On 9 November 1923, the so-called “Siegfriedskopf” – the monument to the students and teachers of the University of Vienna who died in the First World War – was unveiled in the assembly hall of the main building.
The memorial, designed by Josef Müllner, was erected on the initiative of the anti-Semitic and anti-democratic “Deutsche Studentenschaft” (DSt). It alludes to the fratricide of the Nibelungen material and the “stab in the back legend” and can be placed in the tradition of so-called Langemarck memorials, which glorify the heroic death of German youth and stood as a symbol of the fighting student not only for the National Socialists.
In the early 1990s, a debate began about the political meanings of this monument. In 2006, it was moved from the assembly hall to the arcaded courtyard and an artistic transformation into the “Controversy Siegfriedskopf” took place.
