move to the outskirts of Bonn. This text is primarily intended to list the options available and what you should look out for.
At first, the simplest solution is to continue living at home and travel to the university in the morning and back in the evening for face-to-face classes. In terms of cost, this is probably the cheapest solution once you have your semester ticket. However, this is only possible if you live in the area. In addition, the regional trains around Bonn are not necessarily the most punctual. During the first few days of the preliminary course, you should remember that your semester ticket is only valid from October 1. Furthermore, if you have a longer commute, you should bear in mind that you will have to get up earlier in the morning for face-to-face classes and will be less able to do things spontaneously with your fellow students. Accordingly, it is much easier to make new contacts during your studies if you live centrally or close to the university.
As a general rule, you need to apply very early! It is even better if you introduce yourself in person at the relevant offices. The staff can get a better impression of you in a personal conversation. The apartments are inexpensive and some are quite large, which is a rarity in Bonn! In addition, some dormitories (e.g., the one next to the cafeteria) are very centrally located at the university. On the other hand, the quality of the accommodation is sometimes only moderate, but it is generally sufficient for students. Furthermore, accommodation is linked to your studies and the standard period of study – you have to move out after three years and cannot spontaneously take a semester off and do internships without being enrolled. So the dormitory is probably the best solution in terms of value for money. More information about the dormitories of the Studentenwerk can be found here.
Here, too, it is important to start looking early. After all, you are not the only person looking! If you are not in a hurry, it would be better to look for an apartment during the semester. There are really good and varied apartments that meet different requirements. However, some of the apartments are far too expensive, so don't let yourself be ripped off. Some landlords do not accept students because they consider their payment to be too uncertain. It is often easier to find apartments through contacts. It is therefore worthwhile to ask around among your acquaintances for available apartments.
You will also find many offers for this on the Internet. It is even more difficult when you want to look for an apartment with friends and move in together. Before you start looking, you should be clear about whether you are looking for a purely functional shared apartment or new friendships. One advantage is that larger apartments are usually cheaper. However, you should be very sure that you want to live with others, as it offers significantly less privacy. Conclusion: With good roommates, a shared apartment is also a good choice. Important when starting a new shared apartment: Clarify financial issues such as ownership of new purchases or the relationship between the respective residents in the lease agreement well in advance of moving in. In general, there are many small details to consider that you may not be aware of at first. It is worth reading the various guides on the internet.
When it comes to finding accommodation, connections deserve special mention, as they sometimes try to conceal the affiliation of apartment advertisements and are not normal landlords. Online, you can find apartment listings that are surprisingly cheap, usually restricted to men, and often illustrated with pictures of spacious common areas. There are often several ads for the same property, one of which omits the communal areas and address, making it particularly difficult to identify a fraternity address as such. Once you have moved in, the first barrier has been broken and fraternities try to market themselves as well as possible in order to bind the new roommates to them. This makes the continuation of the tenancy dependent on joining the fraternity. Fraternities want to be a bond for life. Leaving provokes ostracism, loss of housing, and often verbal and physical attacks. This becomes painfully clear to people as soon as they no longer want to have anything to do with a fraternity.
Why should fraternities be viewed critically?
The political worldview of fraternities is by no means uniform; in Bonn, for example, there are fraternities that range from arch-conservative to strictly Catholic to openly right-wing extremist or fascist. The structural and individual misogyny associated with most fraternities can also be clearly illustrated with figures in Bonn: there are 39 all-male fraternities, but only three mixed and one all-female fraternity. Recognition and respect for other gender identities is usually made impossible by the fraternities' self-imposed identity. Fraternities are and remain forces that fight with all their might against the emancipation of women. In many fraternities, women are tolerated only when they drink excessively, and even then only for transparent reasons.
Fraternities and violence
Voluntary or compulsory dueling fraternities and fencing are still widespread. In concrete terms, this means that adults inflict sometimes serious wounds on each other while fencing in order to prove their “masculinity” and “courage.” If something goes wrong, the priority is on the external image and not on the health and lives of the fraternity brothers. Anti-Semitic attacks by fraternities have also recently made headlines in Germany again. In some cases, tests of courage in this system go as far as death, because the internal processes and their traditional ideas of conspiratorial, male, and pseudo-elitist communities weigh more heavily than the lives of their own members for many. The lives of those who think differently are explicitly of no concern to Bonn fraternity members, as an incident in Cologne in 2019 showed. If you want to learn more about the problems with fraternities in Bonn, you can find more information in the AStA-Bonn reader.
Sources
tinyurl.com/ezquelleb01
tinyurl.com/ezquelleb02
tinyurl.com/ezquelleb03neu
tinyurl.com/ezquelleb04
tinyurl.com/ezquelleb05neu