Guided City Tour

"Power" is not the first word that comes to mind when you think of "Göttingen – the city that creates knowledge"; the stereotypes of "pure science", the "scientist in the ivory tower" are too deeply rooted. But it quickly becomes clear that scientists are first and foremost human beings. People are bound by their social and economic conditions. So scientists cannot be "better people".

Starting with the year of Alessandro Scarletti's death, the tour explores the power structures in Göttingen in 1725. How did the founding of the university a decade later change this? And how did this system evolve in the centuries that followed? How are hierarchies in social interaction and in the academic world promoted, cemented, or even challenged?

The walk through the Old Town will take you to selected places and personalities where power imbalances and structural abuse of power are as evident as the rebellion against them. You will encounter pretentious professors, arrogant nouveau riche craftsmen and nameless maids, as well as later famous students, feminists and resistance fighters against the Nazi regime.