Exhibition rooms and image gallery About the University Museum

The University Museum, located since 1996 in the Old University building, showcases the development, wealth and diversity of Heidelberg University over the centuries. The premises could not be more appropriate. While the museum is housed on the ground floor of the 1712 baroque edifice, the Great Hall is located on the floor above and the historic student prison in the adjoining building – both of which bear witness to the history of the university and its rich tradition.

The history of Heidelberg University is featured in three rooms. With original documents and reproductions from the University Archives and the Palatinate Museum, room A offers an overview of the period from the institution's founding in 1386 until the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1802.

The second room is devoted to the 19th century, a period characterised by Heidelberg Romanticism and the fierce debates leading up to the revolution of 1848/49. The 1850s launched the differentiation of the natural sciences and medicine. Portraits and reproductions depicting contemporary student rooms and protest marches, early photographs of laboratory buildings and apparatuses developed by Hermann Helmholtz paint a picture of a time in which much groundwork was laid for modern life as we know it.

Room C highlights the role of the university as the Weimar Republic endeavoured to establish a democratic society, during the national socialist dictatorship, and as the country again strove for democracy after World War II. The effects of rapid student growth and the development of new areas of research and locations are also explored. The exhibit provisionally concludes with the success in the 2010 Excellence Initiative.