I found the history of young Nazi's partaking in encouraged duels; and intentionally slashing their faces and enhancing the gruesome scars quite interesting.

The Mensur scar became known as a ‘Duelling Scar’, or in later years the ‘Nazi Duelling Scar’, and it became a fashion trend amongst upper class German men. They would often pack the scar with horse hair to make the scar much more gruesome.

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I'm not sure the link the author makes between the mensur and Nazis is justified; The mensur was practiced at least as early as the 18th century and was fashionable long before the 1930's - I'd even say it was more of a WWI thing than a WWII thing; when the officers were almost exclusively from the upper class. Skorzeny seems a special case and I'm sure both his face and actions were the inspirations for several villains (I'm pretty sure Blofeld is partly based on him) - however I never saw or heard that mensur was very widespread in nazi circles.

As academic fencing was done only in Burschenschaften which were instrumental in the (failed) democratic revolution of Germany in the 19th century it would be odd for it to be liked by the Nazis. Also I'm pretty sure it's not exclusive to elite universities as most of them have or had such Burschenschaften.

Maybe Wikipedia can give you more accurate information about it here.

Ah thanks! Sounds like you're right.

Found this searching "nazi" in that link.

During the times of the Third Reich, the national socialist leadership chose to forbid academic fencing. (It hints it was driven underground) but then states:

Following the war, most of the formerly suspended fraternities were reactivated and resumed the traditions of Mensur fencing if they had not continued throughout the time of Nazi occupation.

Otto Skorzeny?

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I'm pretty sure mensur fencers were more of the aristocratic Prussian officer type which tended to despise the nazis. Most high ranking SS men came from the working class, often with WW1 enlisted service like Hitler himself and post-WW1 involvement in Freikorps militias..

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Mensur is still practiced today here in Germany. It IS seen as a more right wing thing but I chalk that up to the fact that the average, more left leaning student possibly does not share very conservative views on masculinity like getting scars in combat

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Rarely have I ever read an article so wrong on almost everything.

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1). First of all, Mensur still exists among fraternities. It is not an antiquated thing you only saw "back in the day".

2. Whatever is being said about it being offered only at "the most prestigious universities" is somewhat false. It wasn´t the universities, but rather the fraternities doing their own thing. Since fraternities have a long history in germany, they were already present in every university city, and thus you could do fencing everywhere. The notion of them becoming "leaders" most of the time is not wrong, but the reason for that was because having a university degree before the first world war practically guaranteed you a good position.

3. The notion of fencers going out to deliberately get scars is plain wrong. If you got a scar, that means you were a bad fencer. I don´t understand why this myth prevails until today.

4) Most importantly, Mensur has absolutely nothing to do with Nazis. Fraternities were in fact entirely prohibited because they all had a democratic principle, and the Mensur in particular was forbidden because in their view, getting scarred was "Wehrkraftzersetzung".

5. The reason for the lack of headgear was not because "getting a scar was desirable", but because the Mensur is a test of bravery among students to stand up for himself and his fraternity, and if need be, bleed.

6. A Mensur does not go on until one capitulates or is completely cut up. Depending on the Fechtcomment, it goes on for 25-40 rounds with about 5 strikes for each combatant. This means that more often than not, noone would have been struck so as to leave a scar. The reason why it still happened sometimes was, as mentioned, either because of bad technique, or because the combatant has done many duels, often exceeding the minimum amount prescribed by his fraternity.

7. "It became known as the 'Nazi Dueling Scar'" No it didn't.

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It is true that some Nazis had dueling scars, but they got them before the Nazis took power in 1933 and forbade student unions.

There are much bigger issues with fraternities than the damn dueling, for example, the whole misogyny.

Historical criticism duly noted, but the article was nonetheless interesting; thanks for bringing it to light. Like the movie in the title, fighting sports touch something visceral that's missing in our modern, soft civilization. It's also why so many westerners pursue Asian martial arts.

A myth that originated from bad, cliche WWII movies perhaps?

> I'm sure both his face and actions were the inspirations for several villains (I'm pretty sure Blofeld is partly based on him)

Not being a huge Bond aficionado, I figured he (or someone very much like him) was an inspiration for Marvel Comics' Baron Strucker. I now see that character was probably ripped off pretty directly from Blofeld.