The Université Humboldt of Berlin was founded by Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1810.

The Humboldt University was founded the August 16th 1809, on the initiative of the liberal reformer of education, and linguist, Wilhelm von Humboldt (Prussian). It took up duty in 1810, under the name of university of Berlin ( Alma MATER Berolinensis ). Of 1828 with 1946 it was called the Université Frederic-Guillaume , in the honor of its founder, the King of Prussia Frederic-Guillaume III. It was only in 1949 that one decided, under the pressure of the Communist government, for the current name. The names of its teachers and its most known students would almost be enough to recall the whole of the intellectual, scientific history and policy of Germany: in philosophy, Fichte, Hegel and Feuerbach, in physics, Einstein and Planck, without forgetting Heine, but also Bismarck and Karl Marx. Twenty-nine Nobel Prize taught there.

Creation

The lately founded university of Berlin knew its first half of the year in 1810. There were then 256 students and 52 teachers. The University was divided into four faculties, namely those of right, medicine, philosophy and theology. Sciences of nature concerned then the faculty of Philosophie.

They were important scientists of this time, and before all the philosopher Fichte and the theologist Schleiermacher, which gave its true impulse to the lately founded University.

Under the influence of the reforming ideas of Schleiermacher, the diplomat and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt developed his design of the University. Humboldt directed since February 1809 the section of the worships and the teaching of the ministry for the interior (it occupied these functions only one year). It wished above all to set up in Prussia a new system of education. The pillars of its designs were, to go quickly, on the one hand the narrow union of research and teaching, on the other hand the freedom of studies and research left with each one, according to its wanting clean and of the formation of its personality.

The first generation of professors had his nomination with Wilhelm von Humboldt. One can quote August Böckh (Philologie), Albrecht Daniel Thaer (political economy), Karl Friedrich von Savigny (Droit), Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland (Médecine) and Carl Ritter (Geography). They were recognized in the educational designs of Wilhelm von Humboldt. As it had wanted this scholar and statesman, the organization of the studies rested on the requirement that academies and universities, as well as relatively autonomous establishments of research, are associated. The University profited from all that was specific to facilitate the instruction of the students, of all which they could need. It thus accepted the unoccupied palate of the Prince Heinrich of Prussia, built 1748 with 1766. Altered many time, it was increased in the years 1913-1920. It is in the avenue Unter den Linden, and is still today the principal building of the University. Designs of Humboldt, developed by him in a test which knew only one late fame, “  On the internal organization and external of the educational establishments in Berlin  ”, the modern notion of the University influenced.

Extension

Beside the strong anchoring of speciality traditional, like the study of antiquity, the Right, philology and the history, medicine and theology, the University of Berlin opened with many news scientific disciplines.

It particularly had this evolution to the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, the brother of the founder of the University, Wilhelm. It is in second half of the 19th century that was installation the screen of research and more modern lesson, in the field of sciences of nature. Famous researchers, like the chemist August Wilhelm von Hoffmann, the physicist Hermann von Helmholtz, the mathematicians Ernst Eduard Kummer, Leopold Kronecker, Karl Weierstrass, the doctors Johannes Peter Müller, Albrecht von Graefe, Rudolf Virchow and Robert Koch, made much to carry the scientific fame of the University of Berlin beyond the national borders.

During its extension, installations which existed already in Berlin transfer gradually integrated into the University. Let us give here the example of “  Charité  ”. In 1710, Frederic Ier made build apart from the city a house of forty for the patients the plague. It is the “  King-soldat  ” Frederic Guillaume who issued into 1727 that the building would bear this French name. In 1829 the medical college of the University settled there.

One set up in 1889 a special building for the collection of natural history, which belonged to the University since 1810. It is the current museum of sciences of nature. A school veterinary surgeon, which existed since 1790, formed in 1934 the veterinary ground floor of the medical college. Lastly, the university of political economy, founded in 1881, was integrated into the University as a faculty.

Women and the University

Reforming liberal the Alice Solomon, figure of the German feminist movement, was one of the rare women who had access to the higher learning at the beginning of the twentieth century. The committed women had to fight of tens of years to have the right to take share with the scientific life. However, as of the year the 1908 Prussians obtained the right to be registered at the University. Of four faculties, it was that of philosophy which knew the greatest multitude of women. Already, before the right to be registered there had been coeds at the University of Berlin, but only of the doctorantes, provided with an exceptional authorization. The first was, in 1899, the physician Elsa Neumann. After the First World War, the women started to obtain the access to professorship. In 1926, Lise Meitner became the first physician named like Professeure “  exceptionnelle  ” of a university of Prussia. For other the erudite gifted ones, like the Jewish historian Hedwig Hintze, the academic career finished in 1933 by prohibition to teach and the emigration. Liselotte Richter entered annals of the University as a first German professeure of philosophy and theology - nevertheless it was only in 1947!

The period Nazi

With the takeover of Adolf Hitler, a black chapter of the history of the University opened. Using of libelous charges and legal proceedings, the Nazis undertook a smear campaign of the scientists and Jewish students. The courses of the Jewish teachers were boycotted, their listeners were victims of aggressions. The participation of students and teachers in autos-da-fe, starting from May 10th, 1933, mark particularly of infamy a University of such a scientific reputation. In the months and the years which followed, approximately a third of the collaborators of the University was returned by the Nazis. On the basis of law of aryanisation of the public office, more than 250 Jewish professors and employees transfer themselves to prohibit into 1933/34 to teach or work, of many doctors were deposed of their title (thus Julius Pokorny, inter alia). Many scientists and students had to flee for always the University of Berlin, which did not deserve to be called any more its Alma MATER, it that one had regarded so a long time as the temple of the humanistic thought.

The University and the German intellectual life will remain marked forever by the eviction and the assassination of scientists and Jewish students, as well as political opponents with National-socialisme, more especially as the Nazis hardly met resistance to their companies in the academic world.

The recasting after the German defeat

By order of the Soviet military administration (Prikaz n° 4) the University was réouverte in January 1946. The courses included initially in the buildings of seven faculties, buildings which had been very damaged during the war. Many teachers had died, or had disappeared. However, as of the six-month period of winter 1946 one could reopen the faculty of economy and that of pedagogy. The young people who for the period Nazi were continued for racial reasons or policy had not been able to profit from secondary education, nor to obtain the diplomas which sanction it. In order to give them this chance, one set up an institute pre-academic. He became thereafter the core of the faculty of the workers and the peasants, ABF ( Arbeiter- und Bauernfakultät ). It will perdura until 1962.

The scission of the University

In Germany of the post-war period, the ideologies and the political projects diverging from the Allies led to dissensions, which gave rise to the cold war between the East and the West. For this reason, Communism exerted an influence increasingly stronger on the University. Contrary to what had occurred under Hitler, that was not without involving reactions, and there were strong protests among the students and the teaching staff. The capacity counteracted inter alia by the arrest of many students by the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, in March 1947. The Soviet military tribunal of Berlin-Lichtenberg inflicted twenty-five years to them each one of forced labors, under pretext of “  underground agitation within the University of Berlin  ”, or under the allegation of espionage. Also, as of the end of the year 1947, of the voices rose to claim a free university. Eighteen students and teachers were stopped or off-set between 1945 and 1948, much from others disappeared during weeks. Some same were removed and judged in the USSR. In spring 1948 direction of the University prohibited of studies of many students, that without same passing by a legal procedure. Part of the professors and students then made scission of the University of Berlin, and founded the free Université of Berlin. One withdrew oneself in the American sector of occupation in Dahlem, in the building of the ex-company of Kaiser Guillaume. The Latin currency “  Veritas - Iustitia - Libertas  ” (Truth, Justice, Freedom) the ideological distance with regard to the old Berliner university dominated by Communism marked. At the same time, a archaïsant seal made it possible to be attached to the tradition (the Berliner bear with the torch of freedom). The division of the city between the East and the West lasted of the years, and it ends up perennializing the scission between the two universities, autonomous in fact.

Name change and the East-German era

In 1949 the old Berliner university of the alley Unter den Linden accepted the name of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Humboldt University of Berlin). While being thus placed under the aegis of the two scholars - the Wilhelm brothers and Alexander von Humboldt - the university made mine claim ideals sublimes of humanism and free blooming of the knowledge. But the political conditions and social of the time prohibited any beginning of practical application. Indeed, the fundamental policies of GDR, founded in 1949, gradually gave their orientation to the contents of studies, the courses, and the conditions of research. Thanks to the relaxation in Europe, which started in the middle of the years 1970, the Humboldt University could again find a role in the international concert, at least in certain scientific disciplines, and consolidate it by the world co-operation. Let us underline here the relations, durable and intensive, that the University developed in the field of research, as well as the exchanges with the higher establishments, in Eastern Europe and Central Europe. Particularly with establishments of the old Soviet Union. But there was also at the same intensive time of the cooperative relations with North-American and Japanese universities, or with countries in the process of development, in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The Humboldt University was the largest university of GDR. Until 1990, nearly 150.000 students were formed there. The enquiring ones and researchers of an international repute taught there. Much could preserve their row in the academic world even after the reunification. Nevertheless, the majority were congédiés.

The Humboldt University today

The consecutive restoration of the contents to the political turning of 1989 was accompanied by an important change in staff. Between 1989 and 1994, pas less than 3000 teachers and teaching left higher education. Ones because of their age, but majority for political reasons, structural, or in relation to their scientific specialization. In reply to the opinion of professional and structural commissions, as on the basis of advice and recommendation many of groups of expert, the Humboldt University gave itself a new scientific organization: the contents of research and teaching were evaluated, reformed, redefined.

Since the reunification of Germany in 1990, Berlin has four universities. They test, with the help of difficult but continuous process of harmonization, to coordinate their courses. The traditional courses were restructured and study offers it adopted a modern base and international standards. Research was seen redirecting and reinforcing. Thanks to this restoration, the Humboldt University could find its fame and its attractivity in the field of research like teaching. The considerable financings placed at the disposal by the Company of German research attest, it is the least that one can say, of this revival. They irrigate particular the research projects, the various fields of, the courses, and finally scientific recruitment. One can regard these funds as an indicator of the scientific success of the Humboldt University. The close practical contacts and the co-operation with the economy reinforce the anchoring of the University in the company.

Since 1994, the University comprises eleven faculties, of many interdisciplinary centers, and the central institutes proposing nearly 168 different courses (figure of 2007). With more than 300 buildings in Berlin and in Brandebourg, its real inheritance is one of most significant of the area. During the six-month period of winter 2004/2005, 40.828 students éaient registered in the superior and at the medical college of Charity. This number results from a strong increase in manpower since the reform in the University. It counted yet only 20.425 students during the six-month period of winter 1992/1993. Manpower thus almost doubled. It was necessary to set up a numerus clausus which relates to all the dies. Thus, during the six-month period of winter 2003/2004, 25.300 graduates candidatèrent for 6.000 places. Of course, that is also explained by the attraction why has the Capital for young girls and young people. The various campuses are located in the center of Berlin, North, and the district of Adlershof. 5791 foreign students, is 14,1  % of manpower, at present study and make research at the Humboldt University. They come of more than 100 countries of the world. The semi-annual registration fee rises into 2005/2006 to 232,68 euros for the students of normal age (this sum includes the access to public transport of Berlin).

At present, the University maintains the partnerships within the framework of the scientific co-operation with more than 170 establishments located on all the continents. She wants to be a “  University placed under the sign of the reform and the excellence  ”. It associates a modern management and a presidency resulting from the important administration of the State. The remarkable acceleration of scientific recruitment, a professional system of qualification in research and teaching, and finally the reform of the studies, from now on resolutely directed towards the future, make this University of the capital city one of the establishments higher leaders in Germany. Each year of many classifications of the higher establishments confirm with which point the Humboldt University enjoys a broad recognition, at the same time national and international.

Postal address

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Unter den Linden 6

10099 Berlin

External bond

• Official site of the Humboldt University of Berlin

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