City walk: University City of Frankfurt (Oder)

The university in Frankfurt (Oder) was opened for the first time in 1506. By 1811, around 70,000 students were trained before the university closed again. At the beginning of the 17th century the university was one of the largest in all of Germany. The university in Frankfurt (Oder) became the main training center for Reformed people from Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, Bohemia and Germany. After it was closed in 1811, the new European University Viadrina was not founded until 1991.
The first stop on the tour is the Max Kade House. Before it belonged to the university, this building was the city's Georgen Hospital. The building is still owned by the university and serves as an international meeting center.
You can find traces of the old university, for example, in the street An der Alten Universität. The college courtyard with the college house, the university secretary's residence and the family residence used to be here.
We continue to the concert hall, which was once the monastery church. After the dissolution of the Franciscan monastery, the city received the church and the remaining monastery buildings were given to the university. Today the church is the new Nikolaikirche and serves as a concert hall, which was named after Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, who was a student at the University of Frankfurt from 1734 to 1737. Opposite is the oldest church in Frankfurt, the St. Nikolaikirche. If you go over the city bridge to Slubice, you shouldn't overlook the Collegium Polonicum. This joint building of the Adam Mickiewicz University Poznan and the European University Viadrina is a joint institution. Other joint buildings of the two universities are located at ul.Pilsudskiego and have been student dormitories since 1998.
It goes over the bridge back to Frankfurt (Oder). The Löwen pharmacy on Grosse Oderstrasse is not only Frankfurt's oldest pharmacy building that has been preserved, it also served as the professors' house in the past.
The Viadrina Museum is located on Carl-Philipp-Emanuel-Bach-Straße. Today's museum building once served as a dormitory for the princes of the Hohenzollern family and other noble sons during their studies.
We continue to the market square with the town hall and the Marienkirche. The ceremonial opening of the university took place in the Marienkirche on April 26, 1506 and it was also used as a place for theology lectures.
The tour continues to Universitätsplatz and today's Viadrina, which connects the main building with the Auditorium Maximum. The Auditorium Maximum was once a district party school of the SED with a boarding school. Today this serves as a student residence. In the south, Universitätsplatz merges into Europaplatz.
At the end of Lindenstrasse you come to what is now Frankfurt's stadium. This was once a Carthusian monastery, of which the building and site came into the possession of the Viadrina in 1540. The site was later used to house the university bakery and brick kiln, as well as the brandy distillery and the brewery.
The last stop on the walk is the “yellow barracks”. The university's language center was built here as a result of a plan for a campus outside the city center. This has existed in the main building of the former barracks since 1999.

Length: approx. 8.6 km, duration: approx. 2 hours pure walking time

Literature:City guide Frankfurt (Oder) / Slubice (2021), publisher: ScottyScout, editors: K. Hinrichsen / M. Nesselrodt