Through the analysis of the elections to the academic reading cabinet and to the students’ committee of the University of Berlin, this article examines the modalities and possibilities of politicization of German students at the end of the 19th century. The elections at these two student-run institutions allowed students to express and put into practice the vision of the world and of the social order they held more generally, while they expressed their rejection of active and partisan politics. It was not corporatist and academic issues, but the national question, which became central in student opposition. Indeed, despite the official rejection of politics and the measures taken by the university authorities to prevent (political) conflicts, nationalist students managed to impose the national question as the dividing line and pointed to Jewish and progressive students as a threat to German unity, at least at the university. However, competition between student organizations was not limited to this divide around the nation and the definition of the good German student. The analysis of these student electoral battles thus contributes to the socio-history of the processes of politicization outside of universal suffrage.