History
The Benefactor
Among the many Bavarian rulers from the House of Wittelsbach who were passionate about art and culture, Maximilian II (1811-1864) stands out as a particularly tireless patron of the sciences. The king, who would have preferred to become a history professor, brought numerous famous scholars from all over Germany to the University in his state capital. He also founded the Bavarian National Museum in Munich, reformed the school system and, last but not least, established the Maximilianeum Foundation named after him.
The Foundation
Even as Crown Prince, Maximilian had planned to create an institution to support young students. When he ascended the throne in 1848, he set about realizing his ambitious project. The state parliament, however, stubbornly refused to provide him with the necessary funds. So Maximilian finally reached into his "private coffers" when he founded the Athenaeum in 1852, which was renamed the "Royal Maximilianeum" five years later. The attribute "royal" disappeared in the wake of the November Revolution of 1918, and since then the institution has borne its current name: Maximilianeum Foundation.
The Purpose
With this Foundation, the King aimed to recruit the twenty-six best high school graduates from all parts of Bavaria for the higher civil service, without regard to their class or their parents' income. To this end, he made it possible for those who passed the strict selection process to study at Munich University unencumbered by material worries. Whereas Maximilian had initially obliged his scholarship holders to study law, from 1860 onwards he also allowed them to study most other subjects. To this day, only medicine and theology for the clerical office are not eligible
Sponsorship
The Maximilianeum Foundation grants its sponsored students free room and board, but no financial allowances. Initially housed provisionally, since 1874 they have lived in their own building, the Maximilianeum, a representative building erected in the so-called Maximilian style (foundation stone laid in 1857). Until 1918, the students shared the building with the members of the Royal Pagerie, the school of the Bavarian pages. Before World War II, the Maximilianeum also housed a public gallery that displayed thirty history paintings and twenty-four marble busts of great figures in human history. They were intended to serve the Bavarian people for education and to impart knowledge about historical events. Buildings, busts and paintings still belong to the foundation today, insofar as they have not been destroyed by the effects of war. The legal basis is a deed dated August 20, 1876, with which Ludwig II (1845 - 1886) gave the study institution its still valid form as a foundation under public law.
1918 until today
The Maximilianeum Foundation experienced the most turbulent phase of its history between the two world wars. It survived the fall of the monarchy unscathed, as Maximilian II had decreed that the protectorate over the foundation should pass from the king to the rector of the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) Munich. However, the scholarship institution was hit hard by the great inflation of the twenties, in which it lost the entirety of its financial assets, amounting at the time to about one and a half million Reichsmarks. During the Third Reich, the Foundation was confronted not only with the permanent problem of empty coffers, but also with massive attempts to bring it into line. However, these could be fended off, as could the attempts of some Nazi celebrities to establish a party authority in the Maximilianeum. “The spirit of the house was,” as Maximilianists of the time report, “very focused on University study. The NSDAP was not present in the house.”
Due to the severe damage caused to the building during the Second World War, the foundation was faced with almost insurmountable financial difficulties. Rescue finally came in 1949, when the state parliament and the senate (dissolved in 1999) moved into the Maximilianeum as new tenants. The crisis had been overcome and the state institutions had found a representative home after the nondescript old parliament building in the city center had been destroyed in the war. The symbiosis of the foundation and the state parliament has proven its worth over the course of the past decades.
Maximers under National Socialism
While the Foundation as an institution had a reserved attitude towards National Socialism, some former Maximers appeared as individuals at this time. Within this framework, no more than a brief overview can be given: whilst Hans Rheinfelder (1898-1971) lost his office as head of the Foundation in 1935 for political reasons, the latter-day head of the Foundation Walter Roemer (1902-1985) was responsible for carrying out the death sentences against members of the White Rose. With Eduard Hamm (1879-1944), who had been Reich Minister of Economics in the Weimar Republic, the Maximilianeum lost an alumnus in political custody. On the other hand, there were certainly individual graduates who devoted themselves to the brown system. Theodor von der Pfordten (1873-1923), for example, was one of Hitler's cronies who died in front of the Feldherrnhalle in 1923, and Franz Gürtner (1881-1941), a Maximilianeum alumnus, was Reich Minister of Justice between 1932 and 1941. Even at the time, however, their stay in the Foundation was a thing long past.
The Subfoundation
When Maximilian II established the foundation in 1852, only men were admitted to study at the three universities that existed in Bavaria at the time. Consequently, according to the founding document, support was reserved for "talented [...] young men". After the opening of the universities to women at the beginning of the 20th century, this provision became obsolete. Nevertheless, the promotion of female students was to wait until 1980. Since provisions regarding the purpose of a foundation may not be changed in principle, the only way to include female students was to establish a second foundation. But for a long time, the necessary financial resources were lacking. It was not until 1980, thanks to the generosity of Duke Albrecht of Bavaria, that such an "endowment" for female students could be established, named the "Wittelsbacher Jubiläumsstiftung" after his family. Since the Maximilianeum did not offer sufficient space, the female scholarship holders initially had to be accommodated in a nearby boarding school. With the completion of a new building on the grounds of the Maximilianeum, the spatial separation of the two foundations came to an end in 1994. Since then, all scholarship holders - 45 on average - have lived under one roof.