The Kösener Senioren-Convents-Verband (abbreviation: KSCV) is the oldest association of German, Austrian and Swiss Studentenverbindungen or students fraternities. It comprises roughly 105 German, Austrian and a Flemish (Belgian), Hungarian and Swiss Corps, all of which are based upon the principle of tolerance.
The KSCV was founded in Jena, Thuringia, Germany in 1848. It soon moved to Bad Kösen in the northernmost German wine growing area Saale-Unstrut. Its annual meetings are held Bad Kösen and in the nearby Rudelsburg.
During the National Socialist regime of the Third Reich (Ger. Drittes Reich), a majority of member corps of the KSCV (namely five member corps which refused -,,,, and) refused to exclude Jewish members or to cooperate with the National Socialist youth movements, which were intended to replace the corps and other non-compliant student associations. Inevitably, this policy resulted in the forced closure and disbandment of the corps and, eventually, the KSCV.
The dissolution of the KSCV was further ensured by Hitler after May 1935, in which Corps Saxo-Borussia Heidelberg members had interfered with a broadcast speech by Hitler by singing satirical songs against the Nazis. The Hitler Youth was a rival organization which gained supremacy as the premiere youth organization in Germany under the Third Reich.
The KSCV, which had an ambivalent relationship with the Nazi government, was reconstituted by 1950 primarily in West Germany, with fraternities from the now-Soviet-occupied East Germany relocating to the West. Upon reunification, the Eastern fraternities returned to their original locations.
The Kösener monuments commemorate prestigious members of the Corps as well as the many fallen during the wars.