Heidelberg: Relations Between a Town and Its University

Peter Meusburger

The oldest seal of the rector’s offi ce at the most important of the four secular Honorary offi ces, offi ces of state, University of Heidelberg, from 1390, used Prince Electors as Arch-Steward and until 1740. and court offi ces (Erzämter) Imperial Vicar as well as the judge over During the First German Reich – since the the king. The function as the seat of the fi fteenth century customarily called the Prince Elector’s court was further en- Holy Roman Empire of the German Na- that Heidelberg was a centre of politi- hanced when Ruprecht III was elected tion – certain honorary offi ces, offi ces of cal power from the 14th to the early German king as Ruprecht I in 1400, state, and court offi ces were attached to 18th century as the residence of a Prince which title he retained until his death in the rank of Prince Elector. The bestowal Elector, one of only seven nobles at that 1410 (Hepp, 1990, p. 15; Scheuerbrandt, and duties of these high offi ces were set forth by Emperor Charles IV in the Gol- time who held the privilege of electing 1996b, pp. 48-49). The fact that the den Bull (1356). the German king and future Holy Ro- Heidelberg Prince Electors (descended man emperor. Such elections took place from the senior line of the House of Arch-Steward (Erztruchsess) when the dynasty changed, but they Wittelsbach) repeatedly played a lead- The offi ce of Arch-Steward was of purely were also needed by the son of the ing role in the politics of the German symbolic character at the emperor’s coro- reigning king in order to be approved Empire greatly benefi ted the town sci- nation, at which the Arch-Steward, carry- On the symbiosis between the town by the Prince Electors as his father’s entifi cally, culturally, and economically ing the imperial orb, led the procession. The Palatine Prince Electors held the of- rightful successor. This outstanding but also meant major disadvantages. and the university fi ce of Arch-Steward until well into the Heidelberg University shapes its envi- centre of political power depended on Because of Heidelberg’s political cen- seventeenth century. rons through buildings, technical equip- knowledge and expertise, and it became trality and its militarily strategic loca- ment, traffi c density, and other ways in an almost irresistible magnet for many tion near the border with France and at Imperial vicar (Reichsverweser) which space is used. It also has great scholars, students, and artists over the a place where the Neckar valley opens The imperial vicar represented the king or impact on demographic development, centuries. During that time, the Prince onto the Rhine plain, the town suffered emperor at offi cial functions and in mat- social structure, economic vitality, in- Elector’s court and the university domi- time and again from siege, destruction, ters under court jurisdiction. He also did so during long vacancies of the throne, novativeness, purchasing power, voting nated the scene, constituting Heidel- and the effects of forced migration. as with extended absence of the King or behaviour, educational attainment, and berg’s economic cornerstone, whereas Heidelberg and its university profi ted Emperor, the transitional phase surround- cultural life in its town and region. Di- the town’s commercial function re- especially from the town’s ascendance ing the election of the King or Emperor, rectly and indirectly (through wages, mained rudimentary and its manufac- as a nucleus of European Calvinism in or the period during which the ruler was capital expenditures, and investment), turing sector served only local needs. the sixteenth century and from the fact still too young to assume power. Heidelberg University generates myriad Despite a host of auspicious conditions that the Electoral Palatinate’s cultural jobs and attracts scholars, students, cre- at the outset, Heidelberg was never able (and in some measure also political) re- Italy and France. In the early seven- ative minds in the arts and letters, and to develop all the urban functions one lations extended from England to Tran- teenth century the Prince Elector in intellectuals from around the globe. would expect to fi nd in so politically sylvania and from Silesia to northern Heidelberg took the lead in the anti- Some of its graduates remain in the re- signifi cant a place. Nor did Heidelberg gion and expand the creative potential gain much from industrialisation in the from which the regional economy, pub- nineteenth century, although the town’s lic administration, and culture recruit manufactories offered relatively favour- highly qualifi ed employees and manag- able conditions for that eventuality. ers. Those academics and graduates who Through good times and bad, the uni- move on from the university region un- versity was the most stable urban func- derscore the acclaim of the university tion for 625 years. It spread Heidelberg’s and the town. name throughout the world, and its his- Conversely, a university is affected by tory was inextricably linked with the the political, social, and economic con- history of the town. ditions of its urban and regional loca- tion. Heidelberg University owes not Heidelberg – an important centre of only its founding but also some of its power for more than 300 years heydays and catastrophes to the fact Right from its beginnings in the twelfth century, Heidelberg was a likely admin- istrative hub of the emerging territorial state governed by the Counts Palatine of the Rhine (Pfeifer, 1963b, p. 181; Scheuerbrandt, 1972, pp. 129-131). Bastions in the western part of the Heidelberg Old Town (today’s Bismarckplatz, between the The town occupied the limelight in im- Neckar river and the Ebertanlage) shortly before its completion at the beginning of the Thirty perial politics for the fi rst time when Years War. Count Palatine Ludwig II in 1272 be- came the Imperial Vicar , or chief secular prince of the Holy Roman Em- pire. Heidelberg’s political infl uence continued growing when the Palatinate became a principality in its own right in 1329 and particularly when the Golden Bull of 1356 confi rmed the Count Pala- tine’s electoral dignity. Henceforth, one The Codex Balduineus (circa 1340) contains the fi rst recognised of the empire’s seven Prince Electors re- portrayal of the seven Prince Electors, who are identifi ed by their sided in Heidelberg ( image). coats of arms above their heads. From left to right: the Archbish- ops of Cologne, Mainz, and Trier; the Count Palatine of the Rhine Heidelberg’s prominence as a centre (the Heidelberg Prince Elector), the Duke of Saxony, the Margrave of power increased again in 1356 when of Brandenburg, and the King of Bohemia. Count Palatine Ruprecht I became the

18 Wissenschaftsatlas of Heidelberg University Habsburg alliance of Protestant princes, came to be derided as the Winter King thrusting the Electoral Palatinate into (see Bilhöfer, 2003a, 2003b, 2004; the maelstrom of European-wide con- Frese, 2004; Pánek, 2003). fl ict. The Heidelberg Prince Electors ac- Heidelberg and the Electoral Palati- tively supported the Calvinist Hugue- nate were a primary target of attack by nots in France and the resistance of the troops of the Catholic League in the Dutch Protestants against Spain. the Thirty Years War ( image). The To strengthen the Protestant princes capital was alternately captured by both against the Catholic Habsburgs, six- parties to the confl ict and was defence- teen-year-old Friedrich V ( image) was less against the devastation and plun- married in 1613 to Elizabeth Stuart dering visited upon it by troops of Duke ( image), the only daughter of James I, Maximilian of Bavaria in 1634, who King of England. came from the junior, Catholic line of After the Bohemian estates in Prague the House of Wittelsbach. The univer- had deposed the Habsburg King, Ferdi- sity’s fi rst, glorious period ended in nand II, in 1618 (an act that became 1622. According to Wolgast (1986b, known as the defenestration), they re- pp. 53-55), the university had to shut quested Prince Elector Friedrich V, who down its teaching on 11 April 1626. resided in Heidelberg, to become King Except for one mathematician who had of Bohemia, a throne to which a few converted to Catholicism, all the pro- earlier candidates had already declined fessors left the university. Teaching re- to succeed. Recognising the high risk sumed in June 1629, but by 1632 the that acceptance of the Bohemian crown university had to interrupt teaching would entail, some of his counsellors in again, a recurring pattern throughout Heidelberg advised him to reject the of- the war. Records of 1641 mention one fer, as did the kings of France and Eng- physician as rector and two Jesuits as land. They were certain the Habsburgs professors. The university was at last re- would not tolerate this encroachment opened in 1652. on their power. Friedrich V went ahead Few areas in Germany during the nonetheless and was elected King of Thirty Years War had been badly de- Bohemia on 26 August 1619. He and stroyed and had lost as much of its pop- his wife left Heidelberg for Prague on ulation as had the Electoral Palatinate. 7 October 1619 with a retinue of On 7 October 1649 – about one year af- 568 people and 153 wagons (Billhöfer, ter the war ended – there were only 2003a; 2003b, p. 27). He was crowned about 300 inhabitants left in Heidelberg king in Prague’s St. Vitus Cathedral. (Scheuerbrandt, 1996b, p. 74). In the His reign in Prague, however, was trou- communities of the Rhine plain, only bled from the start. He did not have the 30% to 40% of the original population support of all the Bohemian nobles, the had survived the confl ict (Franz, 1979; state’s fi nances had long since been ru- Kollnig, 1952, pp. 14, 18; Schaab, 1992, ined, and the nobility proved unwilling p. 121; Scheuerbrandt, 1972, p. 231). to raise taxes to help the situation. The Peace of Münster and Osnabrück Moreover, neither Friedrich V nor his (1648) forced Karl Ludwig of the Palati- wife spoke Czech and were soon unpop- nate (1617-1680) – the eldest son and ular in Prague for various reasons. successor of the Winter King from the Worse still, the iconoclasm of Abraham senior, Calvinist line of the House of Scultetus (1566-1624) – the Prince Elec- Wittelsbach – to surrender forever the tor’s Calvinist court prelate since 1615 ore-rich upper Palatinate (the vicinity and professor of the Old Testament at of Amberg in Bavaria) to the Catholic Heidelberg University since 1618 – was Wittelsbachs, who resided in Munich. felt by the Czech population to be an His father had already had to transfer attack on Bohemian culture. Even the the electoral dignity in 1622 famous St. Mary’s Altar by Lucas Cra- nach was destroyed. As many observers had predicted, the Habsburgs refused to countenance the election of the new king. On 8 Novem- ber 1620, matters came to a head at the Destruction of settlements in the Electoral Battle of the White Mountain near Palatinate, 1674-1714. Section of the map Prague. The Protestant army’s inferior entitled Siedlungszerstörungen und Festungs- discipline and equipment made the werke im späten 17. und frühen 18. Jahrhun- dert (1674-1714) [Settlement destruction and clash one of the briefest of the Thirty fortifi cations in the late 17th and early 18th Years War. The Bohemian-Palatinate centuries (1674-1714)], edited by Heinz Musall forces were almost completely wiped and Arnold Scheuerbrandt, from Historischer out. Friedrich and his court fl ed, fi nally Atlas von Baden-Württemberg [Historical Atlas of Baden-Württemberg], published by fi nding asylum in The Hague, the Kommission für geschichtliche Landeskunde in Netherlands. With his reign having Baden-Württemberg (Stuttgart, 1972-1988), lasted only one winter, Friedrich V Map VI, 12 (1979).

19 Heidelberg: Relations Between a Town and Its University The Palatinate lion with the University of Heidelberg maxim: Semper apertus – always open (Julius Wilhelm Zincgref, 1619)

in 1689 ( image). In March 1689 came the order to burn down Heidelberg, which was levelled almost completely in 1693. Only the smouldering shells of churches, a few façades (e.g., today’s Ritter Hotel), and some houses on the Schlossberg were left standing. The War of Palatine Succession once again ravaged the Upper Rhine valley, which lost 50% to 70% of its population (Musall & Scheuerbrandt, 1974, 1980; Scheuerbrandt, 1972, pp. 231-234; Vet- ter, 1989; Vetter & Salzer, 1993). Teach- ing at the university had to be sus- pended for a few years because of the city’s total destruction and the removal of the professors. The further legal ex- istence of the university was ensured, though (Wolgast, 1986, pp. 64-65). The university moved to Weinheim (19 km, or 12 miles, north of Heidelberg) in Friedrich V (1596-1632) as King of Bohemia Elizabeth Stuart (1596-1662) as Queen of to Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, the 1698 but returned to Heidelberg in early Bohemia close ally of the Habsburgs and the 1700, and instruction began again in leader of the Catholic League. Karl 1704 (Wolgast, 1986b, p. 65). Heidelberg) were built in that era’s cen- Elector Ottheinrich (1502-1559) offi - Ludwig received a newly created eighth tres of political power. cially proclaimed “pure Protestant doc- electorship. The Lower Palatinate, lo- Heidelberg as a centre of knowledge The beginnings of Heidelberg Uni- trine” in the Electoral Palatinate, and cated in the Upper Rhine area, was re- For centuries, the close interaction of versity were modest, and it was soon he repressed Catholicism. Under his turned to him and was called the Elec- knowledge and power has prompted rul- surpassed by other, newly founded uni- successor, Friedrich III (1559-1576), toral Palatinate. ers to bring the institutions of learning versities such as the one in Cologne. Lutherans were replaced by Calvinists. The Electoral Palatinate had not yet (schools and universities) under their But the fi rst topographical description During the reign of Prince Elector Lud- recovered from the effects of the Thirty control and to have their political, reli- of Heidelberg as a town, the 1458 Latin wig VI (1576-1583), Lutheranism Years War and the plague epidemic of gious, and economic power secured and laudatio of the Humanist and physician briefl y won out again, a resurgence that 1666 when confl icts with French king legitimated by centres of knowledge. Peter Luder (ca. 1414-1472) to Prince as of 1577 triggered renewed emigration Louis XIV erupted in 1672. The French This motive pertains not only to the Elector Friedrich I, praised Heidelberg’s of Calvinist families, particularly profes- attempt to win over parts of the Palati- kind of technical expertise essential for openness to the world and the universi- sors and students. Under the following nate culminated in the War of Palatine economic development and effi cient ad- ty’s prominence (Kettemann, 1986, Prince Elector, Friedrich IV, who was Succession (1688-1697, also known as ministration but also to knowledge of 1996) . This tribute may have been a not old enough to assume power when the War of the League of Augsburg and salvation and redemption, which served trifl e exaggerated in its day, but Heidel- his father died, Calvinism was reintro- the War of the Grand Alliance). With to care for the souls of both sovereign berg University did indeed occupy an duced by his guardian, the electoral ad- the scorched-earth tactics of French and subjects and to legitimate rule. It is outstanding place a few decades later. ministrator Johann Casimir, a younger troops during their retreat, several hun- no coincidence that the fi rst three uni- Not only were renowned scholars from brother of Ludwig VI. With this confes- dred villages throughout the Electoral versities on the territory of the Holy all over Europe active there, it was also sional reversal, it was now the Lutheran Palatinate were systematically destroyed Roman Empire (Prague, Vienna, and the site of confessional clashes between clerics, professors, and students who Lutherans, Calvinists, and Catholics emigrated in great numbers (summa- debating the transmission of the “right” rised after Wolgast, 1986b, pp. 24-55). religious knowledge. In the second half The turn to Calvinism had exceed- of the sixteenth century and early sev- ingly positive intellectual, political, and enteenth century, Heidelberg became a economic impacts on Heidelberg. Zach- European centre of Calvinism and late arias Ursinus (1534-1583) did much to Humanism. Speaking in the lecture hall help create the Heidelberg Catechism of Heidelberg’s Faculty of Arts (which in 1563, which was soon translated into once stood where University Square is 40 languages and was reprinted 150 now located), Martin Luther presented times in Hungary alone in the course of his teachings and attracted well-known time (Zach, 2004). It became the uni- disciples as early as 26 April 1518, just versally accepted confessional text of shortly after publishing his theses in Europe’s reformed churches and was of Wittenberg, Saxony. In 1556 Prince such fundamental importance that Hei-

The Hortus Palatinus (Garden of the Palati- nate) after a painting by Jacques Fouquières, 1620. It is unknown whether the Renaissance garden designed by Salomon de Caus was completed.

20 Wissenschaftsatlas of Heidelberg University teenth century and the fi rst two decades heyday, very few professors were from of the seventeenth century included the Electoral Palatinate. They came in- Transylvania, Hungary, Silesia, Scan- stead from many parts of Europe and dinavia, Scotland, the Netherlands, were often western European immi- France, and Italy. The elites of many grants who took refuge in Calvinist princely courts in that period were edu- Heidelberg. “Never was [Heidelberg] cated in Heidelberg. Gábor Bethlen University more open to the world than (1580-1629), a powerful and politically in the second half of the sixteenth cen- delberg was called the “German Gene- ambitious prince from Transylvania, tury” (Wolgast, 1996, p. 293). va”, “the centre of Calvinist Reformed was infl uenced in his cultural and for- For a few years after the marriage of Science” alongside Leiden (Wolgast, eign policy by leading fi gures who had Prince Elector Friedrich V to Elizabeth 1986b, p. 40), and the “international been educated primarily at Heidelberg Stuart (1613), Heidelberg blossomed as Mecca of anti-Spanish, anti-Roman In- University (Meusburger, 2010). Heidel- a cultural centre for theatre and music. telligence” (Wolgast, 1996, p. 293). Be- berg professors were renowned counsel- A large garden in late-Italian Renais- cause of the university’s great intellec- lors, experts, and diplomats of many sance style, the Hortus Palatinus ( im- tual signifi cance – which was by no sovereigns. In the late sixteenth and age), was planted to the east of the cas- means confi ned to theology but encom- early seventeenth centuries, Heidelberg tle. The castle’s English Building (der passed law and classical philology, too – was, in a sense, the gateway to Europe englische Bau) was constructed, and the the areas from which people fl ocked to for Protestants from Hungary and Tran- adjacent “Fat Tower” (der dicke Turm), Heidelberg in the second half of the six- sylvania (Heltai, 1999). During this which had originally served as

The Minnesänger Wernher von Teufen and his Lady. A page from the Codex Manesse (circa 1300-1340), an illuminated collection of me- dieval texts of courtly love songs (Minnesang) and aphoristic poetry in Middle High German. It is kept in Heidelberg University Library.

Michael Mästlin (also Maestlin, 1550-1631), mathematician and astronomer, professor at Heidelberg University (1580-1583), subse- quently professor at University of Tübingen. The Maestlin moon crater was named after him in 1961.

21 Heidelberg: Relations Between a Town and Its University Firebird Phoenix in the Centre of Creation (circa 1425-1431), Heidelberg University Library (Cod. Pal. germ. 471)

Unfortunately for Heidelberg Universi- 1582 Heidelberg professor Michael ty, the political and cultural catastro- Mästlin (1550-1631) ( image) pub- phes wrought by the Thirty Years War lished the fi rst edition of his Epitome as- and the War of Palatine Succession co- tronomiae (An Outline of Astronomy), incided with the great rise of the natu- which quickly became the most success- ral sciences in Italy (Padua, Pisa, and ful textbook on astronomy in the fi rst Florence) and western Europe half of the seventeenth century, with at (Montpellier, Paris, Leiden, London, least eight printings of it appearing by Oxford, and Cambridge), a period dur- 1624. As professor at the University of ing which academies of science were Tübingen later, Mästlin is said to have founded in several cities and the fi rst familiarised Johannes Kepler (1571- scientifi c journals were published. In 1630) with the weaknesses of Ptolemy’s 1657 the Accademia del Cimento (Acad- geocentric model of the universe. Be- emy of Experiment) was created in Flor- cause Mästlin had defended the helio- ence, as Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) had centric views expounded by Copernicus recommended. The establishment of – whose original manuscript of Opus de the Royal Society followed in London revolutionibus caelestibus lay in Heidel- in 1662-1663, as did the Académie des berg at that time – the Catholic church Sciences in Paris in 1666. The fi rst sci- banned his works (Betsch & Hamel, entifi c journal, the Philosophical Trans- 2002; Günther, 1884). The Heidelberg actions of the Royal Society of London, Orientalist and astronomer Jakob was published in 1665 (Crombie, 1967, Christmann (1554-1613) was the fi rst vol. 2, pp. 123-124; Price, 1975, pp. 164- person to use the telescope in conjunc- 175; Taylor, Hoyler, & Evans, 2010). tion with the sextant (Christmann, Before the cataclysm of the Thirty 1924; Roth, 1901; Verdonk, 1971). The Years War, Heidelberg University was Heidelberg mathematician Bartholomeo well on the way to becoming one of the Pitiscus (1561-1613) coined the term leaders in the natural sciences. In the trigonometry, and his superior textbook early sixteenth century Heidelberg was on the subject was translated into Eng- fortification, was outfitted with a new fleeing Heidelberg went to universities home to the renowned cosmographer lish and French (see Christmann, auditorium in which artists from in the Netherlands, followed by former and cartographer Sebastian Münster 1924). The two wars and their after- France, England, and Italy performed. Heidelberg students, especially from the (1488-1552), who drew a map of the math prevented Heidelberg University On the occasion of the wedding with Carpathian basin. Heidelberg district (Oehme, 1961). In from continuing this tradition and from Elizabeth Stuart, an English theatre group played a drama by Shakespeare (The Tempest) for the first time in Ger- many (Düchting, 1996, p. 390; Fin- scher, 1996, p. 417; Frese, 2004). The event, however, did nothing to spread works by Shakespeare in Germany, where interest in him did not arise un- til about 150 years thereafter. This flowering of culture ended abruptly in 1622, when Heidelberg was conquered early in the Thirty Years War. The fa- mous Bibliotheca Palatina ( image), the “mother of all libraries in Germa- ny” (Wolgast, 1986b, p. 52), was re- moved to the Vatican in Rome as war booty in 1623 (see also Mittler, 1996b), and a number of the university’s tradi- tional catchment areas (e.g., Hungary and Transylvania) sent no more stu- dents to Heidelberg for a relatively long time. Some of the Calvinist professors

The Jesuit Quarter. The original concept for a grand reconstruction of Heidelberg drawing on absolutist planned cities and using Baroque architects from Italy and Austria was soon abandoned. Except for the Jesuit Quarter, the Old Town was reconstructed on the small- scale layout of the medieval town.

22 Wissenschaftsatlas of Heidelberg University Gate of the Old Bridge

being able to lead the revolution in the lectual nadir, an erosion that prompted tles (Gamer, 1971a, 1971b, 1978; Hepp natural sciences in the seventeenth unfl attering contemporary judgments of & Mumm, 2009; Lutz, 1991). century. its academic standards. Halle, Göttin- The Catholic Prince Elector Karl In 1685 the Palatinate’s Calvinist gen, Jena, and Leipzig were the leading Philipp, who sought to ban the Heidel- electoral dynasty, the Palatinate-Sim- German universities of the day. One of berg Catechism and who wanted his mern line, came to an end when the the few bright spots for Heidelberg Uni- court church to be the Church of Holy son of Karl Ludwig, Karl II (1651-1685), versity as the eighteenth century came Spirit, where a partition had separated died without male issue. It was suc- to a close was the relocation of the Catholics from Reformists since 1705, ceeded by the Palatinate-Neuburg line, practical and esteemed “Kameral Hohe was soon embroiled in conflict with which was Catholic. The new line of Schule” from Kaiserslautern to Heidel- the town citizens. The Reformists’ re- rulers initiated the reconversion to Ca- berg in 1784. This institution was sistance to the expensive construction tholicism, which continued throughout housed in Palais Weimar at Haupt- projects, along with the interference of the eighteenth century and in the straße 235 and offered disciplines such the empire’s Protestant estates in the course of which several Catholic orders as administrative sciences, agriculture, battle over the Church of Holy Spirit, returned to Heidelberg between 1698 and veterinary medicine (Wolgast, so angered the Prince Elector that he and 1705. The Jesuits, for whom a Fac- 1986b, pp. 74-75). In short, Heidelberg moved his residence to Mann heim in ulty of Theology was established, had University at the end of the eighteenth 1720 and began building the Mann- an especially abiding infl uence on the century found itself in an existential heim Castle the same year. Prince Elec- university, the school system, and the economic predicament, for its income tor Karl Philipp supposedly never re- architecture of Heidelberg until 1773. from the left bank of the Rhine river turned to Heidelberg and even threat- Almost all the Calvinist professors were had been ceded as an outcome of the ened to have the new bridge over the created in 1750. In 1763 the Prince forced from the university and replaced French revolutionary wars. Deeply in- Neckar river dismantled and “to treat Elector’s court orchestra in Mannheim by Catholics, mainly Jesuits. In the ab- debted, the university had fallen some [the town of Heidelberg] in such a way was described by Leopold Mozart, the solutism of the eighteenth century, the months behind on payment of pro- that it soon resembles a village” (Loh- father of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as university also suffered from strict regi- fessors’ salaries (Wolgast, 1986b, meyer, 1927, p. 108). The transfer of the best orchestra in Germany. Wolf- mentation by the state. In particular, pp. 83-84). Heidelberg University was the seat of government to Mann heim gang A. Mozart would have liked to government offi cials increasingly inter- not the only one experiencing this de- was an enormous economic, cultural, become the director of the orchestra. fered with the recruitment of professors mise, either; the European university as and scientific loss for Heidelberg and He stayed in Mannheim four times in order to favour candidates from the an institution had entered upon hard its university, for courtly culture (thea- (1763, 1777-1778, 1778, and 1790) for a Palatinate – even to the point of hered- times in several states during that peri- tre and music) and the scholarly activi- total of 176 days. It was in Mannheim itary professorships, with the chair od. This crisis, combined with Napole- ties of the Electoral Academy of Sci- that he met his later wife, Constanze passing from father to son (Wolgast, on’s instigated closure of a few universi- ences founded in 1763 were concen- (see Finscher, 1992; Leopold, 2005; 1986b, p. 77). Teaching became more ties that he considered politically unre- trated in Mannheim from then on. The Pelker, 1991; Welck & Homering, 1991; and more regimented, the area from liable, reduced the number of universi- famous Mannheim School of Music was Würtz, 1991). which professors and students were ties on the territory of the Holy Roman drawn shrank increasingly, and the mo- Empire of the German Nation from 42 bility of students declined – changes in- in 1786 to 22 in 1818 (for details see terpretable as typical signs of intellec- Eulenburg, 1904). tual stagnation. Regional mobility has been expected Loss of Heidelberg’s function as a of students ever since the Middle Ages. capital Erasmus von Rotterdam (born between Following Heidelberg’s destruction, the 1464 and 1469, died 1536) and other new, Catholic Prince Electors from the Humanists believed that people could Palatinate-Neuburg line – Johann Wil- educate themselves only by travelling helm (ruled 1690-1716) and Karl Philipp (Stagl, 2002). Europe-wide journeys for (ruled 1716-1742), the latter of whom this purpose and study at several uni- moved from Düsseldorf back to Heidel- versities, including those in other coun- berg in 1718 – initially planned a lavish tries if possible, were regarded as impor- reconstruction of Heidelberg by leading tant educational tools and training ob- Baroque architects from Italy and Aus- jectives of the elites in that era (see tria. They intended to give the town a also Miethke, 1995, 2004). In the sev- spacious, geometric ground plan and, in enteenth century books, too, circulated the area of Bergheim, to build a castle principally by virtue of regionally mo- grander than most other German cas- bile students. In the eighteenth century the utilitarian orientation of mercantil- ist thought and the absolutist state’s need to control things cast a rather The Neckar fi rst became an important negative light on study abroad, a mind- transportation route in the twentieth century. set that radically restricted educational travel. Some territorial lords – and the Prince Electors in Heidelberg were no exception – even required study at the university in their own land as a re- quirement for a position in government service. In the late eighteenth century, Hei- delberg University had reached an intel-

23 Heidelberg: Relations Between a Town and Its University Comments on the Heidelberg Myth

Peter Luder (around 1415-1472) the sensual and intellectual indulgences (of Alfred Weber (1868-1958) numbers. The free choice of topics and “Here stands a town [Heidelberg], age-old, wine), so the students here are ten times “The atmosphere in this small city was not open admission to the discussions was mighty through its armoury and the riches sounder than those in Leipzig.” (17 July at all narrow-minded or complacent. It was extraordinary. Even students were allowed of its mines, much frequented by travellers, 1829; Buselmeier, 1986 [Reprint 1998], saturated and flooded with the new, which in.” (Jaspers, 1961, p. 4) with many inhabitants ... In no way inferior pp. 88-89) had begun developing in a remarkable way “The cosmopolitanism of Heidelberg’s aca- to the surrounding towns and with no in Germany since the turn of the century. demic life was shaped in part by the pres- need to shy from a comparison with them, Gottfried Keller (1819-1890) The city was intellectually and personally ence of persons – whether odd or impor- Heidelberg easily outshines them all on one “… at least I would not like to be in Hei- stimulating while also being open in every tant – who thronged to the town from point. As an established seat of the sci- delberg during a revolution, for nowhere direction. That “Heidelberg mindset”, as it Germany and Europe to find intellectually ences, it has consistently produced the have I seen a courser and worse proletariat was often referred to by Friedrich Gundolf fertile ground and receptiveness. After the most important men in all fields of know- than the one here. You’re taking your life in particular, seemed like a revelation to failure of the Russian revolution (1905), ledge. The town is home to so many out- into your hands crossing the street at newcomers encountering it for the first Russians came in large numbers. They standing and illustrious experts – be it in night. The insolent beggars, those hapless time. It passed its judgment on history, on formed a colony, created a library for divine, imperial, or papal law, or medicine, creatures, will just about devour you alive philo sophi cal existence, and on all old tra- themselves, and had their parties, which or the liberal arts – that it would seem that while grumbling on the whole time about ditions. And the unusual thing was that it were gladly attended by any of us who re- they instructed and enlightened not only the republic and Hecker.” (Keller, 1979, was steeped in scepticism about all things ceived an invitation. The admiration for the town itself but almost all of Germany.” Vol. 3, pp. 1087-1088) [Friedrich Hecker mediocre. The search was always on for these extraordinary, intelligent, communi- (Excerpt from the Latin laudation for Prince (1819-1890) was a popular leader of the new insights, for new and ever deeper cative, and passionate men was great. Elector Friedrich I in 1458 by the Humanist revolution in Baden in 1848-1849. After foundations, wherever they might lie. By Something quite uncommon and refresh- Peter Luder, an early example of a Human- the revolution failed, he emigrated to the nature I immediately found myself drawn ingly liberating flowed through them to istic town eulogy, from the German trans- United States. P. Meusburger] by it to the question of where we, as in- Heidelberg. … This German, occidental lation quoted in Kettemann, 1996, p. 323) quirers, actually stood historically. Given Heidelberg all but floated several meters Mark Twain (1835-1910) the prevailing spirit here, it was a question off the ground.” (Jaspers, 1961, p. 5) Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) The view from the Schlosshotel to the I could not help but pose as universal, “The town with its setting and its entire west, “is one of the loveliest that can be global.” (Weber, 1979, p. 15; Introduction Carl Zuckmayer (1896-1977) surroundings is, one may say, quite ideal, imagined, too” (Twain, 1977, pp. 5-6). “I by Christa Dericum) “When I think back to the first year in Hei- which can only really be appreciated if one have never enjoyed a view which had such delberg [1917], it appears in an everlasting is familiar with landscape painting and a serene and satisfying charm about it as Karl Mannheim (1893-1947) brilliance of the dawn and early morning knows what thinking artists took from na- this one gives” (Twain, 1977, p. 6). “One “Heidelberg’s main merit is that – despite sun, of merriment, illumination, exhilara- ture and what they read into it. … Seen thinks Heidelberg by day – with its sur- its tradition [and] the constant succession tion, and intellectual stimulation. There from here, the bridge is as beautiful as roundings – is the last possibility of the of generational responsibilities and prob- was no bad weather, even when it poured perhaps no other bridge in the world. beautiful” (Twain, 1977, p. 7). lems – it did not sink into sterile conserva- or the roofs shimmered with heat before a Through its arches one sees the Neckar “It is said that the vast majority of the Hei- tism, forever swirling about itself like a storm.” (Zuckmayer, 1966, p. 282) flowing toward the flat regions of the delberg students are hard workers and maelstrom. Despite its traditions it has re- “Here in Heidelberg – at the most progres- Rhine and above it the pale blue of the make the most of their opportunities, that mained cosmopolitan, for people here have sive and intellectually challenging university mountains in the distance beyond the they have no surplus means to spend in been accustomed to strangers for centu- in Germany – was our Rhodes; here was Rhine. The view is framed on the right by a dissipation and no time to spare for frol- ries, its streets thronged by foreigners the place to leap.” (Zuckmayer, 1966, rock formation overgrown with heavy veg- icking. One lecture follows right on the passing through and packed in summer p. 286) etation and reddish sides merging with the heels of another with very little time for and winter with ever new droves of stu- “Heidelberg at the time was populated vineyards.” (Goethe’s diary entry of 26 Au- the students to get out of one hall and into dents inhabiting the many small rented with gods and demigods; prophets and gust 1797; in Goethe, 1949, pp. 108-109) the next. … There seems to be no chilly rooms, which have constant turnover. This jesters; fauns, Bacchae, and cupids; Diony- distance existing between the German stu- coming and going, this readiness for al- sians and peripatetics; not to mention Joseph von Eichendorff (1788-1857) dents and the professor but, on the con- ways changing faces, alters the habitus of nymphs, hetaerae, and vestals. The night- “Heidelberg is itself a glorious romantic trary, a companionable intercourse, the op- those who stay here.” (Mannheim 1985, mare was not lacking either – the evil lim- town; there the spring entwines the houses posite of chilliness and reserve. When the p. 83) ping dwarf – in the person of Josef Goeb- and courtyards and everything ordinary professor enters a beer-hall in the evening bels, whose club foot had kept him from with vines and flowers, and castles and for- where students are gathered together Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945) going to war and who directed his envy ests tell a wonderful fairytale of yore, as these rise up and take off their caps and “I hate this gentle Heidelberg.” (Goebbels, and hate at us in particular, the ones who though there were nothing evil in the invite the old gentleman to sit with them 1935, p. 121) had returned home changed and full of world.” (Eichendorff, 1971, p. 1527) and partake. He accepts and the pleasant new drive. We were later the first target of talk and the beer flow for an hour or two, Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) his persecution. Back then he restrained Jean Paul (1763-1825) and by the professor, properly charged and “I ask what the Heidelberg mindset actu- himself and went to lectures by Gundolf “I have spent hours here [in Heidelberg] comfortable, gives a cordial good night, ally was. … But people were always meet- (who was Jewish).” (Zuckmayer, 1966, more exquisite than any I have experienced while the students stand bowing and un- ing to hear about patients, go through dif- p. 301) even under the most heavenly of skies.” covered. And then he moves on his happy ficult reports, listen to evening lectures and “Then Professor Emil Lederer arrived from (18 July 1817) way homeward with all his vast cargo of discussions, and then continue in small Hungary, a brilliant interpreter of Marxism “I have become undeservedly happier with learning afloat in his hold. Nobody finds groups with befriended interns. There – no and a friend of Georg Lukács, whose my work here than in hardly any other fault or feels outraged.” (Twain, 1977, longer subdued by the presence of the freshly published Theory of the Novel was town … if room and board were cheaper, I pp. 23-24) venerated and beloved superiors – we all the topic of intense debate. Ernst Bloch, could imagine no better place for you and stated our views and would then ferocious- whose work The Spirit of Utopia had me than Heidelberg.” (Jean Paul to his wife Nikolaus Lenau (1802-1850) ly attack each other. Critique sparked con- gained him early fame, also visited Heidel- on 20 July 1817, quoted in Witkop, 1925, “Heidelberg is one of Germany’s most tinued progress in the work. … Research, berg occasionally.” (Zuckmayer, 1966, p. 168) beautiful places – excluding, of course, interests, [and] our attitudes about life in- p. 302) Switzerland and our Austria. A sunset at stilled a frame of mind in which jealousy “Of course, the circle I am talking of was a Robert Schumann (1810-1856) the castle ruins on a clear May evening is and envy were submerged in genuine ago- minority, even in the rare intellectual “One has completely the wrong impression one of nature’s finest pleasures. I have only nism and community through in idea. … I heights of the Ruperto-Carola in Heidel- of Heidelberg’s students, who are as calm ever seen such a sky in some of the Greek saw Max Weber for the first time. He was berg. The vast majority of the students as can be, somewhat fine and reservedly and Italian landscapes by Rottmann and detailed and captivating, cutting right to consisted of the same oxen and mischief- ceremonial, often affecting the good and Marko, among others.” (Nikolaus Lenau, the heart of difficult problems. One could makers as everywhere. But we, the out- elegant manner because they have not yet 4 June 1844; quoted in Witkop, 1925, perhaps feel overwhelmed by the man’s su- siders and rebels, had the good will of the learned otherwise. The students are the p. 173) periority, but likewise inspired by his aspi- important professors.” (Zuckmayer, 1966, most important and esteemed people in ration for objectivity and humaneness. He p. 303) and around Heidelberg, which is thorough- Max Weber (1864-1920) did not cloak himself in authority but The text of Mark Twain is original. All other ly dependent on them; the citizens and “I confess quite openly that when I left the rather seemed to insist on interaction texts are translated from the German. philistines are, of course, overly polite … university system in Prussia and came to among equals. … There were sociologist Conversely, Heidelberg has the advantage the one in Baden (1894), it was like a evenings initiated and led by Alfred Weber. that its expansive and lyrical natural sur- breath of fresh air.” (Max Weber, quoted in People interested in sociology and politics roundings often divert the students from Weber, 1984, p. 434) came from the university and town in great

24 Wissenschaftsatlas of Heidelberg University Heidelberg Sunset (circa 1840-1842). Painting of Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851)

One of the scholars active at the Why Heidelberg never became an Mannheim Academy of Sciences was important commercial town Johann Jakob Hemmer (1733-1790), Heidelberg long had little economic sig- who set up the physics cabinet (a col- nifi cance beyond its own region. Al- lection of devices and teaching materi- though the town had had the privilege al relating to physics), ran experiments of holding a two-week annual fair with electricity, perfected the lighten- (Hepp, 1990, p. 19) since 1357, there ing rod, and laid the foundations of were several reasons why this event did scientifi c meteorology. As secretary of not acquire genuinely profi table market the Palatinate Meteorological Society, or trade functions. Granted, Heidelberg Hemmer built a network of 39 weather lay on an important north-south route, stations encompassing New England in and the construction of a bridge ( im- the United States and extending to age, fi rst recorded in 1284) did enable it Greenland, 14 stations in Germany, to conjoin several roads and direct traf- and the Urals. To compare measure- fi c through the town, bringing in reve- ments from various locations and dif- nue from customs duties and fees. The ferent years and thereby pave the way location could, therefore, have devel- to scientifi c weather observation and oped into an ideal hub for the reloading climatology, Hemmer set forth the use of goods. But the east-west communica- backward and that numerous upriver such as silk-weaving and the cultivation of standard instruments, standard pro- tions through the Neckar valley ( im- mill dams made the Neckar unnavi- of tobacco (Tuckermann, 1953, p. 109). cedures, and observations at fi xed local age) were never as signifi cant as one gable beyond Heilbronn. Third, the po- With the help of tax incentives, people times (7 a.m., 2 p.m., and 9 p.m.), the might expect from today’s perspective. litical and economic interests of the were recruited from Ireland, England, so-called Mannheim hours (Academia In earlier centuries neither the road Prince Electors were oriented primarily Holland, northern Italy, Bohemia, Domitor, 2008; Budde, 1991). Another through the lower Neckar valley nor to the west and north. The Neckar did Moravia, Lithuania, and the Alpine outstanding fi gure was the Mannheim the transport of goods on the Neckar not gain its present importance as a countries for the town’s reconstruction court astronomer and physicist Chris- river played an important role for long- transport route until the canalisation after the War of Palatine Succession. tian Mayer (1719-1783), who founded distance trade. The interregional east- of the river between Mannheim and The Swiss and Italians wielded so much the Mannheim observatory, learned west travellers preferred the route from Plochingen from 1922 to 1929 (as far as infl uence in Heidelberg’s town council the newest methods of geodesy (trian- the middle Neckar through Sinsheim Heilbronn in 1935), the addition of at that time that their prominence even gulation) and cartography with the fa- and Wiesloch and avoided the lower 27 locks, and the deepening of the riv- caused resentment among the town’s mous C. F. Cassini de Thury (1714- Neckar valley (Schäfer, 1975). erbed in the 1970s (Wasser- und Schiff- native population (Hepp, 1990, p. 46). 1784), and created the Charta Palatina For a long time, shipping on the riv- fahrtsdirektion Stuttgart, 1971). Heidelberg was never able to compete in 1775, a remarkably accurate set of er was insignifi cant, too (see Heimann, Moreover, the town lacked wealthy successfully against the neighbouring maps of the Palatinate (Budde, 1991; 1907). First, serious fl uctuations in the and politically infl uential merchant towns. As the capital of the Electoral Oehme, 1961). water level repeatedly interrupted or families able to promote their own in- Palatinate, it was the nexus of political With the court and the nobility no delayed shipping, with the river’s maxi- terests at the court of the Prince Elector power, but over the course of several longer present as fi nancially powerful mum fl ow rate being approximately and confi dently shape the development centuries it never became the predomi- builders, Heidelberg’s reconstruction eight times higher than its average of the town and the university. Heidel- nant commercial centre of the land’s had to remain limited to the road net- rate. By 1784 Heidelberg’s only bridge berg’s distinguished citizens were not key economic and administrative inter- work of the Middle Ages. Only in the over the Neckar had been destroyed well-to-do businessmen but rather the linkages. Instead, the centralised local Jesuit quarter between Grabengasse and eight times by fl ooding and fi ve times Prince Elector’s offi cials, who, like the functions normally befi tting a capital Kettengasse ( image) did several size- by ice drifts (Eckoldt, 1953, 1989; members of the university, had little le- were distributed among four Palatinate able structures diverging from the me- Fricke, 1988; Roeckel, 1996). Second, gal obligation to the town (Wolgast, towns: Heidelberg, Mannheim, Neu- dieval layout appear as early as 1703. the many rapids between Ziegelhausen 1997). The Elector’s interests were cen- stadt, and Frankenthal. The spatial The town, bereft of its function as the and the Hirschgasse obstructed ship- tral, not those of the townspeople. Re- fragmentation of the Palatinate may capital, lost vast amounts of income ping when the water level was low. Po- current turnover of the town elite in have been a reason for this arrange- and prestige, but the attendant eco- tential transport volume on the Neckar the wake of the alternating confessional ment. As with most of the other medie- nomic and cultural stagnation helped was curtailed still further by the fact orientation and the devastation in the val territories, the Electoral Palatinate Heidelberg largely retain its charm as a that the Odenwald, Heidelberg’s east- Palatinate may also have con trib uted to did not arise from a single political act Baroque town. ern catchment area, was economically this state of affairs. The town’s high but rather expanded over an extended percentage of newcomers and the inter- period, so it was never a unifi ed, coher- national composition of its population ent territorial entity. The Bishopric of were not due exclusively to the univer- Worms and the imperial city of Speyer, sity’s appeal but also to the fact that each of which controlled an important Protestants were fl eeing to Heidelberg crossing of the Rhine river, also de- to escape religious persecution. The prived the Palatinate towns of impor- town frequently had to be repopulated tant commercial functions and vied for with immigrants from a wide variety of resources that Heidelberg needed for countries after each wave of destruc- economic development. Long-distance tion. Heidelberg did experience an eco- commercial relations were dominated nomic upswing with the arrival of each by Basel (Switzerland) and Frankfurt, new group of religious refugees, but the two cities known for their major trade booms never lasted. As of 1572, for ex- fairs. Finally, the population in Heidel- ample, persecuted Protestants from berg’s immediate vicinity was relatively France and the Spanish Netherlands poor, so its demand for goods and ser- moved to the Electoral Palatinate. They vices was weak and did little to spur the were highly skilled and brought to the economy. Trade originating in Heidel- Palatinate a number of innovations berg was confi ned more or less

25 Heidelberg: Relations Between a Town and Its University Zweite Ansicht des Schloßes [Second View of Castle]. Drawing from 1815 by Louis Charles François de Graimberg (1774-1864), copper engraving by Christian Haldenwang (1817)

the poems by Joseph Victor von Scheffel Nikolaus Lenau (1802-1850), who was (1826-1886), especially his “Alt-Heidel- born in the Banat region of southeast- berg, du feine” (Old Heidelberg, How central Europe, grew up in Budapest, Fair You Are, 1854), played a defi nitive and studied in 1831 and 1832 in Heidel- role in Heidelberg’s idealisation (see berg, wrote his poem “Die Heidelberger Benzenhöfer & Erdmann, 1985; Busel- Ruine” (The Heidelberg Ruin) during meier, 1986, 1996, 2007; Goldschmit, his visit to the United States in 1832. 1929; Manger & von Hofe, 1987; Mays, In 1885 even Empress Elisabeth of Aus- 1886). tria, also known as Sissi, wrote two po- The early nineteenth century saw ems about Heidelberg. Mark Twain, Heidelberg become a focal point of James Joyce, and many others, too, im- German Romanticism for a few years mortalised Heidelberg in their works through the infl uence of the circles sur- (Buselmeier, 1985, 1986, 1996, 2007; rounding Achim von Arnim, Clemens Goldschmit, 1929; Manger & von Hofe, Brentano, and Joseph von Eichendorff 1987). (Debon, 1991, 1996; Schlechter, 2007; Many British artists and cultural Schlechter & Rebmann, 2006). In the travellers developed a keen interest in fi rst decades of the nineteenth century, Heidelberg after the journeys there by Heidelberg was very attractive to cul- the Scottish painter Georg August Wal- tural travellers, artists, poets, and lis (1768-1847), who produced many scholars, who conveyed their impres- paintings and drawings of the castle sions of the town on the Neckar in art and its surroundings in 1812, and by the and writing and thereby added to the well-known English painter Joseph Mal- “Heidelberg myth”. Johann Wolfgang lord Turner (1775-1851), who also cap- to meeting the needs of the local in- Paulus Mellissus (1539-1602), and Pe- von Goethe visited Heidelberg eight tured many Heidelberg scenes ( image) habitants and the electoral court ter Luder (1415-1472) admired the nat- times from 1775 to 1815, maintaining a during his four visits there starting in (Scheuerbrandt, 1996). ural harmony of the town and the land- friendship with, among others, the 1833 (Bahns, 1997; Lohmaier, 1935; scape, describing Heidelberg as an ideal Boisserée brothers, who had a famous Rahman, 1999). The castle was consid- The stimulus of romanticism and the town. Jakob Micyll (1503-1558) and art collection. Goethe’s only son, Julius ered the romantic ruin par excellence, poeticisation of Heidelberg Martin Opitz (1597-1639), the father August Walther von Goethe (1789- and the town with its surroundings was Few German cities or towns have been of German poetry, each dedicated a 1830), enrolled at Heidelberg University felt to correspond closely to the ideal celebrated as often and idealised as poem to the Wolfsbrunnen (a natural in 1808. Ludwig Uhland wrote the image championed by seventeenth- and much in poems, songs, and novels as spring in the forest to the east of Hei- poem “Auf dem Schloss zu Heidelberg” eighteenth-century classical landscape Heidelberg . It all probably began delberg). Friedrich von Matthisson (At Heidelberg Castle) in 1804. Jean paint ing when viewed from Philosoph- with the South Tyrolean minnesinger (1761-1831) made the ruins of Heidel- Paul rhapsodised effusively about the enweg (Philosopher’s Walk, a steep Oswald von Wolkenstein (1367-1445) berg’s castle the subject of his melan- town in July 1817. Jacob Burkhart de- mountain trail overlooking the town and his song, “Ich rühm dich Heidel- choly poetry. The poem “Ode an Heidel- scribed the mood there in his poem “’S and the castle from the opposite side of berg” (I praise you, Heidelberg). The berg” (Ode to Heidelberg, 1798) by war Herbst” (’Twas Autumn). Marianne the Neckar). French artist and engraver Humanists Konrad Celtis (1459-1508), Fried rich Hölderlin (1770-1843) and Willemer, a friend of Goethe’s, wrote Louis Charles François de Graimberg the poem “Zu Heidelberg” (To Heidel- (1774-1864), who fl ed the revolution in berg) on the occasion of Goethe’s 75th his homeland with his parents, found birthday in 1824. Gottfried Keller came the castle ruins in Heidelberg ( imag- to Heidelberg in 1848 on a Zurich gov- es) to be the most beautiful in Europe ernment scholarship and gave literary and a synthesis of the arts (Gesamt- expression to his time in the Neckar kunstwerk). Graimberg lived in Heidel- town in his novel, “Grüner Heinrich” berg as of 1810 and did many drawings (Green Henry) and in his poem “Die and graphics of the castle, the town it- schöne Brücke” (The Beautiful Bridge). self, and its surroundings. He is regarded The composer Robert Schumann (1810- as the man who saved the Heidelberg 1856) studied in Heidelberg from 1829 castle because he convinced the towns- to 1830 and played his fi nal public con- people to stop using it as a quarry. cert as a pianist in what was then Hei- Over the course of fi ve decades he as- delberg Museum, the site of today’s New sembled the Town Collections, which University, on 24 January 1830. eventually served as the foundation for

The Heidelberg Castle as the “most romantic ruins and Gesamtkunstwerk” (Graimberg)

26 Wissenschaftsatlas of Heidelberg University As contemporary observers saw it, Hei- delberg University distinguished itself by its high standards of research, liber- alism, commitment to democracy, and openness for new disciplines, all of which attracted an above-average per- centage of students from abroad. The active support from Heidelberg’s profes- the Kurpfälzisches Museum (Palatinate Heidelberg’s industrial and manufactur- sors and students for the demands for Museum), established in 1905 (see ing sector in 1852, including the mill, democracy, civic rights, and national Hepp, 1997; Roth, 1999a, 1999b; Starck, the wagon factory on Kirchheimer Weg, unity bears witness to this tolerance. 1898). Some of the British artists and and four tobacco factories, indicates the Twenty Heidelberg students took part cultural tourists remained permanently relative insignifi cance of industry in in the Wartburg Festival in 1817. Some in Heidelberg. Eduard Pickford, son of that era. The biggest industrial com- three hundred went to the 1832 Ham- William M. Pickford, who had moved to pany ever to operate in Heidelberg was bach Festival ( images), which was at- Heidelberg in 1811, even became the the wagon factory that opened in 1844, tended by approximately 30,000 people town’s delegate in Württemberg’s sec- which became the Fuchs Coach Facto- from Germany, Poland, and other coun- ond chamber and leader of the Baden ry in 1862 and built railroad cars and tries. It was the largest and most impor- Progress Party (Derwein, 1968, p. 62). streetcars until 1957 (see Jäger, 1999; tant democratic assembly in the Keller, 1961; Overbeck, 1963; Schlipp- Vormärz period – the time leading up to Heidelberg’s belated industrialisation hak, 1968b; Schlipphak & Schaab, the abortive revolution of March 1848 – In the mid-eighteenth century the con- 1968b). demanding civic rights (freedom of the ditions for industrial development in After World War I, however, high un- press and speech), German national Heidelberg were still quite good. Many employment and the enormous shortfall unity, the introduction of a popular manufactories were set up from 1756 to of revenue from income tax and capital government by legal means, banish- 1785 in an attempt to compensate eco- tax (which henceforth went to the cen- ment of the royal despots, and a united, Hambach Festival (1832). Thirty thousand people from all strata nomically for the loss of the court. Silk- tral government rather than to the republican Europe, among other things of society and several nations demanded freedom, civil rights, weaving enjoyed the special sponsor- town) forced Heidelberg to develop new (Foerster, 1988; Kermann et al., 2006; national unity, and a new European order based on equal rights, popular sovereignty, and religious tolerance. The upper postal ship of Prince Elector Karl Theodor sources of tax revenue and abandon its Lönneker, 2007; Wolgast, 1982, 1986b). stamp commemorated the event’s 150th anniversary (1982); the (1742-1799) (Keller, 1961; Overbeck, reservations about industrialisation. Student fraternities from Heidelberg lower one, the 175th anniversary (2007). 1963; Scheuerbrandt, 1996). It may The town responded by opening a new were also deeply involved in the failed seem surprising today that Heidelberg industrial park in the area of Pfaffen- storming of the Frankfurt Guardhouse was one of the Palatinate’s most impor- grund in the 1920s. The town’s unusu- (1833). Furthermore, professors and tant “factory towns” in the latter half of ally high tax assessment rate, infl ation, former students from Heidelberg Uni- the eighteenth century, second only to and the Great Depression prevented versity made up 18% of the delegates to Kaiserslautern and well ahead of Mann- any appreciable industrial development the German National Assembly from heim (Derwein & Schaab, 1968, p. 71; for the time being. Only in the second 1848 to 1849 and more than half in Scheuerbrandt, 1996, p. 80). The de- half of the 1930s did the Pfaffengrund Baden and the Palatinate (Engehausen, mise of mercantilism, though, marked industrial area fi nally begin to build up 2007; Engehausen & Kohnle, 1998). the end of this promising start. Heidel- (Keller, 1961, p. 59). In 1957 a second During the fi rst half of the nine- berg missed or, as some of the town’s such area was established in Wieblin- teenth century, many freedom-loving politicians of the day claimed, inten- gen. students moved to the liberal south, tionally avoided the move from the Despite various initiatives, Heidel- where they were subject to less surveil- manufacturing age to the industrial berg policy-makers were long unable to lance and persecution. Print censorship one. At a time when the industrial rev- shed the town’s industrially hostile rep- was also less strict there than in Prussia olution had fully taken hold in the utation, which had persisted since the and the other areas of Germany. Fur- nearby towns of Mannheim and Lud- nineteenth century. The fact that Hei- ther evidence of progressive thinking wigshafen, Heidelberg, with its many delberg levied the highest permissible was that Heidelberg University in 1849 retired people, continued to see its fu- business tax rate from 1937 to 1957 may met the request of its Theological Fac- ture in being an attractive place for the have contributed to that situation. Even ulty to confer an honorary doctorate affl uent to live. after two reductions in 1957 and 1958, (in absentia) to James W. C. Penning- The few enterprises that existed in Heidelberg still had the highest rate in ton (1807-1870), a fugitive American Heidelberg in the fi rst half of the nine- the state of Baden-Württemberg (Keller, slave and the fi rst Black to study at Yale teenth century were geared mostly to 1961, p. 68). Since the mid-1990s, University. In some states in the serving the university. In 1839, for in- though, the tax rate can no longer be United States, it was in those days still stance, there was a factory making sur- seen as an argument. It has been other illegal to teach black slaves how to read gical instruments, and the local Desaga failings of the town government that and write. fi rm produced the fi rst Bunsen burner. have kept a number of attractive busi- During this second ascendance of Several printing companies and pub- nesses, such as SAP, from settling in Heidelberg University, which was lishers also depended on the university Heidelberg. marked by famous names and excep- for most of their business. The fact that tional academic achievements in all of there were only 392 workers in all of The university’s second golden age its faculties, Heidelberg was again able The university’s academic revival after to establish itself in the top tier of Ger- the intellectual stagnation of the eigh- many’s universities, to achieve world- teenth century resulted from a series of wide relevance in some disciplines events and factors, including Napoleon’s ( image), and to attract students from dissolution of the Electoral Palatinate; numerous countries, especially Tsarist Heidelberg’s incorporation into Baden Russia, the United States, Switzerland, (1802-1803); Baden’s 1803 reform of its Hungary, Great Britain, and Japan. university system; university policy de- From roughly the 1870s to the end of veloped and overseen by outstanding the century, however, Berlin and Mu- and far-sighted politicians and policy- nich, home to “the most infl uential rep- makers, including Sigismund von Reitz- resentatives of German culture and en stein and Karl Böhm; Baden’s gener- German intellectual life” (Kiesel, 1995, Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen with the British chemist ous funding of its universities and; a p. 498), became increasingly attractive Henry Enfi eld Roscoe (1833-1915), Bunsen’s former student and successful university recruitment policy. to foreign students. As with colleague (Bunsen-Roscoe Law)

27 Heidelberg: Relations Between a Town and Its University Heidelberg Old Town, with the Theodor Heuss Bridge in the foreground

point from which Heidelberg University from 1876 to 1886, encompassing the only slowly recovered (see Giovannini, spacious grounds of the Academic Hos- 1985b; Jaspers, 1961; Wolgast, 2006; pital and the clinics. North of the Neck- Zuckmayer, 1966). ar, buildings in historicist or neo-Ren- aissance style were erected along Brü- Great strides in Heidelberg’s ckenstraße (up to Mönchhofplatz) and development since 1870 Schröderstraße at the turn of the centu- In the late 1870s Heidelberg was ry. Beginning in 1903, an exclusive resi- gripped by an impressive dynamism, dential neighbourhood rose below Phi- which continued until the outbreak of losophenweg after Albert-Ueberle- World War I and triggered what was Straße was extended. It was decided in probably the most successful and crea- 1904 that fashionable single-family tive phase of the town’s development. homes would be built in the area east of This boom had several causes (see Walz, Bergstraße, from Philosophenweg to Sie- 1928b). An initial strong one came in benmühlental, and in the area between 1877 from the construction of the sec- Bergstraße and Handschuhsheimer ond bridge across the Neckar, today’s Landstraße, from Mönchhofplatz to Ka- Theodor Heuss Bridge ( image), which pellenweg (Lurz & Vogt, 1990, p. 79). strengthened Neuenheim and Hand- Attractive residential tracts for pro- schuhsheim’s interconnections with the fessors, entrepreneurs, and other high- Old Town. Second, the old civil consti- income groups also developed along tution was abolished in 1875, an act Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg and at the that gave the local governments in foot of the Heiligenberg along the Baden tax jurisdiction and the right to Neckar’s northern bank (Gormsen, levy an assortment of direct and indi- 1963, 1968, 1981; Overbeck, 1963). The rect taxes for the fi rst time in 1879 high quality of the housing and other (Veith, 1928, p. 152). The decisive amenities in these select neighbour- changes, though, were the election of hoods and their desirable locations an experienced administrator, Karl made them so attractive to the well-off Wilckens (1851-1914), as mayor in De- members of the community – not only the fi rst fl owering of Heidelberg Uni- unemployment, and the increasing po- cember 1884 and the professionalisation to the executives from the industrial versity, the second one ended because litical radicalisation of Heidelberg’s stu- of the town administration. During fi rms in the Mannheim and Ludwigs- of war – in this case in 1914. dents lessened its appeal as a place to Wilckens’ 29 years in offi ce, many infra- hafen areas but also to wealthy retirees To be sure, Heidelberg in the 1920s study. After the National Socialists structure improvement projects were – that Heidelberg’s per-capita revenue still offered an exciting, creative milieu, seized power, 28.3% of all professors undertaken. For instance, the fi rst street from income tax and capital tax before famous professors and intellectuals, and and lecturers were dismissed on racial car began running in 1885 (on Haupt- the outbreak of World War I surpassed students from around the globe who or political grounds and another 3% straße), the city hall was created in that of all other communities in Baden, would go on to achieve recognition. took early retirement to avoid being 1886, and the community of Neuen- and the town’s budget sextupled from The university was even praised by fi red (Mußgnug, 1988, article heim was incorporated in 1890 (under 1879 to 1916 (Veith, 1928, p. 156). At some as the “most advanced and intel- Mußgnug). The National Socialist rule protest of its citizens). In addition, the the turn of the century, Neuenheim’s lectually demanding university in Ger- and extermination policy, the increas- sewage system was completed in 1895, tax revenues were the highest in Hei- many” (Zuckmayer, 1966, p. 286). But ing isolation of German academia, and and a new municipal power plant went delberg. Ludolf-Krehl-Straße, Berg- infl ation, the Great Depression, high World War II led once again to a low into operation in 1900. Nor was that straße, Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg, and all: Handschuhsheim was incorporated the Schlierbachhang area are still pre- and the congress centre was inaugurated ferred neighbourhoods among persons in 1903, and a streetcar line to Tiefburg in high-income brackets. in Handschuhsheim was fi nished in The reputation that Karl Wilckens 1904 (Walz, 1928b). enjoyed in Baden’s state legislature, These infrastructure measures were where he was a member of the Baden accompanied by a rapid expansion of the Assembly of the Estates in the second settlement area in town. From 1861 to chamber from 1887 to 1909 and a mem- 1910, the area south of the railroad ber of its fi rst chamber from 1909 until tracks, today’s Kurfürstenanlage, became his death, enabled him to bring various the “Weststadt”, a popular neighbour- state entities such as the new regional hood consisting of high-quality single- superior court and the state observatory family homes and of attached apartment to Heidelberg and to have new univer- buildings with three to fi ve fl oors in the sity facilities built (Mußgnug, 1997; style of historicism and art nouveau. Walz, 1928). As mayor, he oversaw a The Bergheim Quarter, situated be- successful “co-evolutionary process be- tween the former railroad tracks and the tween city and science with win-win Neckar river ( image), was constructed constellations” (Matthiesen & Gonzal-

Clinic grounds in Bergheim

28 Wissenschaftsatlas of Heidelberg University Greeting the fi rst-semester students

es, 2009), something called for in to- rial Cemetery, on the Ameisenbuckel day’s strategic approaches to shaping a above the Heidelberg Bergfriedhof). “city of science”. This phase was the During the National Socialist period, only one in Heidelberg’s history during Heidelberg’s mayor, Carl Nienhaus which the city and the university simul- (1888-1965), gained the backing of the taneously developed such dynamics. architect Albert Speer (1905-1981), World War I brought this golden age of who was originally from Heidelberg, to municipal development to a halt for develop the rail roadbed between Ade- several decades. nauerplatz and today’s train station as a The 1919 reform of the Reich tax “priority of the Reich” and have Hei- code was very unfavourable for Heidel- delberg listed as one of fi fty “redesigned berg. Income and capital tax revenues cities” receiving special assistance. no longer accrued to the town, but to Heidelberg, which had hosted the the state. The municipalities retained Reichs festspiele (Reich Festival) at its only the property taxes and business castle since 1934, was to become a cul- city’s south, on the Boxberg, and in as “W3”), there were 287 positions for taxes. In other words, Heidelberg lost tural fl agship for National Socialism. Emmertsgrund; commencement of the C4 professors . In other words, the its most important tax revenue. That The design for the new layout included Old Town’s urban renewal (1972); and number of full professors increased by change, combined with monetary de- a huge 3400 person performance hall in the creation of a pedestrian zone there 77.2% between 1965 and 2004; the valuation in the 1920s and the result- the area of present-day Adenauerplatz (1977-1978). By far the most important number of university students, by ing impoverishment of many pension- and Bismarckplatz. Adenauerplatz and city-planning decisions of interest to 120.7%. Combining C4 and C3 catego- ers, slashed Heidelberg’s income. This the site of today’s train station were to the university were those to build the ries of professors so that they can be fi nancial weakening and the infl ux of be linked by an axis some 1500 meters Neuenheimer Feld campus, the expan- compared to the later W3 category, one many refugees from Alsace-Lorraine (1640 yards) long and measuring sion of which is still in progress, and to fi nds that the number of positions for forced the town administration to alter 115 meters (126 yards) in width at its keep the humanities faculties in the this group of professors grew by 31% be- its policies after World War I, for Hei- eastern end and 145 meters (158.5 yards) Old Town instead of relocating them to tween 1972 and 2007, whereas the stu- delberg at that time had neither com- at its western end. It was to be fl anked an originally envisaged site north of dent body increased by 60.9%. It was munal or collective housing nor the by monumental state buildings whose Klausenpfad in Neuenheimer Feld. not until 2007 through 2009, with the late-nineteenth century tenement architectural style – compact, static, success of the Excellence Initiative and blocks so typical of the big cities. The block-like character, smooth walls, The road to a mass university and the creation of additional positions for fi rst major public housing project was straight lines, Führerbalkon (Führer’s paralysis in the 1960s and 1970s professors as part of “Programme 2012”, the Atzelhof in Handschuhsheim. From balcony), pillars; and embedded rectan- As of the mid-1960s, the university in that the number of W3 professors in- 1919 to 1927, some 38% of all apart- gular columns – was intended to exem- Heidelberg developed into a mass insti- creased again (from 478 to 506). ments erected in Heidelberg were built plify the National Socialist ideology and tution, as did many others in Germany. To cope with the exploding size of the by the town (Amberger, 1928, p. 122). social order. Momentous social and economic student body, the number of AH2 posi- The Pfaffengrund settlement was built Heidelberg was one of the few Ger- changes – partly in response to the tions (Wissenschaftliche Räte and profes- during this phase as workers’ housing man cities that did not suffer heavy alarm generated by sputnik in 1957 and sors) was raised in the early 1970s. The in green surroundings. Wieblingen and bombing in World War II, so it was as- headlines announcing the “German term Wissenschaftlicher Rat und Professor Kirchheim were incorporated in 1920 signed about 20,000 refugees and both educational catastrophe” (Picht, 1965) refers to a kind of tenured assistant pro- and Rohrbach in 1927. Incorporations displaced and “uprooted” persons. Its or “Education is a citizen’s right” fessor with a heavy teaching load. Many increased Heidelberg’s area by a factor postwar population grew from 92,000 to (Dahrendorf, 1965) – led to wholesale of them were redesignated as C2 profes- of 2.7 from 1870 to 1931. 112,000 in two years, although housing educational reform that sent attendance sorships when the C pay grade was in- Relocating the railroad station to its quality in the Old Town at the time was soaring at institutions of higher learn- troduced after 1978. On the whole, Wis- current westerly location had been fore- very poor. Furthermore, a great deal of ing. Within just two decades, the rate senschaftliche Räte and Dozenten (uni- seen in plans at the turn of the century. the city’s residential space and most of of college-bound secondary school grad- versity lecturers qualifi ed for university Excavation work on today’s station was the hotels had been confi scated by the uates more than tripled in Baden-Würt- professorships) were placed on these C2 in progress as early as 1904, with comple- American occupation forces. temberg, from 6% in 1960 to 20.4% in positions. It would therefore be false to tion scheduled for 1917 (Lurz, 1978), but The second half of the twentieth the summer of 1979 (Information of conclude that the numerical increase in World War I interrupted the work on the century saw Heidelberg’s urban devel- Statistisches Landesamt Baden-Würt- the C2 positions represented additional new structure. Planning resumed in opment take off again. The most im- temberg). In the ten years between the posts . In 2005 the W pay grade was 1924, but the Great Depression thwarted portant planning decisions concerned winter semester of 1950/51 and that of introduced, a change that moved most further advance. The station was not the relocation of the railroad station 1960/61, the student body in Heidelberg C2 professorships down to W1 positions moved from Seegarten (at the centre of from Adenauerplatz to its present ad- doubled, and between the academic (research assistants, junior professors). Adenauerplatz) to its present site until dress; the building of Patrick Henry year of 1961/62 and that of 2009/10, it W2 professorships are one pay grade 1955, 51 years after work began. Village (begun in 1947) and of Mark tripled (+206.4%), overwhelming the above junior professors and comparable Extraordinarily large architectural in- Twain Village (begun in the early university ( image). The number of to tenured associate professors. By 2009, terventions in the town’s structure were 1950s) for U.S. Army personnel and budgeted positions for professors was this rearrangement left only seven W2 planned under the National Socialist their dependents (approximately 20,000 unable to keep pace with this headlong professorships at the core university regime, but fortunately few of them in 1999); the incorporation of Ziegel- increase in the numbers of students (without Medical Faculties) and only were carried out (e.g., the Thingstätte, hausen (1975), Boxberg (1968-1969), after 1972. four in the Medical Faculties. which opened on the Heiligenberg in and Emmertsgrund (1975); the con- In Baden-Württemberg’s budget, the The 1960s and 1970s saw the found- 1935, and the Ehrenfriedhof, or Memo- struction of new apartments in the number of positions for full professors ing of many new universities in Ger- (classifi ed as AH4 until 1979, thereafter many along with a rash of plans, con- as C4) did climb from 101 in 1961 to cepts, and recommendations to expand 212 in 1970, peaking at 249 in 1975, but and/or reform the existing ones. But fell to 245 by 1983 and did not signifi - there was little political will and cour- cantly rise again until 1989. In 2004 age to carry out and fund these reforms (before C3 and C4 professors were clas- to prevent deterioration of student-pro- sifi ed into a single pay grade designated fessor ratios and research

29 Heidelberg: Relations Between a Town and Its University creases, the budget, human resources, Resources for Appointments and research infrastructure were unable As critically noted by Heidelberg University’s rector, Hubert to keep up with the swelling student Niederländer, in the Verwaltungsrat (Administrative Council of the University) in 1977: “Under current budgetary poli- body and the escalating demands of re- cies, the university can barely meet even modest personnel search. For several years beginning in or infrastructure wishes. In not a few cases this situation is 1974, circumstances were too volatile making it impossible to negotiate appointments successfully. for solid planning by the rectors, who Furthermore, there is reason to fear that the diffi culties with had to deal with budget reductions and resources are causing the faculties to refrain entirely from job cuts even as the university contin- cially intense in Heidelberg (Nagel, sities. The importance of research, the considering suitable academics for the appointment lists. ued to grow. 2009). At the outset, the justifi ed, pro- teaching overload, and the obstacles The state legislature and state executive must be told that a university’s ranking depends in great part on the scope the Moreover, most of the newly appoint- ductive strife was directed at lack of re- faced by young academics had no sali- university has to offer staffi ng and infrastructural resources ed professors in pay grades AH3 (C3) form, outdated organisational struc- ent place in public discussion. Instead, when it negotiates appointments.” and AH2 (C2) had not been selected tures, overcrowding at the universities, attention was on dealing with the in- through rigorous procedures. Instead, and social inequalities, but it was soon crease in the number of students, “tun- lecturers and Wissenschafl iche Räte al- instrumentalised by political extremists nelling beneath the mountain of stu- conditions. Zeal for reform and plan- ready working at Heidelberg University for their own purposes. The university dents” (a turn of phrase metaphorically ning was seriously dampened by two were reclassifi ed as professors. Most of was paralysed for several years by referring to charts that show a perenni- events in particular. First, the German them received no additional resources heated confrontations and outright vio- ally fl at level of investment running un- Federal Finance Minister Karl Schiller from the university. That support had lence sparked by radical leftist students, der an ever-increasing mass of univer- (SPD, Social Democrats), who took of- to come from whatever means the de- including those in the Socialist Ger- sity students), shortening the length of fi ce in 1971, vetoed the “planning re- partment already had. In a university man Student Association (SDS), the study, lowering dropout rates, using uni- serve” of several billion deutschmarks system where improvements in the re- Communist Group New Red Forum versity facilities effi ciently (during vaca- that the Federal Ministry of Education search infrastructure and staffi ng are (NRF), and the Socialist Patients’ Col- tion times, too), calculating capacity, and Science had earmarked (Bartz, negotiated as part of the appointment lective, some of whose members (e.g., and fostering educational justice, all of 2007, pp. 127-128). Second, the 1973 oil process, this bypassing of the proper Christian Klar) later joined the Red which the governments of the federal crisis resulted in sharp budget cuts and procedures severely handicapped the Army Faction (RAF). Confl ict erupted states attempted partly by founding new job losses in higher education after departments involved. Exceptions were between professors and students, and universities in structurally weak re- 1974, even in Baden-Württemberg and made only when an AH3 (C3) professor the Heidelberg professors were highly gions. The annual reports (Rechen- other wealthy German federal states. was the sole person responsible for a polarised by the rector, Rolf Rendtdorff. schaftsberichte) by the Heidelberg rec- small discipline (e.g., papyrology). In Heckling, trespassing, property damage, tors, too, concentrated on the infl ated Erosion of teaching and research many cases even full professors theft of fi les, violence, and terror size of the student body, the undue conditions recruited from elsewhere could no long- against university lecturers persisted, strain on teaching, job cuts, budget The almost unprecedented stress on the er be offered the necessary or formerly tapering off by the end of the 1970s. cuts, discontent with futile science pol- universities in the late 1960s and 1970s customary funding and staff, so some The student revolts are still contro- icy, the strikes and heckling by students worsened certain internal and external offers of professorships at Heidelberg versial among the people who were in- from the far left, confl icts between the conditions of research and teaching at University were declined. volved. Even after several decades, bal- different groups at the university, lack that time, not only in Heidelberg but in For more than ten years, a third fac- anced judgement of the events seems of aptitude in the new generation of overcrowded universities elsewhere as tor undermining the internal situation thwarted by the very selective percep- students, and restoration of law and or- well. Despite substantial funding in- was student unrest, which was espe- tions and memories cultivated by the der at the university. Although Baden- participants of the various camps. The Württemberg was among Germany’s one pole is represented by those who most progressive federal states in terms consider only the initial sense of up- of its master plan for higher education, Professorial posts at Heidelberg University 1965 - 2009 the structural blueprint requested by according to Baden-Württemberg state budget* heaval and repress or deny any connec- tion with the subsequent violence. Stuttgart’s Ministry of Education and 1997: solidarity pact between 1 Jan 1978 universities and the state Baden-Württemberg; They idealise the 1968 movement and Cultural Affairs was nothing but a Number introduction of C-salaries and by 2006 a cut in around 12% of posts, creation of C2-professorships mainly at the expense of junior positions claim to have reformed and modernised measure calling for the immediate elim- 700 1973 legislators made it possible to 1 Jan 2005 German society. The other pole is re- ination of positions and had little to do convert existing posts into professor- introduction of the W-salary** ships (AH3/AH2) and transfer the presented by those who mainly remem- with future perspectives on university professorship to the previous post 600 holder. As a result, up to 1980 there ber the undemocratic and fascistic be- development or new research priorities. were 150 internal appointments/ transitions to AH2 and AH3 haviour of the groups on the far left. Although Rector Hubert Nieder- professorships. 500 They recall terror, theft of fi les, election länder (1921-1991) energetically fought fraud, property damage, intimidation, the fruitless science policy pursued by the Ministry of Education and Cultural 400 personal violence, and the carnage of the attack on the U.S. headquarters on Affairs at that time , no shift toward Römerstraße. They claim to have re- increased research support occurred in 300 established democracy, law and order, Baden-Württemberg until Lothar Späth and academic freedom at Heidelberg became its minister president in 1978. 200 University (Becke-Goehring, 2005; This new interest in research, however, Dunkhase, 2010; Nagel, 2009; Söll, was confi ned almost completely to a 100 2010). few natural sciences and medicine. An The external conditions of the Ger- outward sign of this change in trend 0 man universities in the 1960s and 1970s came as a reply of the Ministry of In- 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2009 were characterised by general taboos on struction and Art to a major interpel- Year C2 professorship, W2 professorship public discussion about the very ability lation by the conservative Christian until 1974 posts for Akademische Räte, until 1978 posts for Wissenschaftliche Räte und Professoren AH2, until 2005 C2 professorships, after 2005 W2 professorships of students to do college-level work, dif- Democratic Union (CDU) in the state associate professors ferences in the quality of universities, until 1974 associate professorship, from 1975/76 posts for Wissenschaftliche Räte und Professoren AH3, after 1978 C3 professorships the degree of international competitive- full professorship ness of German research, and the quali- until 1978 full professorships AH4, after 1978 C4 professorships ty of research and teaching. Overall, W3-professors comments by the political parties, the new category, consolidation of former C4 and C3 professorships Standing Conference of the Ministers * including endowment professorships, professorships of the Excellence Initiative and the ‘Program 2012’ of Education and Cultural Affairs of ** Former C2 professorships were largely converted to non-professorial teaching staff posts (assistants, academic assistant).

For changes in definitions see also appendix by DRÜLL and MEUSBURGER. the Länder in the Federal Republic of

© Institute of Geography 2011 Germany (KMK), the media, and the Editor: V. Schniepp IfL Design: V. Schniepp Data source: Haushaltspläne des Landes Baden-Württemberg Author: P. Meusburger Court of Auditors expressed little un- derstanding of the needs of the univer-

30 Wissenschaftsatlas of Heidelberg University Heidelberg, view to the west

assembly. Speaking for the government trance to the university system in the of Baden-Württemberg on 7 March Federal Republic of Germany. At fi rst it 1979, Späth conceded that its funds for was anticipated that the tide of stu- research lagged well behind external dents would be highest in 1982 and funding, that research potential had then ebb dramatically. In the late 1970s been diminished by the surge in the it was assumed that the wave in Baden- student population, and that the job Württemberg would crest in 1986 and cuts had come mostly at the expense then recede. In 1981 the number of stu- of research. dents entitled to attend university was expected to peak in 1987, and in 1991 The prospective size of the student the estimate was 2010 (Sekretariat der population miscalculated Ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminis- Some of these adverse ramifi cations ter, 1978, 1986). The KMK’s forecast for and impositions affecting the univer- Baden-Württemberg published in De- sities stemmed from miscalculations by cember 1986 rested on the assumption the German Council of Science and that the residential population’s per- the Humanities, the Federal Govern- centage of 18- to 20-year-olds entitled ment-Länder Commission for Educa- to attend institutions of higher learn- tional Planning and Research Funding, ing (universities and technical colleges) and the KMK regarding the future size would shrink from 27.1% to 26.1% be- of the student body. It is utterly incom- tween 1986 and 2009 (Sekretariat der age of students attending an academi- nonprofessorial teaching and research prehensible today that the universities Ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminis- cally well-respected university are from staff continued vociferous criticism of were denied urgently needed resources ter, 1986, p. 40). In reality, it ballooned the region in which that institution is terms such as “achievement”, “elite”, chiefl y because these policy-consulting to 51% by 2009 (Information of Statis- located. In other words, using the “excellent research”, and “student apti- institutions clung for decades to the as- tisches Landesamt Baden-Württem- number of births in a federal state as tude” until the mid-1980s. Although sumption that the impending “moun- berg). the basis for predicting the number of the 625-year history of universities in tain of students” could be “waited out” In general, there were two reasons its school students and secondary Germany has never had a phase during during a temporary phase of added why the German Council of Science school graduates has little to do with which their academic level was mutu- stress lasting six to eight years. In Oc- and the Humanities, the KMK, and predicting the actual number of stu- ally comparable, it was deemed politi- tober 1959 the Federal Ministry of Edu- other institutions made one erroneous dents who attend the local university. cally incorrect by the left to suggest cation published a memorandum enti- forecast after another for more than for- qualitative differences between univer- tled “Overcrowding of the Universi- ty years. First, their models for predict- Shifts in trends during the 1980s sities. In the 1990s, however, the hege- ties”, a forecast that the university stu- ing the number of school students and and 1990s monic discourse fundamentally dent population would increase until graduates relied excessively on birth The internal and external conditions of changed among students and their staff 1965 and then decline again. In hind- rates. Second, the variables leading to research and teaching have improved allies. After the turn of the millenni- sight it may seem paradoxical that the change in educational behaviour and, again in several of Germany’s federal um, the differential performance and German Council of Science and the hence, to an increase in the rates of states since the 1980s, although the stu- reputations of universities was pub- Humanities was still warning in Octo- students qualifying for and entering dent-professor ratio remains very poor lished in the ranking lists of various ber 1963 that “the problem posed by university were largely ignored for some compared to top universities abroad. journals; for many students at home declining numbers of secondary school unknown reason. These methodologi- The fi rst signs of a change in trend came and abroad, they have become a key students qualifying for higher education cally dubious, ill-informed, and largely in the late 1970s, when concern about factor determining their choice of must be given the greatest possible at- inaccurate forecasts were devastating the academic quality of certain universi- where to study. tention” (Minutes of the 21st meeting of because they were used by science pol- ties and about the international compet- A second change in trends came in the administrative board, 22 November icy experts and fi nance ministers to es- itiveness of German research suddenly the attitude toward scientifi c co-opera- 1963, as translated from Bartz, 2007, timate the future size of both the stu- prompted the German Council of Sci- tion into which universities enter with p. 80). In a study published in March dent population in the system of higher ence and the Humanities, the KMK, the business and industry. This subject is 1964, the German Council of Science education and that system’s budgetary German Research Foundation (Deut- commonly a sensitive issue because it and the Humanities estimated that the needs. These mistakes could have been sche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG; the touches on the freedom of research and Federal Republic’s total number of sec- rectifi ed during the 1970s if attention equivalent of the U.S. National Science teaching and on the autonomy of insti- ondary school students qualifying for had been paid to the many studies pub- Foundation), and other institutions to tutions of higher learning. In 1981, for higher education would range from lished as of the mid-1960s by sociolo- focus on improving university educa- example, representatives of the student 59,000 to no more than 115,000 in gists, geographers, and experts of apti- tion, evaluating universities, ascertain- body and mid-level staff in Heidelberg 1980. It turned out to be 221,700 tude research (for an overview see ing the competitiveness of German re- University’s Großer Senat protested cor- ( Bartz, 2007, p. 80). Meusburger, 1998, pp. 273-389). Equally search, and promoting the advancement porate funding of new research areas Since the 1970s, the KMK’s secretar- little heed was given to facts known of young academics. Tangible evidence (e.g., ZMBH, the Center for Molecular iat has regularly submitted forecasts of since the mid-nineteenth century. of this turn appeared in 1985 with the Biology of Heidelberg University) when the number of persons eligible for en- Namely, only a relatively small percent- publication of “Recommendations for Rector Adolf Laufs let it be known in Competition in German Higher Educa- his annual report (Rechenschaftsbericht) tion”, by the German Council of Science that the university was seeking new and the Humanities, which, like the un- sources of funding “with whose help it ions, had long had trouble grappling can better reach its goals”. The students with the concept of competition in sci- roundly criticised him, stating: “This ence (see Bartz, 2007). increasing entanglement with business However, in Heidelberg University’s is seen as something that interferes highest legislative body, the Großer with the freedom of research and teach- Senat (similar to the joint senate of ing in the long run”. Their scepticism of American Universities), some repre- research co-operation with business and sentatives of the student body and the industry was also shared by many

31 Heidelberg: Relations Between a Town and Its University world of business and industry, which because the use of personal computers recreational areas in the Odenwald and fi rst became apparent mostly in the nat- “would eliminate jobs at the university”. the Upper Rhine valley have also en- ural sciences and life sciences, was trig- A few years thereafter students demon- hanced the city’s popularity ( image). gered also by the advent of organisa- strated in favour of installing more per- How ever, the university’s strong aca- tional approaches to national and inter- sonal computers in order to improve demic reputation and continually re- national research funding that required working conditions in their departments. constituted creative milieu came about or prescribed creation of research clus- primarily because many of the re- ters and co-operation between universi- The Heidelberg myth: Why do nowned scholars of the day engaged in ties, research-intensive companies, and scholars find Heidelberg attractive? intense interdisciplinary dialogue, non-university research institutions on Myths are understood to be narratives whether as personal friends (e.g., Bun- large-scale projects. Baden-Württem- and stagings of cultural knowledge that sen, Kirchhoff, Helmholtz, and Königs- berg’s university law of 2000 even man- highly stylise particular historical berger) or as members of more or less dated the transfer of knowledge and events and their associated values, be- institutional circles (e.g., those sur- technology. Naturally, such co-opera- haviours, and protagonists into models rounding Max, Marianne, and Alfred tion means that patent use and various for the present day. Myths are socially Weber; Stefan George; Adolf Deiß- property rights have to be precisely de- constructed by a relatively small group mann; Henry Thode; Hans Walter fi ned and that freedom of research and of infl uential persons and can eventu- Gruhle; and Georg Klebs). They laid teaching as well as the autonomy of the ally evolve into a culture of memory the foundations of the Heidelberg myth universities must be guaranteed. Since through a repetition of rituals. Many and communicated it to the whole The Schnookeloch hotel and restaurant, a place where students 2002, Heidelberg University thus set up academics, students, authors, compos- world (Chon, 1995; Demm, 2010; Jas- gather new structures for managing patents, ers, painters, and cultural travellers pers, 1961; Jellinek, 1970; Kiesel, 1995; creating businesses, and engaging in co- have contributed to the Heidelberg Klibanski, 1996; Lepsius, 1995; Sauer- operation. myth since the early nineteenth cen- land, 1995, 1997; Schluchter, 1995; professors (especially in the humani- Third, after the introduction of aca- tury. What does this myth consist of? Is Wagner, 1995; Weber, 1984). ties) because they imagined it to be demic programmes leading to a Diplom its existence justifi ed, or is it only the Heidelberg’s appeal for scholars today primarily about commissioned research (a kind of master’s-level degree) in the product of retrospective idealisation has many roots: the above-average re- and repudiated the idea of practical rel- appropriate subject areas, groups of stu- and yearning for utopia (Šantak, 2006, search conditions; the university’s in- evance. dents in several fi elds started initiatives p. 10)? Is it just a clever marketing tool disputable international stature; a In the late 1980s, though, the atti- to arrange company internships for using the past to serve current ends, or dense local concentration of scientifi c tude that scientists and students had to- their fellow students. Fourth, decades does it still resonate with today’s schol- institutions; the consistent reaffi rma- ward research co-operation with busi- of underfunding and the call to match ars? Before some of these questions can tion of an ongoing tradition of cosmo- ness enterprises and their foundations the level of American universities left be discussed, three points need to be politan open-mindedness; an academic began to change. First, the public and the scientists in some disciplines no mentioned. First, not all scholars work- milieu in which intellectual diversity the policy-making community expected choice but to attract further research ing in Heidelberg will fi nd its university and interdisciplinary contacts are the universities to facilitate the transfer funding from business and public ad- equally desirable, for not all of them highly valued and in which the uncom- of knowledge and technology and to ministration. Furthermore, the funding have equally satisfying research condi- mon internationality of the university’s help induce economic development in and academic freedom that patrons in tions or similarly memorable experience institutions is combined with the at- the regions where they were located. the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region there. Second, Heidelberg’s attractive- mosphere of a welcoming, personal, and Second, mutual pursuit of closer rela- have granted research projects in the ness is not attributable to just a few, safe city ( image); the university’s tions between universities and the natural sciences, life sciences, and the clearly defi nable characteristics that dominant infl uence on urban life; and humanities since the mid-1990s has other university towns do not have. Heidelberg’s embeddedness in a region been of a generosity hitherto unknown The constantly emerging creative mi- of Europe that is especially research in- from the institutions of the government lieus result instead from the interaction tensive. The interplay of these and or the political parties. between actors under certain conditions. other factors not only promotes a multi- In retrospect, the shift in zeitgeist re- In other words, they are always in fl ux. faceted academic social life and greatly garding computerisation is positively Heidelberg’s academic appeal is thus facilitates interdisciplinarity and amusing. In 1985 the Großer Senat’s not static; it must be created anew and transdisciplinarity – a rather diffi cult elected student representatives (from confi rmed over and over. feat in cities far larger than Heidel- the leftist alternative scene) still op- An astute intelligent recruitment berg – but also sets high standards for posed the creation of a computer net- policy and professorships well endowed the scholars and compels “a wide range work in the humanities and alleged that with staff, facilities, and funding have of rich refl ection” (Wagner, 1995, Rector Gisbert zu Putlitz had a mania for defi nitely made Heidelberg University p. 491). computers. They rejected IBM’s dona- attractive for prominent scholars since In a small but academically excep- tion of a server and 30 personal comput- the mid-nineteenth century. Heidel- tionally international city like Heidel- ers because the gift meant “research was berg’s superior quality of life, beauty, ur- berg, the likelihood of unplanned, selling out to the private economy” and ban aesthetics, and proximity to the spontaneous contacts with scholars

A traditional student pub

32 Wissenschaftsatlas of Heidelberg University speak in a similarly positive vein about the potential for contact at the Neuen- heimer Feld campus, where there are university departments as well as non- university research institutions and re- search-intensive businesses. The spatial proximity, concentration, and scope of research facilities alone do not suffi ce to produce a potential for creativity, however. The crucial point is that informal as well as organised struc- tures and places for interdisciplinary communication have kept emerging in Heidelberg. They offer the humanities, natural sciences, and life sciences a common forum for dialogue and the ex- ploration of individual creativity, an opportunity for free variation to elicit many different new ideas. For this type of open dialog to succeed at a broad- based, comprehensive university, it is essential that diverse disciplinary cul- tures and the different criteria for eval- uating scientifi c achievement be re- spected. No particular group of disci- plines may be allowed to impose its as- sessment criteria on another as univer- sally valid. The greater the number of internationally recognised scholars the different disciplines have, the more such mutual respect can develop.

The university’s large-scale academic environment The attractiveness of Heidelberg as a “city of science” or “pearl of knowledge” (Matthiesen & Gonzales, 2009, p. 5) stems not only from the university but The market place and Heiliggeistkirche (Church of Holy Spirit) in Heidelberg. The Heiliggeistkirche also housed the Bibliotheca Palatina from 1436-1623. also from several internationally out- standing research institutions outside the university. They include four Max from other disciplines and countries is phasise the merits of small university sciences. Persons familiar with the his- Planck Institutes, the German Cancer immense. It is almost impossible to take towns. But scholars seeking to maintain tory of science come across a signifi cant Research Center, the European Molecu- a walk along the main streets or go to a a high profi le in the media or to exert place of “thought and experimentation” lar Biological Laboratory (EMBL), the concert or play without running into political infl uence are better positioned every few minutes – places where bril- Heidelberg Academy of Science and someone from the university. The in metropolitan areas (see Kiesel, 1995, liant academic work was done and con- Humanities (HAW) and its research in- spaces of communication and identity p. 498). tinues to be done, including a host of stitutes, the Heidelberg Institute for in which members of the university A high concentration of scientifi c in- places where famous scholars, poets, au- Theoretical Studies (HITS), Heidelberg move are therefore not just small and stitutions is not the only factor that thors, painters, intellectuals, compos- University of Education, the University fragmented, as in cities of a million or contributes to a university town’s fl air. ers, and politicians from around the of Jewish Studies, several universities of more inhabitants; they encompass most So do the places commemorating his- world lived for a time or met regularly. applied sciences, a technology park of Heidelberg. Heidelberg society torically important scientifi c activities An awareness of the city’s iconography closely aligned with the life sciences, gathers in the old auditorium and the or persons (e.g., buildings of specifi c de- and recurring contact with places im- and a small number of research-inten- rector’s reception room on numerous partments and residences of celebrated portant to the history of science can in- sive companies. In this capacity Heidel- occasions, both places having a pivotal professors and famous students), the ar- stil in scholars and students an emo- berg also has the distinct advantage of role in the close link between the ray of disciplines offered, and the inter- tional bond with Heidelberg and the being situated in a region of Europe everyday world of the city and that of disciplinary communication between university, can lead them to draw inspi- that is especially research intensive. Its the university. True, it is probably no scholars. A stroll through Heidelberg’s ration from scholarly role models, and university is not a “pearl in the desert” coincidence that some of the best Old Town, the site of 48 of the univer- can create spaces of identity. Anyone like some universities in structurally known universities, such as Oxford, sity’s 277 buildings in March 2011, is a unable to interpret these historical weak regions. According to the Baden- Cambridge, Harvard, MIT, Yale, and journey not only through the history of clues, however, understands little of Württemberg State Statistical Offi ce Cornell, are in relatively small cities Heidelberg University but also through what lies at the heart of the Heidelberg (Statistisches Landesamt Baden-Würt- and that sociologists of knowledge like the history of important fi elds of hu- myth. Natural and life scientists with temberg, 2010a, 2010b), Baden-Würt- Karl Mannheim (1985, pp. 77-78) em- manities, social sciences, and natural career experience at other universities temberg came to prove itself as the leader in innovation activity among Eu- rope’s 86 major regions in 2007. The share of economic resources invested in research and development (R&D) was greater in Baden-Württemberg that year than in any other major region in Eu- rope. No other European region had a larger percentage of its labour force in research-intensive branches of industry or a higher concentration of patents. With internal R&D spending of around 12.7 billion euros and some

33 Heidelberg: Relations Between a Town and Its University An example of Heidelberg’s “romantisation”. The card reads: “I lost my heart in Heidelberg on a summer’s night so mild. Hopeless in love was I, like a little rose she smiled”.

tions with the European Patent Offi ce (1996). It is also home to some of Ger- performed more than a thousand times (per one million inhabitants) than the many’s wealthiest business people. With and became the perfect example of the average for all twenty-seven European 37 foundations per 100,000 inhabitants, operetta for a broad American public. Union countries. With 4.4% of its gross Heidelberg has one of the highest con- Cinemato graphy has also fed the Hei- domestic product invested in R&D, centrations of foundations of any Ger- delberg myth of student life. In 1927 Baden-Württemberg was a regional man city. The culture of the foundations Lubitsch turned the theme of The Stu- leader in Europe, along with the region in Heidelberg is unique in that the rate dent Prince into a silent Hollywood East of England. Baden-Württemberg of their contributions for science and re- movie entitled Old Heidelberg, and Hol- has 69 institutions of higher education. search is 3.5 times higher than the na- lywood brought a sound version direc- Four of the ten German universities tional average (Glückler et al., 2010). ted by Robert Thorpe into movie thea- that were successful in the Excellence Some of these patrons and philanthro- tres in 1954. German-language fi lms, Initiative are located in Baden-Würt- pists also have close personal ties with too, have dealt with the topic several temberg. Heidelberg University as honorary sena- times since 1912. Heidelberger Romanze, Not far from Heidelberg there are tors, people holding an honorary doc- directed by Paul Verhoeven in 1951 globally active fi rms that annually torate from the university, members of with Liselotte Pulver and O. W. Fischer, spend several times more on R&D than scientifi c advisory boards, or co-opera- and Alt-Heidelberg, directed by Ernst an average German university has in its tion partners in research projects. Marischka, enjoyed great popularity in entire budget. In 2009, for example, the 1950s. such expenditures in BASF’s plant in The myth of student life as an Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Tucholsky, and Ludwigshafen (22 kilometres from Hei- advertisement for the city other theatre critics branded Meyer- delberg) totalled 957 million euros; the Heidelberg did not become world fa- Förster’s Alt-Heidelberg as kitsch, and conglomerate worldwide, 1.4 billion eu- mous only by virtue of literary idealisa- the National Socialists tried to make it ros. In the same year there were tion, scientifi c achievements, and a culturally taboo (with National Social- 5300 employees working in R&D at the high percentage of foreign students. ist German Students’ League forcing its Ludwigshafen site and 9300 worldwide Heidelberg has become known as a Hanover run to be discontinued in 87,630 people employed in R&D, the (BASF information). Co-operating with “place of memory” also through those 1934). But the play apparently met the Baden-Württemberg economy had at its more than one thousand university de- poems, songs, theatre pieces, operettas, broad public’s taste for several decades disposal the highest level of R&D partments and non-university research and fi lms that glorify the life of its stu- (Fink, 2002). The original English lan- activities of any German federal state. institutions, BASF can tap into the dents and Heidelberg fraternities ( im- guage version of The Student Prince has Baden-Württemberg accounted for global knowledge pool, access that can age). The beginnings of this tradition been staged at the Heidelberg Schloss- almost a third of the German econo- benefi t certain research clusters in the were laid in part by Joseph Victor von festspiele (Heidelberg Castle Festival) my’s total R&D spending in 2007. In Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region Scheffel (1826-1886) with his poem since 1974. 2008 about 18% of the people employed through co-operative projects. Heidel- “Alt-Heidelberg du feine” (1854) and the The Heidelberg image was further in the state worked in high-tech indus- berg is also relatively close to the Karls- songs, “Das war der Zwerg Perkeo” popularised through hit songs such as trial sectors, as compared to a European ruhe Institute of Technology (KIT, a (That was the Midget Perkeo) and the 1927 release “Ich hab’ mein Herz in average (EU-27) of just under 7%. merger of the Karlsruhe Research Cen- “Gaudeamus igitur” (So Let Us Rejoice, Heidelberg verloren” (I Lost My Heart in Baden-Württemberg’s inventors fi led tre and Karlsruhe University), the Uni- 1866). Heidelberg, with lyrics by Fritz Löhner- nearly fi ve times more patent applica- versity of Mannheim (approximately The stage has been a particularly Beda and Ernst Neubach) by composer 19 kilometres, or about 12 miles), the valuable source nourishing the myth of Friedrich Raimund Vesely (1900-1954), University of Darmstadt (about 58 kilo- Heidelberg student life. Artistically alias Fred Raymond, and Peggy March’s metres, or some 36 miles), and several controversial, but priceless as a market- “Memories of Heidelberg” from 1967. universities of applied sciences. Heidel- ing tool for Heidelberg, Wilhelm Heidelberg is the setting for many re- berg is no more than one hour away by Meyer -Förster’s theatre piece Alt-Heidel- cently published poems and novels as train from 12 of the Max Planck Socie- berg (Old Heidelberg) premiered in Ber- well (Buselmeier, 1985, 1986, 1996, ty’s 81 institutes. lin in 1901. It represents “one of the 2007; Šantak, 2004, 2005, 2006). The scientifi c draw of the Rhine- greatest successes in German theatre Neckar metropolitan region has become history” (Fink, 2002, p. 66) and was Conflicts between the city and the still more powerful through recent in- translated into twenty-two languages. university creases in patronage, a new culture The Student Prince in Heidelberg, later A small city such as Heidelberg is more among foundations, and an increasing shortened to The Student Prince, is an strongly shaped physically, functionally, commitment to institutions of higher operetta by the Hungarian-American and socially by its universities and non- education on the part of key fi gures in composer Sigmund Romberg (1887- university research institutes than is a politics, business, and culture. Accord- 1951), whose name was originally Sieg- city of one million people. Their eco- ing to Glückler et al. (2010), Heidelberg mund Rosenberg. It opened in 1924 and nomic and cultural impact, too, is much is a city favoured by philanthropists. played to great success in New York, more visible in the former setting than Among German cities, Heidelberg has London, and many other cities, becom- in the latter. The fact that 59.5% of all one of the highest concentrations of ing one of the most successful Ameri- fourth graders in Heidelberg transferred millionaires, ranking 10th in the most can operettas of the twentieth century to an academically challenging second- recent published statistics on wealth ( image). On Broadway alone, it was ary school to begin fi fth grade in the

The fi lm and musical The Student Prince as advertising for Heidelberg

34 Wissenschaftsatlas of Heidelberg University Graffi ti in the former student prison, the Karzer

2010/11 school year shows that the city the town (for further information see ment in Heidelberg’s politics was much is clearly leading in Baden-Württem- Wolgast, 1986b). Particularly in politi- greater than it is today. In 1874 there berg. That ranking would be inconceiv- cally unstable times, universities of in- were seven professors serving in the able without the culturally stimulating ternational stature repeatedly become 96-member town council, and in 1912 atmosphere and level of aspiration the scene of ideological confl icts. As there were still six. The mathematics found in the homes of most highly edu- Karl Jaspers (1961) once described the professor Friedrich Eisenlohr (1831- cated families. The corresponding situation in Heidelberg, “Radicalism 1904) sat on the town council from transfer rate in Neckar-Odenwald, the unharnessed the absurdities of irration- 1875 to 1904 (Maier, 1984). In 2011 neighbouring rural administrative dis- al revolutionaries – personally impor- there was not a single university profes- trict, was 33.4%, and the average for tant, idealistic people – sometimes with sor on the Heidelberg city council. This Baden-Württemberg as a whole was a tragic fate. Heidelberg was dangerous general absence in the city’s decision- 40.7% (Statistisches Landesamt Baden- and attracted what was dangerous” making bodies may have contributed to Württemberg, 2010c). (p. 7). the fact that the Heidelberg city coun- Universities in small cities have a In small university towns there are cil does not always vote favourably on much greater effect on the urban ap- three reasons that local political ten- matters of concern to the university pearance. They also place challenging sions and confl icts of interest tend to (currently, for instance, the Neuen- demands on the use of urban space and occur between the university and the heimer Feld transport infrastructure, a infrastructure. In March 2011 the uni- city. First, confl icts of interest are more fi fth bridge across the Neckar, and the versity and its clinics occupied likely to be aired in local media than is routing of streetcars). Some strategic 277 buildings within the city of Heidel- the case in a major city, where other planning and decision-making occurs berg, with a total net fl oor area of topics usually have priority. Second, entirely without the participation of the nearly 538,818 square meters (about most local politicians are unaware of academic institutions. The discussion is way or another either fi nancially or cul- 75 soccer fi elds). Of these 277 buildings, the university’s cultural and economic sometimes even against their interests, turally from the university and the oth- 16 were rented and 131 (accounting for importance. Few residents of Heidelberg although an estimated 80% to 85% of er academic institutions. The university a total net fl oor area of 258,905 square know that its university spends over Heidelberg’s population benefi ts in one is Heidelberg’s largest employer by far meters) were in use by the Heidelberg one billion euros annually (1.157 billion and has contributed much more than clinics (21 being shared with the uni- euros in 2008, compared with Heidel- any other institution to the city’s inter- versity). These fi gures do not include berg’s 2009 budget of only about Student behavior punishable un- national repute. Unlike Mannheim, der past disciplinary codes of the Heidelberg University’s facilities in the 442 million euros) and employs (with whose city limits have been marked by university: city of Mannheim. the clinics) some 18,000 persons. Few signs promoting it as a “university Making noise and music at night; stone University cities are not confl ict-free people realise how much purchasing town” since the 1990s, Heidelberg only throwing at the marketplace or else- zones. As in any small city with a uni- power 18,000 employees and 28,000 where in the city; accosting or physi- recently decided – under its present versity, there have been periodic con- students bring to the region and how cally attacking city employees or Lord Mayor, Eckart Würzner – to use fl icts of interest between the city of many thousands of secondary jobs it watchmen; insulting or injuring resi- the term “city of science” in advertising. Heidelberg and the university over the creates. It is little known that the pres- dents (Jews are specifi cally mentioned If Heidelberg wishes to compete suc- past 625 years. Lack of discipline among ence of the university clinics in Heidel- in 1387); entering vineyards and or- cessfully with other globally oriented students led to confrontations with the berg saves the city millions of euros chards and stealing vegetables from science centres, then the academic in- fi elds and gardens; tearing out shrub- town inhabitants and courtiers in 1388, each year because it is spared the cost stitutions and the city’s politicians must bery; catching pigeons, geese, or night- 1406, and 1422, ( image). Confl icts of having to fi nance its own hospital. ingales; emptying ponds of their fi sh; work together to create conditions that with the local population prompted the Third, serious misunderstandings and swimming naked in the Neckar or inter- attract excellent scholars and allow students to move out of Heidelberg communication failures can occur be- fering with the running of the mills; ha- these “multilocally operating knowledge nineteen times between 1426 and 1597 tween the “non-native” academics and rassing respectable virgins; possessing nomads” (Matthiesen & Gonzales, (Wolgast, 1997, pp. 28-29). In 1801 a the “native” local politicians because of or using duplicate keys; climbing on the 2009, p. 21) to quickly develop a sense “fi erce battle” between townspeople and the divide between their two dramati- city wall; damaging bridges or gates; of local identity and emotional attach- visiting places of public entertainment cally different everyday worlds. Scholars ment to the city – to feel at home in students in the Hirschgasse left many of in the city, church fairs (in Handschuhs- them injured. In 1804 a student’s disre- whose work entails global orientations heim, in particular), and dances within Heidelberg. gard of a ban on smoking a pipe on pub- and networks have different interests in a mile of the city. lic streets provoked sentries, triggering and expectations of their city and less In the eighteenth century landlords had clashes between students and residents. time to devote to local political matters to fi le charges if student renters of Although each exodus of students last- than other occupational groups do. theirs spent the night out, returned ed only a few days, the fi nancial conse- Most of the scholars did not grow up in more than four hours after the police quences for the town were considerable. Heidelberg but instead entered the curfew or had guests overnight. Char- Events in 1848 demonstrated just how city’s society from outside. Of the pro- ges also were to be brought if the stu- dents wasted their time with riding and economically dependent the townspeo- fessors who taught at Heidelberg Uni- hunting. In 1786 the statutes under ple were on the students: When the versity from 1803 to 1932, 4.3% were Karl Theodor forbade masked sleigh - Democratic Student Association was natives of Heidelberg. Of the professors riding and masked balls. Theater per- banned in Heidelberg, 364 students appointed from 1945 to 1986, only 2% formances and public balls had to be protested by moving to Neustadt an der were born in Heidelberg. Before World approved by the university senate (Wol- Hardt to exert economic pressure on War I, however, the professors’ involve- gast, 1997, pp. 29-30).

35 Heidelberg: Relations Between a Town and Its University