The history of technical universities has not been studied nearly as thoroughly as that of traditional universities. Most recently, institutional efforts to come to terms with the Nazi era have led to new studies on the history of German technical universities. Yet there is still much to discover, particularly regarding the history of the University of Karlsruhe. The Department of History has made it its mission to conduct historical research on its own university.
In 2018, Anton Guhl, as an archivist and part-time lecturer, began strengthening research activities on the university’s history within the department. This resulted in two anthologies: one summarizes the findings of a corresponding lecture series held by the department in 2018, while the other examines the traditions and changes surrounding university anniversaries.
Link to the publication *Inszenierte Geschichte I: Staging History* (De Gruyter)
With regard to the history of KIT, a public course funded by the HRK in 2020 summarized the current state of research on the history of the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center and highlighted the potential for future research.
In a case study on Karl Steinbuch, based on a presentation at the 2019 annual conference of the Society for the History of Technology, Anton Guhl discusses aspects of the biography of this key figure in the history of computer science in Germany.
Link to the publication *History of Technology* (Nomos Verlag)
A workshop titled “The Early History of Artificial Intelligence in the German-Speaking World—Manuscripts, Artifacts, Sources, Methods,” which Christian Vater organized at KIT in 2020 together with Rudolf Seising’s research group (Deutsches Museum, Munich), served, among other things, to contextualize Steinbuch’s work.
In teaching, the research field of university history was covered with a focus on KIT through several project seminars. In addition to a companion seminar on the above-mentioned conference on the history of the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center, Anton Guhl conducted a two-part project seminar titled “On the Prehistory and Early History of the Karlsruhe University of Technology,” and Silke Zimmer-Merkle held a project seminar on women’s higher education in the early 20th century. Désirée Schauz offered project seminars on the history of the Karlsruhe University of Technology (TH Karlsruhe) during the Nazi era and after 1945.
Finally, as part of a collaborative project with the KIT Archives, the KIT Library, and the Department of History, the Badische Landesbibliothek digitized thousands of original sources on the history of education in Baden and made them available online. This provides, among other things, an important foundation for future studies on the prehistory of today’s KIT.