The Wende results in two opposite effects: the university maintains its continuity and quickly starts to thrive in the newly unified German state, while the professional practice of most professors... Show moreThe Wende results in two opposite effects: the university maintains its continuity and quickly starts to thrive in the newly unified German state, while the professional practice of most professors suffers from discontinuity and a lack of connection to the new social circumstances. This antithesis, continuity for the university versus discontinuity for professorial practice, is the central theme. Relatively minor differences between biographies that had developed in the GDR op untill the Wende can be used to explain why the unification of Germany has widely divergent effects for the five hunderd professors of the Humboldt-Universit_t Show less