25 Years of CU: Anniversary Book

By using a variety of previously unpublished documents and eyewitness reports of faculty, staff, alumni, local people and others, the richly illustrated book written by the distinguished historian PD Dr. Rüdiger Ritter will show the visions which inspired the founders and how the university has met challenges since its establishment. The book will also cover the history of the campus, which has successively served as anti-aircraft barracks during World War II, US barracks, a camp for displaced persons, and Bundeswehr barracks. These uses are more closely connected to the university than one might think: for example, the former Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Helmut Schmidt, who gave the opening speech at the International University Bremen, served in his youth as an anti-aircraft soldier in Bremen-Grohn — as did the later Federal President Karl Carstens. And nowadays, descendants of displaced persons who were waiting at the former Displaced Persons Camp Bremen-Grohn for their departure to the USA work at Constructor University. With these and other examples, the book will present the university as a place that connects the local with the global and the present with the past. This is the first publication on the history of the building complex in Bremen-Grohn ever.