Humboldt University of Berlin facts for kids

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Humboldt University of Berlin

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Seal of the Universitas Humboldtiana Berolinensis (Latin)
Motto	Universitas litterarum (Latin)
Motto in English	The Entity of Sciences
Type	Public
Established	15 October 1810; 214 years ago (1810-10-15)
Budget	€536.0 million (2022)
President	Julia von Blumenthal
Academic staff	2,403
Administrative staff	1,516
Students	32,553
Undergraduates	18,712
Postgraduates	10,881
Doctoral students	2,951
Location	Berlin , Germany 52°31′05″N 13°23′36″E / 52.51806°N 13.39333°E / 52.51806; 13.39333
Campus	Urban and suburban
Nobel Laureates	57 (as of 2020)
Colors	Blue and White
Affiliations	German Universities Excellence Initiative UNICA U15 Atomium Culture EUA IAU FGU Erasmus

The Humboldt University of Berlin (German: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany.

The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humboldt, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher as the University of Berlin (Universität zu Berlin) in 1809, and opened in 1810, making it the oldest of Berlin's four universities. From 1828 until its closure in 1945, it was named Friedrich Wilhelm University (German: Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität). During the Cold War, the university found itself in East Berlin and was de facto split in two when the Free University of Berlin opened in West Berlin. The university received its current name in honour of Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1949.

The university is divided into nine faculties including its medical school shared with the Freie Universität Berlin. The university has a student enrollment of around 32,000 students, and offers degree programs in some 189 disciplines from undergraduate to post-doctorate level. Its main campus is located on the Unter den Linden boulevard in central Berlin. The university is known worldwide for pioneering the Humboldtian model of higher education, which has strongly influenced other European and Western universities.

It was generally regarded as the world's preeminent university for the natural sciences during the 19th and early 20th century, as the university is linked to major breakthroughs in physics and other sciences by its professors, such as Albert Einstein. Past and present faculty and notable alumni include 57 Nobel Prize laureates (the most of any German university), as well as scholars and academics including Albert Einstein, Hermann von Helmholtz, Emil du Bois-Reymond, Robert Koch, Theodor Mommsen, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Otto von Bismarck, W. E. B. Du Bois, Arthur Schopenhauer, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Walter Benjamin, Max Weber, Georg Simmel, Karl Liebknecht, Ernst Cassirer, Heinrich Heine, Eduard Fraenkel, Max Planck, Wernher von Braun and the Brothers Grimm.

History

Main building

The main building of Humboldt-Universität is the Prinz-Heinrich-Palais (English: Prince Henry's Palace) on Unter den Linden boulevard in the historic centre of Berlin. It was erected from 1748 to 1753 for Prince Henry of Prussia, the brother of Frederick the Great, according to plans by Johann Boumann in Baroque style. In 1809, the former Royal Prussian residence was converted into a university building. Damaged during the Allied bombing in World War II, it was rebuilt from 1949 to 1962.

In 1967, eight statues from the destroyed Potsdam City Palace were placed on the side wings of the university building. Currently there is discussion about returning the statues to the Potsdam City Palace, which was rebuilt as the Landtag of Brandenburg in 2013.

Early history

Statue of Wilhelm von Humboldt in front of the main building by artist Paul Otto

The University of Berlin was established on 16 August 1809, on the initiative of the liberal Prussian educational politician Wilhelm von Humboldt by King Friedrich Wilhelm III, similar to University of Bonn, during the period of the Prussian Reform Movement. The university was located in a palace constructed from 1748 to 1766 for the late Prince Henry, the younger brother of Frederick the Great. After his widow and her ninety-member staff moved out, the first unofficial lectures were given in the building in the winter of 1809. Humboldt faced great resistance to his ideas as he set up the university. He submitted his resignation to the King in April 1810, and was not present when the school opened that fall. The first students were admitted on 6 October 1810, and the first semester started on 10 October 1810, with 256 students and 52 lecturers in faculties of law, medicine, theology and philosophy under rector Theodor Schmalz. The university celebrates 15 October 1810 as the date of its opening. In 1810, at the time of the opening, the university established the first academic chair in the field of history in the world. From 1828 to 1945, the school was named the Friedrich Wilhelm University, in honor of its founder. Ludwig Feuerbach, then one of the students, made a comment on the university in 1826: "There is no question here of [...] duelling and pleasant communal outings; in no other university can you find such a passion for work, such an interest for things that are not petty student intrigues, such an inclination for the sciences, such calm and such silence. Compared to this temple of work, the other universities appear like public houses."

The university has been home to many of Germany's greatest thinkers of the past two centuries, among them the subjective idealist philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, the absolute idealist philosopher G.W.F. Hegel, the Romantic legal theorist Friedrich Carl von Savigny, the anti-optimist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, the objective idealist philosopher Friedrich Schelling, cultural critic Walter Benjamin, and famous physicists Albert Einstein and Max Planck.

Friedrich Wilhelm University in 1850

The founders of Marxist theory Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels attended the university, as did poet Heinrich Heine, novelist Alfred Döblin, founder of structuralism Ferdinand de Saussure, German unifier Otto von Bismarck, Communist Party of Germany founder Karl Liebknecht, African American Pan Africanist W. E. B. Du Bois and European unifier Robert Schuman, as well as the influential surgeon Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach in the early half of the 1800s.

The structure of German research-intensive universities served as a model for institutions like Johns Hopkins University. Further, it has been claimed that "the 'Humboldtian' university became a model for the rest of Europe [...] with its central principle being the union of teaching and research in the work of the individual scholar or scientist."

Enlargement

Statue of Alexander von Humboldt outside Humboldt-Universität, from 1883 by artist Reinhold Begas

In addition to the strong anchoring of traditional subjects, such as science, law, philosophy, history, theology and medicine, the university developed to encompass numerous new scientific disciplines. Alexander von Humboldt, brother of the founder William, promoted the new learning. The construction of modern research facilities in the second half of the 19th century aided the teaching of the natural sciences. Famous researchers, such as the chemist August Wilhelm Hofmann, the physicist Hermann von Helmholtz, the mathematicians Ernst Eduard Kummer, Leopold Kronecker, Karl Weierstrass, the physicians Johannes Peter Müller, Emil du Bois-Reymond, Albrecht von Graefe, Rudolf Virchow, and Robert Koch, contributed to Berlin University's scientific fame.

Friedrich Wilhelm University became an emulated model of a modern university in the 19th century (photochrom from 1900).

During this period of enlargement, the university gradually expanded to incorporate other previously separate colleges in Berlin. An example would be the Charité, the Pépinière and the Collegium Medico-chirurgicum. In 1710, King Friedrich I had built a quarantine house for Plague at the city gates, which in 1727 was rechristened by the "soldier king" Friedrich Wilhelm: "Es soll das Haus die Charité heißen" (It will be called Charité [French for charity]). By 1829 the site became the Friedrich Wilhelm University's medical campus and remained so until 1927 when the more modern University Hospital was constructed.

The university started a natural history collection in 1810, which by 1889, required a separate building and became the Museum für Naturkunde. The preexisting Tierarznei School, founded in 1790 and absorbed by the university, in 1934 formed the basis of the Veterinary Medicine Facility (Grundstock der Veterinärmedizinischen Fakultät). Also the Landwirtschaftliche Hochschule Berlin (Agricultural University of Berlin), founded in 1881 was affiliated with the Agricultural Faculties of the university.

In August 1870, in a speech delivered on the eve of war with France, Emil du Bois-Reymond proclaimed that "the University of Berlin, quartered opposite the King's palace, is, by the deed of our foundation, the intellectual bodyguard of the House of Hohenzollern (das geistige Leibregiment des Hauses Hohenzollern)."

Third Reich

Friedrich Wilhelm University in 1938

After 1933, like all German universities, Friedrich Wilhelm University was affected by the Nazi regime. The rector during this period was Eugen Fischer. It was from the university's library that some 20,000 books by "degenerates" and opponents of the regime were taken to be burned on 10 May of that year in the Opernplatz (now the Bebelplatz) for a demonstration protected by the SA that also featured a speech by Joseph Goebbels. A monument to this can now be found in the center of the square, consisting of a glass panel opening onto an underground white room with empty shelf space for 20,000 volumes and a plaque, bearing an epigraph from an 1820 work by Heinrich Heine: "Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen" ("This was but a prelude; where they burn books, they ultimately burn people").

The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service (German "Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums") resulted in 250 Jewish professors and employees being fired from Friedrich Wilhelm University during 1933–1934 and numerous doctorates being withdrawn. Students and scholars and political opponents of Nazis were ejected from the university and often deported. During this time nearly one third of all of the staff were fired by the Nazis.

Cold War

Humboldt University, 1950

Humboldt University in 1964

During the Cold War, the university was located in East Berlin. It reopened in 1946 as the University of Berlin, but faced repression from the Soviet Military Administration in Germany, including the persecution of liberal and social democrat students. Almost immediately, the Soviet occupiers started persecuting non-communists and suppressing academic freedom at the university, requiring lectures to be submitted for approval by Socialist Unity Party officials, and piped Soviet propaganda into the cafeteria. This led to strong protests within the student body and faculty. NKVD secret police arrested a number of students in March 1947 as a response. The Soviet Military Tribunal in Berlin-Lichtenberg ruled the students were involved in the formation of a "resistance movement at the University of Berlin", as well as espionage, and were sentenced to 25 years of forced labor. From 1945 to 1948, 18 other students and teachers were arrested or abducted, many gone for weeks, and some taken to the Soviet Union and executed. Many of the students targeted by Soviet persecution were active in the liberal or social democratic resistance against the Soviet-imposed communist dictatorship; the German communist party had regarded the social democrats as their main enemies since 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, with support from the United States, and retaining traditions and faculty members of the old Friedrich Wilhelm University. The name of the Free University refers to West Berlin's perceived status as part of the Western "free world", in contrast to the "unfree" Communist world in general and the "unfree" communist-controlled university in East Berlin in particular.

Since the historical name, Friedrich Wilhelm University, had monarchic origins, the school was officially renamed in 1949. Although the Soviet occupational authorities preferred to name the school after a communist leader, university leaders were able to name it the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, after the two Humboldt brothers, a name that was also uncontroversial in the west and capitalized on the fame of the Humboldt name, which is associated with the Humboldtian model of higher education.

Modern Germany

The main building of Humboldt- Universität, located in Berlin's "Mitte" district (Unter den Linden boulevard)

After the German reunification, the university was radically restructured under the Structure and Appointment Commissions, which were presided by West German professors. For departments on social sciences and humanities, the faculty was subjected to a "liquidation" process, in which contracts of employees were terminated and positions were made open to new academics, mainly West Germans. 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. As a result, only 10% of the mid-level academics in Humboldt-Universität still had a position in 1998. Through the transformations, the university's research and exchange links with Eastern European institutions were maintained and stabilized.

Today, Humboldt University is a state university with a large number of students (36,986 in 2014, among them more than 4,662 foreign students) after the model of West German universities, and like its counterpart the Freie Universität Berlin.

The university consists of three different campuses, namely Campus Mitte, Campus Nord and Campus Adlershof. Its main building is located in the centre of Berlin at the boulevard Unter den Linden and is the heart of Campus Mitte. The building was erected on order by King Frederick II for his younger brother Prince Henry of Prussia. All the 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 is the home of the life science departments including the university medical center Charité. The natural sciences, together with computer science and mathematics, are located at Campus Adlershof in the south-east of Berlin. Furthermore, the university continues its tradition of a book sale at the university gates facing Bebelplatz.

Organization

The Berlin Natural History Museum (shown here photographed in 2005) is one of the largest natural history museums in the world. Founded alongside the University of Berlin in 1810 it left the Humboldt University in 2009.

The aforementioned nine faculties into which the university is divided:

• Faculty of Law
• Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (Geography, Computer Science, Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics)
• Faculty of Life Sciences (Agriculture and Horticulture, Biology, Psychology)
• Charité – Berlin University of Medicine (jointly with Free University of Berlin)
• Faculty of Philosophy I (Philosophy, History, European Ethnology, Department of Library and Information Science)
• Faculty of Philosophy II (Literature, Linguistics, Scandinavian Studies, Romance literatures, English and American Studies, Slavic Studies, Classical Philology)
• Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (Social Sciences, Cultural Studies/Arts, Asian/African Studies (includes Archeology), Sport science, Rehabilitation Studies, Education, Quality Management in Education)
• Faculty of Theology
• Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

Furthermore, there are two independent institutes (Zentralinstitute) that are part of the university:

• Centre for British Studies (in German: Großbritannienzentrum)
• Humboldt-Innovation (research transfer and spin-off service)
• Museum für Naturkunde (Natural History Museum)
• Späth-Arboretum

Student representation

Each year, students elect the Studierendenparlament, which serves as the body of student representatives under German law.

Library

The former Royal Library, now seat of the Faculty of Law

When the Royal Library proved insufficient, a new library was founded in 1831, first located in several temporary sites. In 1871–1874 a library building was constructed, following the design of architect Paul Emanuel Spieker. In 1910 the collection was relocated to the building of the Berlin State Library.

During the Weimar Period the library contained 831,934 volumes (1930) and was thus one of the leading university libraries in Germany at that time.

During the Nazi book burnings in 1933, no volumes from the university library were destroyed. The loss through World War II was comparatively small. In 2003, natural science-related books were outhoused to the newly founded library at the Adlershof campus, which is dedicated solely to the natural sciences.

Since the premises of the State Library had to be cleared in 2005, a new library building was erected close to the main building in the center of Berlin. The "Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm-Zentrum" (Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Centre, Grimm Zentrum, or GZ as referred to by students) opened in 2009.

In total, the university library contains about 6.5 million volumes and 9,000 held magazines and journals, and is one of the biggest university libraries in Germany.

Academics

Rankings

According to the 2024 QS World University Rankings, the university ranked 120th globally and 7th at the national level. Additionally, in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2024, it was placed at 87th worldwide and 4th within the country. Because of an unresolved dispute over the counting of Nobel laureates before the Second World War – both Humboldt University and the Free University of Berlin claim to be the rightful successor of the Friedrich Wilhelm University – both do not appear in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) anymore since 2008.

In the 2023 QS Subject Ranking, Humboldt University ranks first in Germany in the arts and humanities and the social sciences. In the 2024 THE Subject Ranking, Humboldt University ranks second in Germany in the arts and humanities, law, psychology, and social sciences. In the 2023 ARWU Subject Ranking, Humboldt University ranks first in Germany in geography.

QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023 Subject Global National Arts & Humanities  20  1 Linguistics  34  1 Theology, Divinity and Religious Studies  30  6 Archaeology  51–100  6–8 Classics and Ancient History  11  3 English Language and Literature  44  2 History  35  3 Modern Languages  32  2 Philosophy  13  2 Engineering and Technology  234  8 Computer Science and Information Systems  151–200  7–8 Life Sciences & Medicine N/A N/A Agriculture and Forestry  101–150  5–9 Biological Sciences  126  9 Psychology  55  1 Natural Sciences  69  5 Chemistry  145  12 Environmental Sciences  66  1 Geography  12  1 Mathematics  80  4 Physics and Astronomy  107  8 Social Sciences & Management  82  1 Accounting and Finance  101–150  2–4 Anthropology  30  1 Business and Management Studies  201–250  5–8 Communication and Media Studies  101–150  3–7 Economics and Econometrics  78  4 Education and Training  89  1 Law and Legal Studies  39  1 Library and Information Management  49  1 Politics  51–100  2–4 Sociology  31  2 Sports–Related Subjects  101–140  1–2 Statistics and Operational Research  51–100  2–4 THE World University Rankings by Subject 2024 Subject Global National Arts & humanities  19  2 Computer science  251–300  18–23 Education  66  4 Law  31  2 Life sciences  83  8 Physical sciences  =74  6 Psychology  =39  2 Social sciences  =42  2

ARWU Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2023 Subject Global National Natural Sciences Mathematics  51–75  2–3 Physics  151–200  10–11 Chemistry  201–300  13–21 Earth Sciences  201–300  15–20 Geography  76–100  1 Ecology  151–200  13–16 Atmospheric Science  51–75  2 Engineering Electrical & Electronic Engineering  301–400  9–11 Biomedical Engineering  101–150  2–5 Computer Science & Engineering  401–500  11–16 Materials Science & Engineering  201–300  8–13 Nanoscience & Nanotechnology  301–400  13–23 Environmental Science & Engineering  151–200  4–6 Water Resources  101–150  4–7 Biotechnology  101–150  2–7 Remote Sensing  24  2 Life Sciences Biological Sciences  47  2 Human Biological Sciences  36  2 Agricultural Sciences  151–200  5–8 Veterinary Sciences  201–300  7–10 Medical Sciences Clinical Medicine  47  2 Public Health  44  2 Dentistry & Oral Sciences  38  2 Nursing  101–150  1–2 Medical Technology  47  7 Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences  45  4 Social Sciences Economics  151–200  5–8 Statistics  101–150  2–6 Law  151–200  1–2 Political Sciences  101–150  5–8 Sociology  51–75  3 Education  301–400  6–18 Psychology  51–75  1–4 Management  401–500  14–21 Public Administration  151–200  7–11

Measured by the number of top managers in the German economy, Humboldt-Universität ranked 53rd in 2019. In 2020, the American U.S. News & World Report listed Humboldt-Universität as the 82nd best in the world, climbing eight positions, being among the 100 best in the world in 17 areas out of 29 ranked.

International partnerships

HU students can study abroad for a semester or a year at partner institutions such as the University of Warwick, Princeton University, and the University of Vienna.

Notable alumni and faculty

• 

  Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist known for developing the theory of relativity and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics

• 

  Erwin Schrödinger, physicist who developed a number of fundamental results in quantum theory, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics

• 

  Max Planck, theoretical physicist and originator of quantum theory, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics

• 

  Max von Laue, physicist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics

• 

  Paul Ehrlich, physician and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

• 

  Albrecht Kossel, biochemist who pioneered in the study of genetics and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine

• 

  Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, pioneering chemist and the first winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

• 

  Otto Hahn, chemist, pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry, and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry

• 

  Robert Koch, physician and microbiologist, discoverer of anthrax, tuberculosis and cholera bacillus

• 

  Rudolf Virchow, physician anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist, father of modern pathology

• 

  Theodor Mommsen, classical scholar and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature

• 

  Alfred Wegener, polar researcher and geophysicist who originated the continental drift hypothesis

• 

  Otto von Bismarck, 1st Chancellor of Germany

• 

  Werner Heisenberg, theoretical physicist and pioneer of quantum mechanics

• 

  Karl Weierstrass, mathematician, considered "the father of modern analysis"

• 

  Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, best-known collectors of German and European folk tales

• 

  Heinrich Heine, poet best known for his early lyric poetry

• 

  Yeshayahu Leibowitz, public intellectual, scientist, and writer

• 

  Karl Marx, philosopher, political theorist, and socialist revolutionary

• 

  Friedrich Engels, philosopher and revolutionary socialist

• 

  Angela Davis, political activist, philosopher

• 

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, idealist philosopher and one of the fundamental figures of modern Western philosophy

• 

  Johann Gottlieb Fichte, philosopher, German idealist

• 

  Walter Benjamin, philosopher, cultural critic and essayist

• 

  Max Stirner, philosopher and forerunner of nihilism and postmodernism

• 

  Ernst Cassirer, idealist philosopher

• 

  Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher

• 

  Leopold von Ranke, historian, founder of modern source-based history

• 

  Barthold Georg Niebuhr, historian, statesman, banker, father of modern scholarly historiography

• 

  Felix Mendelssohn, composer during the early Romantic period

• 

  Max Weber, sociologist and influential figure in modern social theory and social research

• 

  Georg Simmel, sociologist and philosopher

• 

  W.E.B. Du Bois, civil rights activist and academic

• 

  Karl Liebknecht, socialist politician and revolutionary

• 

  Gustav Stresemann, statesman during the Weimar Republic and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

• 

  Austen Chamberlain, statesman and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize

• 

  Gregor Gysi, politician, former President of the Party of the European Left, leader of the Left Party (Germany)

• 

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, theologian, pastor, anti-Nazi dissident, founder of the Confessing Church

• 

  Friedrich Schleiermacher, theologian, philosopher, biblical scholar, considered the "Father of Modern Protestant theology"

• 

  Emmanuelle Charpentier, professor and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

• 

  Benedykt Dybowski, professor of Zoology, pioneer of Limnology

• Monika Lüke, international law scholar and former secretary general Amnesty International, Germany

See also

In Spanish: Universidad Humboldt de Berlín para niños

• History of European universities
• Friedrich Althoff
• List of split up universities