20th century
Around 75% of the university's students volunteered or were conscripted during the First World War. 384 members of the university lost their lives in the war. In the post-war period, many of the students at Friedrich-Alexander University (around 350) took part in the suppression of the Bavarian Soviet Republic as members of the Freikorps Epp.
As a result of the Bavarian Concordat (1924) with the Catholic Church, several Catholic "concordat chairs" still exist at the university to this day. In 1927, the natural sciences were separated from the Faculty of Philosophy and transferred to a joint Faculty of Natural Sciences.
The National Socialist movement had already spread to the University of Erlangen in the early 1920s. An Erlangen Sturmabteilung (SA) division, consisting mainly of students, had been in existence since 1922. After Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, a spontaneously formed radical nationalist list won twelve of 25 seats in the Erlangen AStA elections on 20 November 1923 and appointed Ludwig Franz Gengler as its first chairman. On 24 September 1924, 120 student members of the NSDAP founded the National Socialist Student Group Erlangen, which disbanded after Gengler moved to LMU Munich and was only re-established in 1928 as a university group of the National Socialist German Students' Union (NSDStB).
In the winter semester of 1928/29, the NSDStB won eight seats. In the subsequent university elections in 1929, the NSDStB finally won 14 seats, making the University of Erlangen the first German university to have a student parliament dominated by National Socialists. With around 200 members, the Erlangen university group had reached a considerable size by 1930 and was one of Baldur von Schirach's internal party opponents, led by the former Erlangen university group leader Reinhard Sunkel. After Sunkel and his supporters were expelled from the NSDStB, a splinter group of National Socialists called Revolutionary Students also ran in the university elections in Erlangen in November 1931 in competition with the Student Union and won a seat in the student parliament.
The University of Erlangen was less affected by the purge of German universities that began in 1933 than most other universities. Of the 121 members of the teaching staff in the winter semester of 1932/33, 9 people (7.4 percent) were expelled. However, 162 former students had their doctoral degrees revoked, mostly in 1939 (examples include the Jewish doctor Ernst Alfred Seckendorf and the lawyer and monarchist Catholic resistance fighter Adolf von Harnier). After the Second World War, the university denied this however, and it was not until the 1990s that this dark chapter of history was finally addressed.
The university survived the world wars relatively unscathed in terms of its buildings. The denazification process carried out by the American occupying forces led to the dismissal of numerous university teachers after the end of the war. They were replaced by professors from the former eastern territories, among others, which led to a shift from a predominantly Protestant teaching staff to a majority Catholic one. After the Second World War, some of the university's faculties reopened in January 1946 and teaching was gradually reestablished.
The post-war period led to further expansion, not only in terms of student numbers, but also in terms of the number of chairs. Above all, the collaboration with the parts of Siemens AG that had recently moved to Erlangen provided decisive impetus for further expansion and led, among other things, to the construction of the south campus for the technical and natural science faculties. In 1961, the Nuremberg University of Economics and Social Sciences, founded in 1919, was incorporated as a separate faculty, giving FAU its second major location and its current name, Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen–Nuremberg. The student revolt of the 1960s came to Erlangen with a slight delay and was significantly less intense. In 1966, a technical faculty was established. A new university complex was built in the south of Erlangen, which today combines engineering, computer science, inorganic chemistry, and an additional cafeteria in a concrete-dominated complex that is typical of the time. The Friedrich-Alexander University was thus one of the first classical universities to add a technical faculty to its range of subjects. In 1972, the Nuremberg College of Education was incorporated.
In 1982, Erlangen University Hospital attracted national attention with the birth of Germany's first test-tube baby. Ten years later, there was a nationwide debate about the Erlanger baby, who was to be saved at Erlangen Hospital by life-support measures after its mother was declared brain dead following an accident.
Since 1999, part of the new Erlangen district of "Röthelheimpark" has been used by the university ("Röthelheim Campus"). The site used to be an old artillery barracks built in 1900 and was later expanded with several buildings.
In 2004, the decision was made to establish the Central Institute for New Materials and Process Technology (ZMP) in Fürth, making Fürth a "city of science" and another regional location for Friedrich-Alexander University. In July 2005, a new building for the chair of crystallography and structural physics was inaugurated at a cost of 5.8 million euros. On July 14, 2006, the newly founded Central Institute for Applied Ethics and Science Communication (ZIEW) was inaugurated.
As recently as 2007, FAU was divided into eleven faculties (listed in order of establishment): the Faculty of Theology, the Faculty of Law, the Faculty of Medicine, then the two Faculties of Philosophy I (Philosophy, History, and Social Sciences) and II (Linguistics and Literary Studies), three Faculties of Natural Sciences, including I (Mathematics and Physics), II (Biology, Chemistry, and Pharmacy), and III (Geography, Geology, Mineralogy, Paleontology), as well as the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences in Nuremberg, the Faculty of Engineering and finally the Faculty of Education in Nuremberg. In 2007, the university was restructured as part of a structural reform: the previous faculties were merged to form five new large faculties. Three faculties lost their independence and became departments within the new faculties, including the Faculty of Theology, the Faculty of Education, and the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences (the latter two located in Nuremberg). Theology is now an independent department within the Faculty of Philosophy.
Since 2008, the university has been part of the Bavarian Center for Political Theory (BAYPOL), whose Erlangen headquarters have provided FAU with another "research and competence center". In 2009, a chair for human rights ("Chair for Human Rights and Human Rights Policy") was established at the Institute for Political Science, enabling FAU to contribute to research and teaching in this important but academically rather weakly institutionalized field.
In 2009, the new Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen emerged from the Max Planck Research Group for Optics, Information, and Photonics, which was founded at the university for this purpose in 2004. Since then, it has hosted a large number of Max Planck Junior Research Groups and Alexander von Humboldt scholarship holders and, together with the Faculty of Engineering, has been involved in the two institutions of the Excellence Initiative established at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg in 2004.
In April 2011, the university adopted a new logo in order to establish the commonly used abbreviation "FAU" as a trademark and build a corporate identity. The traditional seal depicting the two founders of the university will henceforth only be used in special contexts, such as on certificates and similar documents. From the outset, the design of the new logo was the subject of fierce criticism from various quarters. Students responded with satirical variations, some of which highlighted what they perceived as its excessive similarity to other well-known trademarks. There was also criticism that university members—both students and staff—were not sufficiently informed about or involved in this process, which is important for the university's identity.
In the wake of a significant nationwide increase in student numbers in the winter semester of 2011, the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg became one of Germany's twelve largest universities for the first time that year.
Since 2012, the Erlangen Graduate School in Advanced Optical Technologies has been bringing together the interdisciplinary fields of optics and photonics in the natural sciences and engineering at the MPI for the Science of Light, the Fraunhofer Institutes in Erlangen, and the Erlangen Research Focus Area for Medical Research.
In mid-2013, age-related structural defects became apparent in various buildings belonging to Friedrich-Alexander University, particularly in the city center. According to the university management, these defects are due to years of underinvestment in building maintenance by the state government: For example, only around one-sixth of the funds required (5 of approximately 33 million euros) were received for necessary repairs and renovation measures on the buildings of the Faculty of Philosophy in 2012. Buildings belonging to other faculties are also in need of renovation, such as those belonging to the Department of Organic Chemistry and facilities on the south campus of FAU. The consequence of these years of delay in necessary construction measures was increasing deterioration in the condition of numerous university properties. In a seminar building of the Faculty of Philosophy, for example, large parts of the ceiling cladding fell onto the workplaces below in July 2013.
Not least due to the continuing poor condition of FAU's inner-city properties and the lack of space that has arisen over the last few decades, the university management and the Bavarian state government are planning to completely relocate and merge the Faculty of Philosophy (with its facilities in Nuremberg) into buildings belonging to Siemens in Erlangen city center. In particular, the group's former main administrative building in Erlangen known as the "Himbeerpalast" (Raspberry Palace), was the focus of attention in this context. The office building, with a total usable area of 46,000 m2, would be ideal for this purpose, as it would provide the estimated 40,000 m2 of space required. In addition, a central humanities library could be created there to replace the numerous smaller university libraries. In September 2014, then Bavarian minister of culture Ludwig Spaenle, together with then Minister of Finance Markus Söder and then Minister of the Interior and Building Joachim Herrman, presented a new location concept for the university. This concept stipulated the relocation of the philosophy and education departments and the establishment of a central humanities library in the Himbeerpalast.
This location concept was revised in May 2017 to stipulate that educational sciences should remain in Nuremberg; however, the remaining departments of the Faculty of Philosophy were still to move to the Himbeerpalast by 2023. The reason for this was the announcement that Nuremberg would have its own technical university by 2030 and that the technical faculty of FAU would therefore remain in Erlangen. Finally, on July 3, 2018, the Bavarian cabinet decided at a meeting in Nuremberg on an investment package totaling 1.5 billion euros for the University of Erlangen, spread over 30 years, according to Minister President Markus Söder. Among other things, these funds are to be used to purchase the Himbeerpalast and convert it for the purposes of the planned humanities center. In addition to the renovation of the existing buildings, this will also require the construction of a new central humanities library in the inner courtyard and another new building in the immediate vicinity of the Himbeerpalast. In addition, the old Chemikum building on Henkestraße is to be converted into a lecture hall building for the philosophy faculty.
The existing buildings of the Faculty of Philosophy in the north of Erlangen are to be demolished, with the exception of the Juridicum, to make way for the nearby University Hospital and the Faculty of Medicine.
The purchase by the Free State of Bavaria was completed on September 13, 2018, at the latest. Renovation and conversion of the building for the purposes of the Faculty of Philosophy were to take place from 2021, with the move scheduled for 2026/27. The renovation and expansion of the Himbeerpalast began on November 4, 2024. Accompanying the relocation of the Faculty of Philosophy to Werner-von-Siemens-Straße in Erlangen, the construction of a new central lecture hall building on Henkestraße is being considered.
In addition, land on the Siemens Campus Erlangen was acquired by the State of Bavaria in 2023. The existing buildings on this land were first used by the central university administration and management of FAU from the end of 2024. A move was necessary because renovation of Erlangen Castle is planned during which the building will not be accessible. This opportunity was also used to consolidate the administration in a single building moving forward. Previously, it was spread across several locations in Erlangen
The campus of the Faculty of Philosophy for teacher training at FAU (known as the "Faculty of Education" from 1972 to 2007, and since then as the "Regensburger Straße Campus"), located in the south of Nuremberg, is home to both educational science subjects and humanities and social science subjects involved in teacher training. In 2020, the Bavarian state government decided that FAU should receive a new building in the north of the city for this purpose, which will be realized in the form of a public-private partnership project to accelerate the process. The public tender for the commissioned construction took place in 2021, and the process has now been completed. The new building complex was initially to be leased for at least 20 years. After this period, the Free State would have had an option to purchase. The university expected the new campus to be completed and handed over in 2026. The new building was planned at the intersection of Bucher Straße and Nordring in the north of Nuremberg and was to accommodate approximately 400 employees and up to 3,000 students. The site has been an industrial wasteland for many years and was to be redeveloped into a "campus-like green space". In 2024, the plans failed due to the insolvency of a project partner.
