The DSt was founded during the Weimar Republic period as a democratic representation of interests. It experienced serious internal conflicts in the early 1920s between the Republican minority and the völkisch majority wing. It was dominated from 1931 onward by the National Socialist German Students' League, which was merged on 5 November 1936 under Gustav Adolf Scheel with the DSt,[1] played a large part in the Nazi book burnings and was eventually banned in 1945 as a Nazi organization.