"The early bird catches the worm", thought Georg Wilhelm Heinrich Erdmann Baron von Pölnitz to himself as he registered as a student at the University on 24th March 1742. What was strange about this, however, was that the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg itself had not yet been founded. This apparent contradiction can be explained by the fact that the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg as we know it today was first established in Bayreuth in 1742 as the Academia Fridericiana and was relocated only the following year to Erlangen and then awarded university status. The matriculation books commence, therefore, with the first student who registered in Bayreuth.
The first student to register in Erlangen following the inauguration of the University was Johann Lorenz Arzberger from Ipsheim. He signed up to study Law on 6th November 1743.
And the first female student?
It sounds incredible, but until 1903 women were not permitted to study at a university. In this respect, Germany was well behind other countries. The first female student was Fanny Fuchs from Nuremberg who registered in Erlangen to study Medicine on 21st November 1903. The first full-time female student, Emmy Noether, gained her doctorate in 1908 and later achieved worldwide fame in the field of mathematics.
In 1950, Gisela Freund, a student of pre- and proto-history, became the first woman at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg to achieve her Habilitation. In 1963 the University appointed Ingeborg Esenwein-Rothe to the Chair of Statistics as the first female full professor.
