Mark Twain visited Heidelberg in Germany and described the culture of dueling that pervaded German universities. The following is from his book, 'A Tramp Abroad', published 1881 describing dueling in H
The dueling spot...
... a large whitewashed apartment perhaps fifty feet long by thirty feet wide and twenty or twenty-five high; a well-lighted place with no carpet, and across one end and down both sides extended a row of tables, and at these tables some fifty or seventy-five students are sitting, sipping wine, playing cards or chess, chatting and smoking cigarettes while they wait for the coming duels.
The students belong to one of five corps with colored caps representing the corps to which they belong. They neither bow to nor speak with students whose caps differ in color from their own. It was considered that a person could strike harder in the duel if he had never been in a condition of comradeship with his antagonist; therefore, comradeship between the corps is not permitted.
In the windows at the vacant end of the room stand six or eight, narrow-bladed swords with large protecting guards for the hand, and outside is a man at work sharpening others on a grindstone. When a sword left his hand you could shave yourself with it.
The duelers eyes are protected by iron goggles which project an inch or more. The leather straps of the goggles bind their ears flat against their heads and these straps are wound around and around with thick wrappings which a sword could not cut through. From chin to ankle they are padded thoroughly against injury; their arms are bandaged and rebandaged, layer upon layer, until they look like solid black logs. They resembled beings one sees in nightmares. Their arms which projected straight out from their bodies are so heavy that fellow-students walk beside them and help to support them.
An 1896 picture of Adolf Hoffmann-Heyden, a German Corpsstudent, showing an extensive fresh fencing scar and some minor old ones.
Scars were usually targeted to the left profile, so the right profile appeared untouched. (This may sound counter-intuitive since, because most people are right-handed, it is usually the right profiles of the duelists that face each other, which is where you would expect the scars to be. The right profile however is also the profile that is protected by the sword of a right-handed swordsman.)
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