 The third bond [knowledge service, in addition to labour service and military service] is the one that binds the [German] students to the spiritual mission of the German Volk. This Volk is playing an active role in shaping its own fate by placing its history into the openness of the overpowering might of all the world-shaping forces of human existence and by struggling anew to secure its spiritual world… The three bonds—through the Volk to the destiny of the state in its spiritual mission—are equally original aspects of the German essence. (The Self-Assertion of the German University, 35–6)