FAU promotes an academic culture of remembrance reflecting the university’s responsibility for its actions in research, teaching and administration. When considering the history of our University, we take a self-critical stance towards our institutionalized academic culture and live up to society’s requirements for transparency.
The Historical Lexicon of Bavaria (Historisches Lexicon Bayerns) gives a detailed history of FAU including information on literature, sources and reference works and links to the founding charters.
For more information on the topic, visit:
the website of the Working Group for Memory Culture and the University Library’s website.
FAU’s history
A look at 275 years of University history
The University of Erlangen was officially opened on November 4, 1743, the future “Dies academicus”. Established by Margrave Friedrich von Brandenburg-Bayreuth and expanded from 1769 by Margrave Alexander von Brandenburg-Ansbach and Brandenburg-Bayreuth, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität was the third university in the Franconian region. “Erlangen-Nürnberg” was added to the name in 1961 when the Nuremberg Commercial College for Business and Social Science was incorporated into the University.
Research projects, publications and events
Find out more
The following gives a list of all publications and events on the topic, with links to further information.
In May 2023, FAU and the City of Erlangen held a series of events to remember the Nazi book burnings that took place in 1933.
This collective volume about FAU during the Weimar Republic and the National Socialist era examines the history of faculties and people based on the findings of new archive research and current research questions.
During a series of 11 lectures, examples of names given to places in Erlangen and Nuremberg associated with FAU were discussed as well as ways of dealing with problematic names.
This project from the field of provenance research investigates the case of the collector Georg Dehn who fled Nazi persecution, with ceramic fragments from his collection being purchased by FAU for the Antique and Classical Collection in 1939.
The audiowalk follows the traces of Nazi medical crimes through the streets of Erlangen and its purpose is to keep alive the memory of the victims of these crimes in the Erlangen sanatorium.