Blood on campus - 500 years of academic violence

The Albert-Ludwigs-University campus Freiburg, founded in 1457, is almost 570 years old. It is clear that there have been deaths during this long period. The thought that unnatural deaths must be among them is as unpleasant as it is statistically unavoidable.

And indeed, if you descend into the depths of the university archives, you will find a slain rector in the files as early as 1509. The even bigger scandal, however, is how the investigation of the crime subsequently came to nothing.

At that time, universities exercised their own jurisdiction over their members. In the centuries that followed, southern German universities had to deal with the question of whether murder should be followed by the death penalty from time to time.

In 1890, there was a tragic pistol duel between two students in Mooswald, which shook the entire nation but also heated up the debate. It served as a cautionary precedent in the long-running debate about the extent to which honor duels were still appropriate.

The lecture will conclude with an almost forgotten murder of passion that took place in 1920 between a pair of students in the heart of the university, the Kollegiengebäude I.

A lecture by Wilhelm Gros.

Duration: 90 minutes

Meeting point: Uniseum (university museum), Bertoldstr. 17, entrance area

The guided tour is free of charge, registration is required. Please register by e-mail info@uniseum.de or by telephone 0761 - 203 3835.