The Karl Jaspers House in Oldenburg's Dobbenviertel district was opened on 7 September 2013. The villa is probably one of the university's most beautiful seminar venues and is now home to the Karl Jaspers Society, the Hannah Arendt Centre research centre and the EWE Foundation.

Among other things, the Karl Jaspers House houses the 12,000-volume library of the psychiatrist and philosopher, who was born in Oldenburg in 1883. Jaspers, a multidisciplinary thinker, was declared an enemy of the state during the National Socialist era and forced to retire in 1937. His wife was of Jewish origin and was banned from travelling abroad. This was one of the reasons why Jaspers remained in Germany until the end of the war. In 1945, the US government put him in charge of the academic reconstruction of Heidelberg University. Jaspers died in Basel in 1969.

"The Karl Jaspers House is intended to be a place where Jaspers' central perspectives on interdisciplinary thinking are reconsidered and discussed in an international context," says Prof Dr Matthias Bormuth from the Institute of Philosophy and Chair of the Karl Jaspers Society. Its aim is to provide food for thought in the spirit of Jaspers through lectures, readings and exhibitions that are as comprehensible and open to all as possible.

Since 2012, researchers at the Universities of Oldenburg and Heidelberg have also been working on compiling an annotated complete edition of Jaspers' works, letters and writings - under the auspices of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and in co-operation with the Karl Jaspers Foundation in Basel. The project, which is funded with five million euros, is scheduled to run for 18 years and will comprise more than 50 volumes.