Monumental sculpture of Pallas Athena, design: Karl Albiker, erected in 1925, pedestal width 2.50 m, length 2.15 m, height 1.48 m, figure width with weapons ca. 3.45 m, length with spear ca. 3.70 m, height ca. 4.10 m, pedestal: sandstone, figure: bronze. KIT South Campus, Courtyard of Honor.
To mark the centenary of Karlsruhe Polytechnic in 1925, a war memorial was commissioned for the space between the first buildings of the original college in honor of members who had lost their lives in World War I. In spring 1924, the rectorate awarded the contract to the architect and ceramist Max Laeuger (1864–1952) and the sculptor Karl Albiker (1878–1961). Laeuger’s new courtyard design formed the podium for Albiker’s monumental sculpture of the goddess Pallas Athena. The pedestal inscription reads: “Fridericiana in memory of the fallen.” Beneath are engraved the names of polytechnicians who had perished during World War I. The fallen in the war of 1870–71 are also named even though a memorial for them already existed. Karlsruhe University’s celebrations fifty years later, in 1975, lent the occasion for landscape architect Gunnar Martinsson (1924–2012) to revise the design of this Courtyard of Honor. Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, is considered the patron of knowledge and scientific inquiry. She also governs war, peace, and the defense of the homeland, which makes her a fitting motif for an academic war memorial. Her depiction here is not of a battle-ready goddess. Instead of assuming a warlike stance, she rests her round shield easily on her arm, her lance is lowered, and the visor of her helmet is propped up toward the sky to expose her face. She is dressed in a loosely draping toga. Grief seems to shape her expression, her stance is upright, yet the forward step suggests imminent motion. As the collection of monuments in the Courtyard of Honor evolved over time, its intuitive dedication also gradually shifted. The 1863 monument to Ferdinand Redtenbacher focused on the recognition of exceptional scientific achievement. The war memorial and the memorial plaque for victims of Nazi persecution elicited, on one hand, mourning and, on the other hand, critical reflection on history. The monuments dedicated to Carl Benz, Friedrich Eisenlohr, Heinrich Hertz, and Otto Lehmann honor other individuals renowned for their remarkable merits. as, kn