Humboldt University of Berlin
King Friedrich Wilhelm III signed the decree establishing the University of Berlin on the 16th of August 1809. The institution opened its doors to students in October 1810 within Prince Henry's Palace on Unter den Linden boulevard. Two hundred fifty-six students attended the first semester alongside fifty-two lecturers under rector Theodor Schmalz. Wilhelm von Humboldt had pushed for this new model but resigned his post in April 1810 before the school officially began operations. He was absent when the university opened that fall despite being its primary architect. The founders included Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher who helped shape early curriculum. In 1810, the university established the world's first academic chair dedicated solely to history. Ludwig Feuerbach, a student at the time, later commented on the unique atmosphere of the campus. The building itself stood as a former royal residence constructed between 1748 and 1753 by Johann Boumann.
Wilhelm von Humboldt proposed a radical union of teaching and research within the individual scholar or scientist. This philosophy became known globally as the Humboldtian model of higher education. The structure served as a direct template for institutions like Johns Hopkins University in the United States. Alexander von Humboldt promoted new learning disciplines while construction of modern research facilities began in the second half of the nineteenth century. Famous researchers such as chemist August Wilhelm Hofmann and physicist Hermann von Helmholtz contributed to Berlin University's scientific fame. The university developed to encompass numerous new scientific disciplines beyond traditional subjects like science, law, and theology. Emil du Bois-Reymond proclaimed in August 1870 that the institution was the intellectual bodyguard of the House of Hohenzollern. Nearly one third of all staff were fired during the Nazi era but the core mission remained intact until political suppression took hold. The university has been regarded as the world's preeminent institution for natural sciences during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Eugen Fischer served as rector during the period when the Nazi regime impacted all German universities after 1933. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service resulted in two hundred fifty Jewish professors and employees being fired from the university between 1933 and 1934. Students and scholars who opposed the Nazis were ejected from the university and often deported. During this time nearly one third of all staff were removed by the state apparatus. Some twenty thousand books by degenerates and opponents of the regime were taken from the university library on the 10th of May 1933. These volumes were burned in Opernplatz square now called Bebelplatz during a demonstration protected by the SA. Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels delivered a speech at the event. A monument to this tragic event called The Empty Library can now be found in the center of the square. It consists of a glass panel embedded in the pavement that looks into a large subterranean white room with empty shelf space for twenty thousand volumes.
The university reopened in 1946 as the University of Berlin but faced immediate repression from the Soviet Military Administration in Germany. Soviet occupiers started persecuting non-communists and suppressing academic freedom at the institution. They required lectures to be submitted for approval by Socialist Unity Party officials and piped Soviet propaganda into the cafeteria. NKVD secret police arrested a number of students in March 1947 as a response to protests within the student body and faculty. The Soviet Military Tribunal in Berlin-Lichtenberg sentenced these students to twenty-five years of forced labor. From 1945 to 1948, eighteen other students and teachers were arrested or abducted many missing for weeks. Some were taken to the Soviet Union and executed. The German communist party had long regarded social democrats as their main enemies dating back to the early days of the Weimar Republic. During the Berlin Blockade, the Freie Universität Berlin was established as a de facto western successor in West Berlin in 1948. The name refers to West Berlin's perceived status as part of the Western free world in contrast to the unfree Communist world.
After German reunification, the university was radically restructured under Structure and Appointment Commissions presided over by West German professors. For departments on social sciences and humanities, the faculty was subjected to a liquidation process where contracts of employees were terminated. Positions were made open to new academics mainly from West Germany while older professors were offered early retirement. The East German higher education system included a much larger number of permanent assistant professors lecturers and other middle level academic positions. After reunification these positions were abolished or converted to temporary posts for consistency with the West German system. Only ten percent of mid-level academics at Humboldt-Universität still held a position in 1998 through these transformations. The university's research and exchange links with Eastern European institutions were maintained and stabilized despite the upheaval. Today Humboldt University is a state university with thirty-six thousand nine hundred eighty-six students among them more than four thousand six hundred sixty-two foreign students after the model of West German universities.
The university consists of three different campuses namely Campus Mitte Campus Nord and Campus Adlershof. Its main building is located in the center of Berlin at the boulevard Unter den Linden and serves as the heart of Campus Mitte. All institutes of humanities are located around the main building together with the Department of Law and the Department of Business and Economics. Campus Nord is located north of the main building close to Berlin Hauptbahnhof and houses life science departments including the university medical center Charité. The natural sciences computer science and mathematics are located at Campus Adlershof in the south-east of Berlin. The university has a student enrollment of around thirty-five thousand students offering degree programs in some one hundred seventy-one disciplines from undergraduate to post-doctorate level. It is divided into nine faculties including its medical school shared with the Freie Universität Berlin. In total the university library contains about six point five million volumes and nine thousand held magazines and journals making it one of the biggest university libraries in Germany.
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Common questions
When was Humboldt University of Berlin established?
King Friedrich Wilhelm III signed the decree establishing the University of Berlin on the 16th of August 1809. The institution opened its doors to students in October 1810 within Prince Henry's Palace on Unter den Linden boulevard.
Who founded Humboldt University of Berlin and what model did they create?
Wilhelm von Humboldt proposed a radical union of teaching and research that became known globally as the Humboldtian model of higher education. The founders included Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher who helped shape early curriculum.
What happened to staff at Humboldt University of Berlin during the Nazi era?
Nearly one third of all staff were fired during the Nazi era but the core mission remained intact until political suppression took hold. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service resulted in two hundred fifty Jewish professors and employees being fired from the university between 1933 and 1934.
How did Soviet occupation affect Humboldt University of Berlin after 1945?
The university reopened in 1946 as the University of Berlin but faced immediate repression from the Soviet Military Administration in Germany. NKVD secret police arrested a number of students in March 1947 as a response to protests within the student body and faculty.
Where are the three campuses of Humboldt University of Berlin located today?
The university consists of three different campuses namely Campus Mitte Campus Nord and Campus Adlershof. Its main building is located in the center of Berlin at the boulevard Unter den Linden and serves as the heart of Campus Mitte.