They are the first women to hold their respective posts at TU Bergakademie Freiberg: Maja Krumnacker was appointed as the first female professor at the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology in 1978. Professor Jutta Emes has been the first female rector of the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology since 2025. Shortly before Maja Krumnacker’s 95th birthday on 11 July 2026, and around a year after Jutta Emes took up her post, the two academics met. Over coffee and lively conversation, the Emes and Krumnacker exchanged views on their experiences at the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology. Among other things, the discussion centred on the importance of female role models for young women and the growing opportunities available to them today in STEM subjects.
When Maja Krumnacker began her studies in metallurgy at the Bergakademie in 1949, she was not only the only woman in her year group, but also the youngest. “All the others had returned from the war and captivity,” says Krumnacker of her fellow students. Among others, she studied under Gerhard Grüß, who personally greeted his only female student in his maths lecture. When she was absent on one occasion, the popular professor began his lecture with “Gentlemen, without the lady…”. Maja Krumnacker stood out as the only woman, but she was welcomed into the students’ circle: “I was tolerated. On Father’s Day, I was allowed to go out with them. So it was all wonderful.”
Maja Krumnacker took up metallurgy on the advice of her brother, who was already studying mining at the Mining Academy. He brought a course catalogue home and made metallurgy sound appealing to his younger sister by listing, for her and their parents, the career paths open to her after graduation. Krumnacker always got top marks in maths, she explains: “The other technical subjects didn’t put me off in any way either. So we had a family meeting at home to look into it. And that’s when my brother encouraged me to take the subject.”
Freiberg – A place of pioneering women
Both professors are convinced that visibility and encouragement are crucial to inspiring more girls to pursue degrees in engineering and the natural sciences.
When asked about any difficulties she faced as a woman in a male-dominated profession, Maja Krumnacker says she was treated as an equal; both at the field of foundry engineering, where she worked for seven years, and on her return to the Bergakademie in the 1960s: “But then again, I was always the only woman. So men probably had neither the inclination nor any reason to treat me differently. And I simply don’t have any of those ‘feminine airs and graces’ either.”
Some seventy-five years after Maja Krumnacker began her studies in metallurgy in Freiberg, women are still in the minority in engineering and the natural sciences. How can a university with a focus on STEM subjects attract more female A-level students to its programmes? Jutta Emes focuses on excellent study conditions for all, mentoring programmes for female students, networks such as the ‘Network of Women in Academia’, and visibility: “We invite girls here to the campus. For example, to taster weeks during the summer holidays or to the Long Night of Science and Business. And on these occasions, women are always at the forefront – because we now have many female colleagues who are very successful. I believe the role-modelling effect should not be underestimated!” However, it was only later that Maja Krumnacker realised she herself had had precisely this effect: “My PhD students told me how important it was to them to have a female professor. And that they saw me as a role model.”
Emes and Krumnacker agree that Freiberg is a good place for pioneers: in research, the TU Bergakademie Freiberg is a leader in many fields. But a pioneering spirit also needs the right environment. In Freiberg, this is provided by the close-knit atmosphere and the short distances, “which also saves time that you might need to pick up children from nursery, for example. That is definitely one of the location’s strengths,” emphasises Jutta Emes. Maja Krumnacker, too, has always appreciated the size of her ‘little’ Bergakademie: ‘That’s precisely the advantage. It feels like being at a small American private university here.’ For her, Freiberg remains the ideal place to study, even 75 years after she first enrolled.
The exchange between the two pioneering figures at the TU Bergakademie Freiberg was described by both sides as enriching and inspiring. The TU Bergakademie Freiberg sees such intergenerational encounters as an important signal for equality at the university and for the promotion of early-career researchers.
