’We stand together. We will stay outward-looking’

"Rarely has it been clearer what a university is. We stand together. We will stay outward-looking. We are supported and embedded in an international academic community that in past days has come to our side in solidarity a hundred times over. We are not alone, not in this city, not in the country, not in the world." This is what Bernhard Eitel, Rector of Heidelberg University, said during the memorial ceremony in the University Church. With this event on 31 January 2022, including a minute's silence, Ruperto Carola recalled the events exactly a week before that had left the academic community and all those related to it so deeply shocked and shaken. Grief and perplexity, cohesion and community - with these words the speakers addressed the gathering in Peter's Church, among them Thomas Strobl, Interior Minister of the State of Baden-Württemberg.