The University of Stuttgart mourns its former chancellor Joachim Schwarze, who passed away on 28th October 2013 shortly before his 73rd birthday in his place of residence in Tübingen. Schwarze headed the administration of the university from 1991 until he retired in 2005. “In Joachim Schwarze the University of Stuttgart had a chancellor with exceptional negotiating skills and endurance in times of increasingly tight financial leeway. We are very grateful to him and will always remember him with much gratitude. Our commiserations go to his family and relatives“, according to the Rector of the University of Stuttgart, Prof. Wolfram Ressel. University Chancellor Dr. Bettina Buhlmann: “My predecessor acted with circumspection and far-sightedness so that the success of his work can still be felt in many places within the university.“
In his period in office, Joachim Schwarze arranged for the adjustment of internal university regulations to the new univeristy legislation as well as important projects in the construction and financial field, including the buildings of the Electro-Technical Institute II and Informatics, the guest lecturer house and the International Centre on the University Campus in Vaihingen as well as the structural concentration in the university area in the city centre. He promoted making the budget more flexible and university controlling within the administration and made observations on introducing commercial accounting. It was always of great importance to Schwarze to use knowledge in an optimum way, to avoid duplicating work and to always bundle tasks efficiently. This was also apparent, for instance, in his concept for the Central Data Protection Unit ZENDAS of the Baden-Württemberg Universities, which is still located at the University of Stuttgart today.
Schwarze was born in Breslau in 1940 and did his university entrance exam in 1959 in
Schweinfurt. In 1964 he completed his qualified interpreter examinations in French and English at
the University of Mainz, he did his first state examination in law in 1969 in Heidelberg and
Bochum, followed by the second in 1973. In the same year he became Head of the Legal Department at
the University of Bochum, ultimately taking over a series of other tasks and construction issues as
well as finances up to international relations or technology transfer and finally the office of
Vice Chancellor of the University of Bochum, sometimes performing these tasks parallel to each
other. He was then elected the Chancellor of the University of Stuttgart in 1991 and worked in this
capacity until he retired.
