Background

Edmund Husserl in the Wiehre

The founder of phenomenology lived at Lorettostraße 40 - tracing his footsteps.

Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), born in Prossnitz in Moravia and the founder of phenomenology, moved in 1916 from Göttingen to the University of Freiburg as a full professor and shaped the philosophical profile of the Albert Ludwig University for more than a decade. With his wife Malvine he took an apartment at Lorettostraße 40 in Unterwiehre-Süd, which remained the family's home and workplace for roughly two decades. Among his assistants in Freiburg were Edith Stein and, from 1920, Martin Heidegger, who succeeded Husserl to the philosophy chair in 1928. Husserl gave his final lecture on 25 July 1928; central works such as the "Logical Investigations," the "Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology" and the late "Crisis" text remain core to modern philosophy.

After the Nazi seizure of power, Husserl was ostracized at his own university because of his Jewish heritage; on 6 April 1933 he was stripped of his teaching license. In 1937, persistent hostility from the neighborhood - including an SA man living in the building - forced the couple to move from Lorettostraße to Schöneckstraße 6. Edmund Husserl died in Freiburg on 27 April 1938 and is buried in the cemetery in Günterstal.

Since spring 2013, two Stolpersteine (memorial "stumbling stones") in front of Lorettostraße 40 commemorate Edmund and Malvine Husserl; another stone lies in front of Kollegiengebäude I. His scholarly estate is administered by the Husserl Archive in Leuven, while in Freiburg the Husserl Archive at the philosophy department works on its edition and research.