— Ch. 1 · Medieval Origins And Hanseatic Rise —
Göttingen.
~7 min read · Ch. 1 of 6
The River Leine runs through a city that first appeared in documents as the village of Gutingi in 953 AD. Holy Roman Emperor Otto I granted property there to the Moritz monastery in Magdeburg during that same year. Archaeological evidence suggests people lived along the small stream called the Gote as early as the seventh century. A trading settlement formed at the river crossing west of the original village between 1150 and 1200 AD. Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, likely founded this new town on land shaped like a pentagon. The citizens gained rights to self-governance and protection for traders in a document from 1232. Duke Otto the Child restored these privileges after years of conflict with Welf lords. By 1351, Göttingen joined the Hanseatic League to access north-south trade routes connecting Lübeck and Frankfurt am Main. Textile production thrived when up to 3000 sheep and 1500 lambs provided wool for export to the Netherlands. The town became wealthy enough to build St. John's Church into a Gothic hall structure starting in the first half of the fourteenth century. Citizens destroyed the nearby fortress of Grona between 1323 and 1329 to secure their independence. In April 1387, townspeople stormed and demolished a fortress within city walls to force Duke Otto I to acknowledge their autonomy. The population grew as fortifications expanded to cover roughly one square kilometer by the late thirteenth century.
The University And Academic Legacy
George II Augustus founded the Georg-August-Universität in 1737 with its first classes beginning in 1737. The university became known as Georgia Augusta and eventually attracted more visitors than any other European institution during its early centuries. Seven professors protested against the absolute sovereignty of the kings of Hanover in 1837 and lost their positions. These seven men became famous as the Göttingen Seven despite losing their jobs. Carl Friedrich Gauss served as a professor here while developing his groundbreaking mathematical theories. Bernhard Riemann worked at the university before creating the geometry that bears his name today. David Hilbert taught mathematics there until his death in 1943 after establishing what is now called Hilbert's basis theorem. Max Planck won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918 for his work on quantum theory. Richard Adolf Zsigmondy received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1925 for discovering colloidal gold solutions. Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear fission. Max Born shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1954 for his fundamental research in quantum mechanics. Manfred Eigen won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1967 for studying rapid chemical reactions. Thomas C. Südhof received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2013 for discoveries about synaptic transmission. The Brothers Grimm studied law at this university before collecting German folktales. Heinrich Ewald held a professorship teaching theology and orientalist studies from 1803 to 1875. Wilhelm Eduard Weber conducted physics experiments alongside his brother-in-law Carl Friedrich Gauss. Karl Barth delivered his first professorial lectures here during the early twentieth century. Gerhard Schröder attended law school at Göttingen before becoming Chancellor of Germany.