This self-conception is also of historical interest: from 1900 to 1929 members of the "Studentenverbindungen" in Tübingen already understood themselves as the German national elite ("Führer der Nation"). Every May until 2008, fraternities of the "Tübinger Waffenring" organized a big torchlight procession and sang traditional German songs in the old town ("Maieinsingen"), accompanied by a counter-demonstrations of extreme left-wing student groups. This event has since been replaced by a public fest organized by all student fraternities and sororities that is open to everyone and which is publicly endorsed by the mayor Boris Palmer, though criticism from radical left students still emerges.