The volumes 11 and 12 of Fracture Mechanics of Ceramics constitute the proceedings of the 6th International Symposium on Fracture Mechanics of Ceramics held at the Research Center Karlsruhe, Germany, July 18,19,20,1995. As in previous conferences the state of the art of the failure behaviour of monolithic engineering ceramics and of reinforced ceramics was discussed. The 90 papers by over 200 authors and co-authors address the recent devel- opments in the understanding and the modelling of the fracture processes in brittle materi- als. The main topics are R-curve behaviour, toughness determination, surface effects, com- posite materials, high temperature behaviour, ceramic-metal joints, fatigue. The program chairmen gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Science Foundation) which made possible the participa- tion of scientists from East Europe. We also thank Mrs. Eva Schroder from the Research Cen- ter Karlsruhe, the local organization committee (Dirk Hertel, Claus Petersen, Dr. Franz Porz, Rainer Weif3) and the conference secretary Mrs. Lucia Borchardt for their conscientious and efficient organization of all details of the conference, Mrs. Isabella Daubenthaler and Mrs. Natascha Rothweiler for preparing the booklet of abstracts and Dr. Theo Fett for his help in editing the proceedings.