Namesake of the university

In a large group of journalists and writers in Berlin, he hardly stood out, this rather small man with the quiet voice and stooped posture. But when he wrote, it became clear what he was made of.

Carl von Ossietzky (1889-1938), a convinced democrat and pacifist, became editor-in-chief of the left-wing intellectual weekly "Die Weltbühne" in 1927 and was particularly feared by opponents of the Weimar Republic. There was hardly a political topic of the ailing republic that he did not take up. This included his assessments of the Nazi movement, whose dangers he recognised early on and analysed astutely. No wonder he was arrested shortly after Hitler came to power and interned as a "moorland soldier" in the Esterwegen concentration camp.

When the world became aware of the Nazi opponent and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1936 after major educational campaigns in America and Europe, he was allowed to leave the concentration camp. However, he was unable to accept the world's highest honour, which he still holds today. After his imprisonment in a concentration camp, the Nazis let him live with his wife in a small Berlin sanatorium. He died there in 1938 - constantly guarded by the Gestapo - as a result of his imprisonment.

When the University of Oldenburg was founded in 1973, it was students who suggested naming the university after Carl von Ossietzky. And they met with great approval within the university. The name was intended as an expression of the university's commitment to society. As a reform university, it wanted to get out of the ivory tower and make the sciences part of a democratic society. Co-determination, project studies and the responsibility of science for social development were the hotly debated topics. This led to the development of one of the university's major specialisms, environmental research.

Outside the university, however, the name was not so quickly met with undivided approval. It took almost 20 years for the Lower Saxony state parliament to clear the way for the name University of Oldenburg.