The historian Professor Dieter Speck, director of the Uniseum and the University Archive, invited the Freiburg Alumni Club to take a guided tour of the “Karzer,” the former student detention rooms of the University of Freiburg. The tour gave the alumni insight into a special chapter in the history of the university.

Reaching under the skirt of a variety show dancer, fighting a duel, getting into a drunken brawl, insulting a professor – such offenses once led to internment in the University of Freiburg’s detention rooms, known as the “Karzer.” In April the Freiburg Alumni Club met the director of the Uniseum and the University Archive, Professor Dieter Speck, for a guided tour of the “cells” of the former student prison. Club president Dr. Ekkehart Meroth greeted the 40 alumnae and alumni in the arched hallway of the Uniseum. From there they walked to Collegiate Building I, where the summer and winter detention rooms have been located since 1911.

The historian explained the purpose of the Karzer by relating the “offenses” of the first inmate of the winter detention room, Walter Stegmüller: The medical student was the 3000^th student matriculated at the University of Freiburg and was thus celebrated as the “King of Chance” in a parade through the city center. Several weeks later he got drunk at the house of the Hercynen fraternity on Lorettoberg and struck a policeman with a cane. As a result, he was arrested and sentenced by the university court to detention in the Karzer. The inmates were fed by the caretaker for a fee or by friends. In Stegmüller’s case, his fraternity brothers decided to feed him a predominantly liquid diet, reported the university archivist.

It soon became a mark of distinction for members of fraternities to be locked up in the Karzer. Members flew their flag on the tower and were proud of every arrest. The walls of the Karzer were covered with murals, most of which have not been preserved. However, a frieze painted by Erwin Arthur Rousseau depicting the life of his friend Anton Thomas Trautner has been restored in the summer detention room. Each of the two cells has a table, several chairs, a bed, and a clay washbasin with a jug. Modeled on the original historical furnishings, the furniture was provided by the Uniseum thanks to the generous support of Alumni Freiburg e.V.

The tour ended with a trip to the observation platform of the university tower, where the alumni enjoyed a stunning bird’s-eye view of Freiburg in the evening.

As the number of participants was limited, not everyone who had expressed interest was able to take the tour in April. Professor Speck has therefore agreed to hold another tour in July.

For more information on the Karzer, watch this student film from HD Campus: