The Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich is one of the most famous universities in Germany and one of the scientific flagships of the state capital. The university was actually founded exactly 550 years ago in a completely different city: the nucleus of the oldest university in old Bavaria was Ingolstadt in 1472, where it resided for more than 300 years. The anniversary will be celebrated there this year. All year round there are exhibitions, concerts and conferences in Ingolstadt on the occasion of the founding of the “Hohe Schule”. Ingolstadt’s Lord Mayor Christian Scharpf (SPD) emphasizes the importance of the event: “For 328 years Ingolstadt was one of the intellectual centers in the middle of Europe, until student life came to a temporary standstill in 1800,” he says. According to the city administration, several highlights of the series of events are planned for the coming months. From May 13th to 15th there will be a “Futurological Congress” that will deal with the relationship between humans and nature in the future. The “first Ingolstadt Science Congress” is then planned for June 30th to July 1st. The possibilities of artificial intelligence in areas such as mobility, health and art will be discussed. The city festival from July 8th to 10th is also dedicated to the founding of the university at that time.
“Frankenstein’s” birth took place at the university in Ingolstadt
From December 3rd, the Ingolstadt City Theater wants to commemorate one of the world’s most famous Ingolstadt residents with a musical – even if this is only fictional. Because “Frankenstein” also has close ties to Ingolstadt University. The English author Mary Shelley had her horror story, published in 1818, about a creature artificially created by the scientist Frankenstein, played at the university in Ingolstadt. When the famous novel was published two centuries ago, Ingolstadt was no longer a university town. The university had temporarily moved to Landshut a few years earlier before finding its permanent home in Munich from 1826. There is also a special offer for beer lovers. Ingolstadt breweries produce a “jubilee brew” using traditional methods. The unfiltered export beer made from light summer barley malt and dark Munich malt is available in restaurants in the Upper Bavarian city on tap and also in bottles. The Bavarian Purity Law for beer was issued in Ingolstadt more than 500 years ago.
Munich is only the second oldest university
In today’s Bavaria, however, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität is only second among the oldest universities. Because of the connection of the Franconian areas to Bavaria at the beginning of the 19th century, the University of Würzburg can claim the title of the oldest university in the Free State. The first forerunner of the Julius-Maximilians-University there was built 70 years before its counterpart in Ingolstadt as the “Hohe Schule zu Würzburg”.