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Among the more than 150 monuments in the Arkadenhof of the University of Vienna, whose main building (architect: Heinrich Ferstl) on Vienna's Ringstrasse was opened in 1884, you can find the who's who of the country's intellectual elite. In addition to some monumental monuments, such as Leo Graf von Thun-Hohenstein (Minister of Education from 1849 to 1860), two double monuments are also striking. Both turn out to be monuments to father and son. Father Johann Ritter von Oppolzer (doctor) is iconographically united with his son Theodor Ritter von Oppolzer (astronomer) in white marble, as are the dark busts of Joseph Johann von Littrow and his colleague Karl Ludwig von Littrow (both astronomers). Hardly noticed and little known is the fact that the name Exner can be found three times in the arcade courtyard. Here too there is a father, Franz Serafin Exner (senior; philosopher), and two of his sons, the eldest Adolf Exner (lawyer) and the youngest Franz Serafin Exner (junior; physicist). Their monuments, two marble busts and a metal relief, are only a few meters apart. They were built in 1893, 1896 and 1937.
The progenitor, Franz Serafin Exner (1802-1853), can be found - starting from the entrance - in the left arcade at the back left of the monument to Leo Graf von Thun-Hohenstein (1811-1888), the former Minister of Education. To the right of it is the monument to the philologist Hermann Bonitz (1814–1888). It's no coincidence that the three men are standing next to each other. The “Thun-Exner-Donitz Monument” by Carl Kundmann goes back to a resolution in 1890. The aim was to create a worthy memory of the creators of the university and teaching reform of 1849/50. Salomon Frankfurter's book published in 1893 contains biographical details with the telling subtitle "Contributions to the history of the Austrian teaching reform".
Briefly about Exner's career, who is honored in the "German Biography" as a philosopher and school organizer. Born on August 28, 1802 in Vienna, he studied law at the University of Vienna from 1821 to 1823, then went to Italy (Pavia) and received his doctorate in law in Vienna in 1825. Only then did he turn to his favorite subject, philosophy. From 1827 to 1831 he taught this subject at the University of Vienna, then he accepted a professorship in philosophy at the University of Prague. “The years of his activity in Prague from 1831 to 1848 were rich in successes for him as a teacher and scholar,” Frankfurter tells us. In 1840 he found his private happiness in Charlotte Dusensy, a "young lady born in Vienna" whom he had known and married for a long time. The happy marriage resulted in five children, four boys and one girl.
On August 16, 1842, as a visibly worried father, he wrote to his wife from Berlin: "What are our boys doing?" (Frankfurter, p. 65). Specifically, he meant Adolf (1841–1894) and Karl (1842–1914), who was less than six months old at the time. In 1844 the two had a little sister, Marie (1844–1926). Later two brothers, Sigmund (1846–1926) and Franz Serafin (1849–1926).
In April 1848, Exner returned with his family to Vienna, where he worked as a scientific advisor to the Ministry of Education. In this context, the editions of the Wiener Zeitung from July 18th to 21st, 1848 are worth reading. The "Draft of the basic principles of public education in Austria", which is not marked by name and published in four parts, is based - as Frankfurter tells us - on Exner's ideas. Here you will find concrete suggestions for improving the education system from elementary school to university. In other words, one of THE foundations of Thun-Hohenstein's teaching reform, which makes it clear why Exner's marble bust is part of the triptych with Thun-Hohenstein in the middle and Bonitz on the right. Exner, who died on June 21, 1853 in Padua (Italy) at the age of 52, unfortunately did not live to see what became of his "boys".
Just a few steps further, also carved in marble, is the face of "Adolf Exner (1841–1894) Professor of Roman Law, Member of the Manor House and Imperial Court," according to the golden letters on the console on which the bust (sculptor Hans Bitterlich) of Franz Serafin Exner's first-born son, unveiled in 1896, stands. In 1891, "Adolphus Exner" can also be found on the board of the rectors of the University of Vienna, immediately to the left of the main entrance, who at 53 was hardly older than his father. After studying law at the University of Vienna (doctorate in 1863) and spending time abroad in Germany (Leipzig, Heidelberg and Berlin), he received his habilitation in 1866. In 1868 he went to Zurich, where he became a professor of Roman law. Here he became friends with the poet Gottfried Keller and met the Ringstrasse architect Gottfried Semper. Four years later, in 1872, he succeeded Rudolf von Jhering at the University of Vienna and became full professor of Roman law. Together with other scholars, such as the geologist Ferdinand v. Hochstetter, he was one of Crown Prince Rudolf's teachers from 1875. In the obituary he was honored as an excellent lecturer: "Adolf Exner was one of those teachers who knew how to imprint their personal individuality on the subject matter and who knew how to win and maintain the interest of all listeners on the most brittle subject through the magic of their presentation, the spirit of their approach and the originality of their conception." (Neues Wiener Journal, September 11, 1894).
A few meters further there is a dark metal relief on a pillar. "Franz Exner Professor of Physics 1849–1926". In other words, the youngest of the four "boys". The biographical work "Franz S. Exner and his Circle" by Berta Karlik (1904–1990) and the physicist Erich Schmid (1896–1983) contains numerous details about the Exners. The physicist Karlik, whose monument has also been in the Arkadenhof since 2016, was the first woman to receive a full professorship at the University of Vienna in 1956. Schmid, in turn, was President of the Academy of Sciences from 1963 to 1973. He received the Wilhelm Exner Medal in 1957, Karlik received it in 1954. But more on that later.
Franz S. Exner (jr.) had studied physics in Vienna (doctorate in 1871), completed his habilitation here in 1874. In 1879 he became associate professor, and in 1891 full professor of the Chemical-Physical Institute. In the fall of 1907, like his eldest brother Adolf, he became rector of the University of Vienna. During Exner's era, the university's physics institutes were built on Boltzmanngasse, at the corner of Strudlhofgasse in Vienna's Alsergrund. The new premises were available for research and teaching from the winter semester of 1913/14 and replaced the location at Türkenstrasse 3 (Vienna Alsergrund).
The Institute for Radium Research of the Imperial Academy of Sciences was opened in Boltzmanngasse (No. 3) on October 28, 1910. The boss was Exner, but de facto it was run by his student, Stefan Meyer. In addition to Meyer, after whom the Institute for Radium Research is now named SMI (Stefan Meyer Institute), Exner's circle of "closest collaborators" - Karlik and Schmid list eleven people here - also included the two Nobel Prize winners Viktor Hess (1936) and Erwin Schrödinger (1933). The “group of other employees” brings together 13 names, including his nephew Felix Maria Exner-Ewarten (1876–1930). How great the influence of the Exner circle was is shown by the fact that over a period of 30 years, all experimental physics teaching positions in Austria were occupied by its students.
First to Marie, the sister of the four Exner brothers, who was born in Prague in 1844. At a young age she looked after her brothers, who had been orphans since 1859 due to the early death of their parents. In 1874 she became engaged to Anton von Frisch, who was then an assistant to the surgeon Theodor Billroth. The couple also maintained close contacts with Gottfried Keller, who visited them in 1874 in their Viennese apartment at Josefstädter Straße 17 (commemorative plaque) in Vienna Josefstadt. Their son, the zoologist Karl v. Frisch (1886–1982), received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1973 for behavioral research on bees (On the "language" of bees, 1923).
Karl Exner (1842–1914), the second-born, was a physicist. After successfully completing his teaching studies in mathematics and physics, he initially taught as an assistant teacher. In 1892 he completed his habilitation at the University of Vienna as a private lecturer in theoretical physics. Two years later, in 1894, he accepted the professorship for mathematical physics in Innsbruck.
His older brother, Sigmund Exner (1846–1926), worked as a doctor and physiologist (graduated in 1870). His career in staccato: 1871 private lecturer, 1875 a.o. Professor at the Physiological Institute in Vienna, full professor of physiology in 1891, appointment as k.u.k. Hofrat in 1897, president of the Society of Physicians in Vienna in 1910 and finally - on the occasion of his retirement in 1917 - ennobling Knight Exner von Ewarten. An honor that was only bestowed on him as the only one of the Exners. He is also one of the co-founders (1899) of the Phonogram Archive of the Academy of Sciences, which once again underlines his broad interests.
His two sons, Alfred (1875–1921), who became a doctor, and Felix Maria (1876–1930), who initially turned to physics with his uncle Franz S. before devoting himself to meteorology, also pursued academic careers. Felix Maria Exner was director of the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (today: part of GeoSphere Austria) from December 1912 until his death on February 7, 1930. His son, Christof (1915–2007) was a geologist at the University of Vienna (1958: associate professor, 1964: full professor). His time as a soldier in the Second World War was recently comprehensively analyzed under the title “The geologists Otto Ampferer and Christof Exner during the Second World War”.
His great-grandfather, Franz Serafin, born in 1802, would certainly have asked - "What are our boys doing?" – also had fun with the grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
P.S.: The Wilhelm Exner Medal mentioned above has been awarded by the Austrian Trade Association since 1921. It does not go back to any of the Exners mentioned here. The name's sponsor and its first bearer is the eponymous Wilhelm Franz Exner (1840–1931), the busy founder (1879) and director (until 1904) of the TGM (Technological Trade Museum). Wilhelm-Exner-Gasse in Vienna Alsergrund is also named after him. (Thomas Hofmann, January 17, 2025)