Hero, traitor, fighter for peace, co-destroyer of the republic, victim, martyr, pacifist, communist, democrat - these are just some of the names given to Carl von Ossietzky. An exhibition in the University Library is focussing on the man who gave his name to the University of Oldenburg.
To mark the 40th anniversary of the University of Oldenburg and with the Oldenburgische Landesbank as an exclusive partner, the University Library is showing the exhibition "I do not submit, I demonstrate [...] - the life and work of Carl von Ossietzky". The exhibition, newly curated by Alexandra Otten, uses numerous original documents from his estate - letters, manuscripts and photographs - as well as audio and video recordings to explore the question: Who gave the University of Oldenburg its name? Who was Carl von Ossietzky?
The exhibition will open on Thursday, 12 December at 6 p.m. with a panel discussion in the library hall on the Haarentor campus. The historians Prof Dr Werner Boldt, Alexandra Otten, Dr Elke Suhr and Prof Dr Malte Thießen as well as the political scientist Prof em. Dr Gerhard Kraiker will discuss "The topicality of Carl von Ossietzky". Boldt, Kraiker and Suhr are co-editors of the complete edition "Carl von Ossietzky: Sämtliche Schriften". This was edited by the University of Oldenburg's Carl von Ossietzky Research Centre and was published by Rowohlt Verlag in 1994. Prof. Dr Gunilla Budde, historian and Vice President for Studies and Teaching at the University, will moderate the discussion.
On Friday, 13 December, there will also be a reading with Prof. Dr Werner Boldt on the café level of the University Library at 6.00 pm. He will be presenting his book "Carl von Ossietzky - Vorkämpfer der Demokratie", which was published in May of this year. In it, he primarily traces the intellectual career of Ossietzky, who "warned of Hitler more clearly than anyone else - as early as the beginning of the 1920s - and precisely registered how the power elites of the Weimar Republic betrayed and fought democracy and prepared the ground for dictatorship."
Carl von Ossietzky (1889-1938), a convinced democrat and pacifist, became editor-in-chief of the left-wing democratic weekly "Die Weltbühne" in 1927. There was hardly a political topic that he did not take up. This included his assessments of the National Socialist movement, the dangers of which he recognised early on and analysed astutely. It is no wonder that 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 interned Ossietzky 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 National Socialists let him live with his wife in a small sanatorium in Berlin. 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 on the founding committee 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. Outside the university, however, the name was not so quickly met with undivided approval. It took 19 years for the Lower Saxony state parliament to clear the way for the name University of Oldenburg.
