Abstract
This study discusses the topic of autonomy and (in)dependence through the example of university reconstruction in southwest Germany after World War II. There were three sides striving to control universities: German university dignitaries, the French occupation administration and German Land authorities.
Their attitudes (impacted by different historical experience) toward the rebuilding of universities in Freiburg, Tübingen and Mainz after the fall of Nazism are analysed against the background of post-war legal and administrative conditions. The struggle over university autonomy is illustrated by the following examples: disagreements about personal denazification, efforts of all three sides to control the university administration and to exercise authority over the choice of university pedagogues as well as students and interferences in the content of university instruction.
Officially the French occupation administration accepted the model of German self-governing university. In reality, however, this model was substantially restricted in favour of French occupational power.
Nevertheless the universities could successfully resist many unwanted changes. They had to face interferences of German Land governments beginning in 1947, too.
Finally, French interventions in the autonomy of German universities were temporary and in the long run they did not bring about any radical changes in the matter of university autonomy.