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The Karzer at Göttingen University

Graffiti in the Heidelberg Karzer

Incarceration of students in a particular lock-up (detention room, slammer) administered for the purpose by the university, known in German as a Karzer, was a common disciplinary punishment used by universities with a larger or smaller degree of jurisdiction of their own.

In Germany, the Karzer existed both at universities and at gymnasiums (grammar schools). Keeping students at universities in Karzer arrest went out of use in the years around 1910-1914. Marburg's last Karzer inmate, for example, was registered as late as 1931. Officially, Karzer punishment became forbidden by Nazi university regulations. Responsible for the administration of the Karzer and the disciplinary measures would be the Pedell - beadle - or, during the last decades of 'Karzer rule', a warden ('Karzerwärter').

While being kept in the Karzer would originally have been seen as a severe punishment, the respect for the institution diminished with time, particularly in the 19th century; it came to be seen as a matter of honour to have been incarcerated at least once during one's time at university. Bearing witness to how the students spent the time in the cell are the many memorable wall, table and door paintings left by students in the cells and today shown as tourist attractions in the older German universities.

As the students in the cell normally would be responsible for their own food and drink and were permitted to receive visitors, the "punishment" would often turn into a social occasion with excessive consumption of alcohol, as often told in 19th century sources.

In Germany, Karzers have been preserved at the universities of Heidelberg, Jena, Marburg,Tübingen, Freiberg (School of Mines), Greifswald, Göttingen and at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg in Erlangen. The Karzer in Göttingen was known, after the Pedell Brühbach, as Hotel de Brühbach; it was moved in the 19th century, because of the extension of the university library, to the Aula building; a cell door, preserved from the old Karzer, shows graffiti by Otto von Bismarck.

• Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad. (With reference to the Karzer at Heidelberg University).
• Mooney, Carolyn J.: Notes from Academe: Germany. Slammer or Shrine? How German Students Left Their Mark on the Walls of a Campus Prison. In: The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 1, 1996, A 55. [Göttingen].

• Norbert Nail: Der Marburger Universitätskarzer. In Thomas Joachim Bach (Hg.): Festschrift anläßlich der 110. Cartellversammlung 6. bis 9. Juni 1996 des Cartellverbandes der katholischen deutschen Studentenverbindungen (1996), Gießen & Marburg, pp 50-56.

• The Karzer of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
• The Karzer of the University of Göttingen
• The Karzer of Ernst-Moritz-Arndt- Universität Greifswald
• The Karzer of the University of Heidelberg
• The former Karzer of the University of Leipzig
• The Karzer of Philipps-Universität Marburg
• The Karzer of the University of Tübingen
• The Karzer of the 'Evangelisches Stift' Tübingen
• The Karzer of the University of Tartu (Estonia)
• The Karzer of the Latvian University in Riga (former Polytechnicum) - The final two lock-ups had been established in the manner and tradition of German campus prisons.

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