Celebrate in Times of War? The Academic Jubilees of the University of Kiel and the Vienna Institute of Technology in 1940

Abstract

: University anniversaries and jubilees are a central aspect of university communication and they exemplify the interdependencies of both tradition and innovation, past and future. Consciously or unintentionally, jubilee festivities and celebrations serve to create sense internally, to reassure the university ′ s out-ward position and to intensify its communication with the surrounding society. This raises the question of whether and how institutions of higher education have celebrated such occasions in the past, especially in times of social upheaval and crisis – which undoubtedly included the period of the Second World War. This article adopts the perspective of an integrative university history and uses the example of two different types of higher education institutions to ask about the social and political function of their anniversaries. The festivities under scrutiny are the ones at the University of Kiel and at the Technical College Vienna (Technische Hochschule). Both institutions celebrated their anniversaries in 1940 despite – or perhaps precisely because of – the war situation. The focus is on the festive lectures and on the basic conditions for the celebrations as well as for the corresponding jubilee writings. The question is to what extent the actors involved endeavoured to view the historical stages of the university ’ s history from a National Socialist angle and whether they formulated tangible visions of their institution ′ s future.