The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a
public
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...
research university
A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are "the key sites of Knowledge production modes, knowledge production", along with "intergenerational ...
in the central borough of
Mitte
Mitte () is the first and most central borough of Berlin. The borough consists of six sub-entities: Mitte proper, Gesundbrunnen, Hansaviertel, Moabit, Tiergarten and Wedding.
It is one of the two boroughs (the other being Friedrichshain-Kreuz ...
in
Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
, Germany.
The university was established by
Frederick William III
Frederick William III (; 3 August 1770 – 7 June 1840) was King of Prussia from 16 November 1797 until his death in 1840. He was concurrently Elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire until 6 August 1806, when the empire was dissolved. ...
on the initiative of
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a German philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1949, the university was named aft ...
,
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (; ; 19 May 1762 – 29 January 1814) was a German philosopher who became a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Ka ...
and
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher Friedrich may refer to:
Names
*Friedrich (given name), people with the given name ''Friedrich''
*Friedrich (surname), people with the surname ''Friedrich''
Other
*Friedrich (board game), a board game about Frederick the Great and the Seven Years' ...
as the University of Berlin () in 1809, and opened in 1810. From 1828 until its closure in 1945, it was named the (Royal) Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin (FWU Berlin; ). During the
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
, the university found itself in
East Berlin
East Berlin (; ) was the partially recognised capital city, capital of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. From 1945, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. The American, British, and French se ...
and was ''de facto'' split in two when the
Free University of Berlin
The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period a ...
opened in
West Berlin
West Berlin ( or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin from 1948 until 1990, during the Cold War. Although West Berlin lacked any sovereignty and was under military occupation until German reunification in 1 ...
. The university received its current name in honour of
Alexander
Alexander () is a male name of Greek origin. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history.
Variants listed here ar ...
and
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a German philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1949, the university was named aft ...
in 1949.
The university is divided into nine faculties including its
medical school
A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, professional school, or forms a part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, ...
shared with the Freie Universität Berlin. The university has a student enrollment of around 35,000 students, and offers degree programs in some 171 disciplines from undergraduate to post-doctorate level. Its main campus is located on the boulevard in central Berlin. The university is known worldwide for pioneering the
Humboldtian model of higher education
The Humboldtian model of higher education (German: ''Humboldtsches Bildungsideal'') or just Humboldt's ideal is a concept of higher education, academic education that emerged in the early 19th century whose core idea is a Holism, holistic combina ...
, which has strongly influenced other European and Western universities.
It was generally regarded as the world's preeminent university for the
natural sciences
Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...
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
Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...
. 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
Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...
, Hermann von Helmholtz
Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (; ; 31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894; "von" since 1883) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The ...
, Emil du Bois-Reymond
Emil Heinrich du Bois-Reymond (7 November 1818 – 26 December 1896) was a German physiologist, the co-discoverer of nerve action potential, and the developer of experimental electrophysiology. His lectures on science and culture earned him grea ...
, Robert Koch
Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch ( ; ; 11 December 1843 – 27 May 1910) was a German physician and microbiologist. As the discoverer of the specific causative agents of deadly infectious diseases including tuberculosis, cholera and anthrax, he i ...
, Theodor Mommsen
Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (; ; 30 November 1817 – 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician and archaeologist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest classicists of the 19th ce ...
, Karl Marx
Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
, Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ;["Engels"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.[Otto von Bismarck
Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (; born ''Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck''; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898) was a German statesman and diplomat who oversaw the unification of Germany and served as ...]
, W. E. B. Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist.
Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relativel ...
, Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer ( ; ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the Phenomenon, phenomenal world as ...
, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political philosophy and t ...
, Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( ; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Jewish mysticism, Western M ...
, Max Weber
Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German Sociology, sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economy, political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sc ...
, Georg Simmel
Georg Simmel (; ; 1 March 1858 – 26 September 1918) was a German sociologist, philosopher, and critic. Simmel was influential in the field of sociology. Simmel was one of the first generation of German sociologists: his neo-Kantian approach ...
, Karl Liebknecht
Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht (; ; 13 August 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a German politician and revolutionary socialist. A leader of the far-left wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Liebknecht was a co-founder of both ...
, Ernst Cassirer
Ernst Alfred Cassirer ( ; ; July 28, 1874 – April 13, 1945) was a German philosopher and historian of philosophy. Trained within the Neo-Kantian Marburg School, he initially followed his mentor Hermann Cohen in attempting to supply an idealistic ...
, Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; ; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was an outstanding poet, writer, and literary criticism, literary critic of 19th-century German Romanticism. He is best known outside Germany for his ...
, Eduard Fraenkel, Max Planck
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (; ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quantum, quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
Planck made many substantial con ...
, Wernher von Braun
Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun ( ; ; 23 March 191216 June 1977) was a German–American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was a member of the Nazi Party and '' Allgemeine SS'', the leading figure in the development of ...
and the Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob Grimm, Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm, Wilhelm (1786–1859), were Germans, German academics who together collected and published folklore. The brothers are among the best-known storytellers of Oral tradit ...
.
History
Main building
The main building of Humboldt-Universität is the Prinz-Heinrich-Palais (English: ''Prince Henry's Palace'') on Unter den Linden
Unter den Linden (, "under the Tilia, linden trees") is a boulevard in the central Mitte (locality), Mitte district of Berlin, Germany. Running from the Berlin Palace to the Brandenburg Gate, it is named after the Tilia, linden trees (known ...
boulevard in the historic centre of Berlin
Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
. It was erected from 1748 to 1753 for Prince Henry of Prussia, the brother of Frederick the Great
Frederick II (; 24 January 171217 August 1786) was the monarch of Prussia from 1740 until his death in 1786. He was the last Hohenzollern monarch titled ''King in Prussia'', declaring himself ''King of Prussia'' after annexing Royal Prussia ...
, according to plans by Johann Boumann in Baroque style
The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from the early 17th century until the 1750s. It followed Renaissance art and Mannerism and preceded the Rococo (i ...
. 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
The Landtag of Brandenburg is the unicameral legislature of the states of Germany, state of Brandenburg in Germany.
Its 88 members of parliament are usually elected every 5 years.
It is responsible for deciding on state laws, controlling the s ...
in 2013.
Early history
Similar to the University of Bonn
The University of Bonn, officially the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (), is a public research university in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the () on 18 October 1818 by Frederick Willi ...
, the University of Berlin was established by King Friedrich Wilhelm III on 16 August 1809, during the period of the Prussian Reform Movement
The Prussian Reform Movement was a series of constitutional, administrative, social, and economic reforms early in 19th-century Prussia. They are sometimes known as the Stein–Hardenberg Reforms, for Karl Freiherr vom Stein and Karl August v ...
, on the initiative of the liberal Prussian philosopher and linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
Wilhelm von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a German philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1949, the university was named aft ...
. The university was located in a palace constructed from 1748 to 1766 for the late Prince Henry, the younger brother of Frederick the Great
Frederick II (; 24 January 171217 August 1786) was the monarch of Prussia from 1740 until his death in 1786. He was the last Hohenzollern monarch titled ''King in Prussia'', declaring himself ''King of Prussia'' after annexing Royal Prussia ...
. 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 "Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin", in honor of its founder. Ludwig Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach (; ; 28 July 1804 – 13 September 1872) was a German anthropologist and philosopher, best known for his book '' The Essence of Christianity'', which provided a critique of Christianity that strongly influenced ge ...
, then one of the students, made a comment about the university in 1826:
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
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (; ; 19 May 1762 – 29 January 1814) was a German philosopher who became a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Ka ...
, the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (; ; 21 November 1768 – 12 February 1834) was a German Reformed Church, Reformed theology, theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Age o ...
, the absolute idealist philosopher G.W.F. Hegel, the Romantic legal theorist Friedrich Carl von Savigny
Friedrich Carl von Savigny (21 February 1779 – 25 October 1861) was a German jurist and historian.
Early life and education
Savigny was born at Frankfurt am Main, of a family recorded in the history of Lorraine, deriving its name from the cast ...
, the anti-optimist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer ( ; ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the Phenomenon, phenomenal world as ...
, the objective idealist philosopher Friedrich Schelling
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (; 27 January 1775 – 20 August 1854), later (after 1812) von Schelling, was a German philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy make him the midpoint in the development of German idealism, situating him be ...
, cultural critic Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( ; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Jewish mysticism, Western M ...
, and famous physicists Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...
and Max Planck
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (; ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quantum, quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
Planck made many substantial con ...
.
The founders of Marxist theory Karl Marx
Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
and Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ;["Engels"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.[Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; ; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was an outstanding poet, writer, and literary criticism, literary critic of 19th-century German Romanticism. He is best known outside Germany for his ...]
, novelist Alfred Döblin
Bruno Alfred Döblin (; 10 August 1878 – 26 June 1957) was a German novelist, essayist, and doctor, best known for his novel '' Berlin Alexanderplatz'' (1929). A prolific writer whose œuvre spans more than half a century and a wide variety of ...
, founder of structuralism
Structuralism is an intellectual current and methodological approach, primarily in the social sciences, that interprets elements of human culture by way of their relationship to a broader system. It works to uncover the structural patterns t ...
Ferdinand de Saussure
Ferdinand Mongin de Saussure (; ; 26 November 185722 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century. He is wi ...
, German unifier Otto von Bismarck
Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (; born ''Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck''; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898) was a German statesman and diplomat who oversaw the unification of Germany and served as ...
, Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany (, ; KPD ) was a major Far-left politics, far-left political party in the Weimar Republic during the interwar period, German resistance to Nazism, underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and minor party ...
founder Karl Liebknecht
Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht (; ; 13 August 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a German politician and revolutionary socialist. A leader of the far-left wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Liebknecht was a co-founder of both ...
, African American Pan Africanist W. E. B. Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist.
Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relativel ...
and European unifier Robert Schuman
Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Robert Schuman (; 29 June 1886 – 4 September 1963) was a Luxembourg-born France, French statesman. Schuman was a Christian democrat, Christian democratic (Popular Republican Movement) political thinker and activist. ...
, as well as the influential surgeon Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach
Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach (1 February 1792 – 11 November 1847) was a German surgeon. He was born in Königsberg and died in Berlin.
Dieffenbach specialized in skin transplantation and plastic surgery. His work in rhinoplastic and maxill ...
in the early half of the 1800s.
The structure of German research-intensive universities served as a model for institutions like Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...
. 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
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
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (14 September 1769 – 6 May 1859) was a German polymath, geographer, natural history, naturalist, List of explorers, explorer, and proponent of Romanticism, Romantic philosophy and Romanticism ...
, 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
August Wilhelm von Hofmann (8 April 18185 May 1892) was a German chemist who made considerable contributions to organic chemistry. His research on aniline helped lay the basis of the aniline-dye industry, and his research on coal tar laid the g ...
, the physicist Hermann von Helmholtz
Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (; ; 31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894; "von" since 1883) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The ...
, the mathematicians Ernst Eduard Kummer, Leopold Kronecker
Leopold Kronecker (; 7 December 1823 – 29 December 1891) was a German mathematician who worked on number theory, abstract algebra and logic, and criticized Georg Cantor's work on set theory. Heinrich Weber quoted Kronecker
as having said, ...
, Karl Weierstrass
Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass (; ; 31 October 1815 – 19 February 1897) was a German mathematician often cited as the " father of modern analysis". Despite leaving university without a degree, he studied mathematics and trained as a school t ...
, the physicians Johannes Peter Müller
Johannes Peter Müller (14 July 1801 – 28 April 1858) was a German physiologist, comparative anatomist, ichthyologist, and herpetologist, known not only for his discoveries but also for his ability to synthesize knowledge. The paramesonephri ...
, Emil du Bois-Reymond
Emil Heinrich du Bois-Reymond (7 November 1818 – 26 December 1896) was a German physiologist, the co-discoverer of nerve action potential, and the developer of experimental electrophysiology. His lectures on science and culture earned him grea ...
, Albrecht von Graefe, Rudolf Virchow
Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow ( ; ; 13 October 18215 September 1902) was a German physician, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist, writer, editor, and politician. He is known as "the father of modern pathology" and as the founder o ...
, and Robert Koch
Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch ( ; ; 11 December 1843 – 27 May 1910) was a German physician and microbiologist. As the discoverer of the specific causative agents of deadly infectious diseases including tuberculosis, cholera and anthrax, he i ...
, contributed to Berlin University's scientific fame.
During this period of enlargement, the university gradually expanded to incorporate other previously separate colleges in Berlin. An example would be the Charité
The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Charité – Berlin University of Medicine; ) is Europe's List of hospitals by capacity, largest university hospital, affiliated with Humboldt University of Berlin, Humboldt University and the Free ...
, the Pépinière and the Collegium Medico-chirurgicum. In 1710, King Friedrich I had built a quarantine
A quarantine is a restriction on the movement of people, animals, and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests. It is often used in connection to disease and illness, preventing the movement of those who may have bee ...
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" (called Charité rench for ''charity''. By 1829 the site became 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
Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...
collection in 1810, which by 1889, required a separate building and became the Museum für Naturkunde
The Natural History Museum () is a natural history museum located in Berlin, Germany. It exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history and in such domain it is one of three major museums in Germany alongside Naturm ...
. 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
The Agricultural University of Berlin () was an agricultural university in Berlin, Germany. Established in 1881, it was closed in 1934, and incorporated as a faculty into the Humboldt University of Berlin.
History
Academic teaching in agricultur ...
(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
Emil Heinrich du Bois-Reymond (7 November 1818 – 26 December 1896) was a German physiologist, the co-discoverer of nerve action potential, and the developer of experimental electrophysiology. His lectures on science and culture earned him grea ...
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
The House of Hohenzollern (, ; , ; ) is a formerly royal (and from 1871 to 1918, imperial) German dynasty whose members were variously princes, Prince-elector, electors, kings and emperors of Hohenzollern Castle, Hohenzollern, Margraviate of Bran ...
(das geistige Leibregiment des Hauses Hohenzollern)."
In 1887, chancellor Otto Bismarck established the (SOS), (usually known in English as the Oriental Seminary) to prepare public servant
The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...
s for posting to Kamerun (later Cameroon
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...
), then part of the German colonial empire
The German colonial empire () constituted the overseas colonies, dependencies, and territories of the German Empire. Unified in 1871, the chancellor of this time period was Otto von Bismarck. Short-lived attempts at colonization by Kleinstaat ...
. Various Asian languages were taught there, and in 1890, there were 115 students, which belonged to various faculties, including law; philosophy, medicine and physical sciences; and theology (as part of their training to be missionaries). Teachers included (1909–1915) and Heinrich Vieter.[ In the 1920s to 1930s, renowned Jewish orientalist Eugen Mittwoch was director of the school, before being forced to emigrate to ]London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
after Kristallnacht
( ) or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilia ...
in 1938.
Friedrich Wilhelm University became an emulated model of a modern university in the 19th century.
Nazi regime
After 1933, like all German universities, Friedrich Wilhelm University was impacted by the Nazi regime
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...
. The rector during this period was Eugen Fischer
Eugen Fischer (5 July 1874 – 9 July 1967) was a German professor of medicine, anthropology, and eugenics, and a member of the Nazi Party. He served as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, ...
. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service
The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service (, shortened to ''Berufsbeamtengesetz''), also known as Civil Service Law, Civil Service Restoration Act, and Law to Re-establish the Civil Service, was enacted by the Nazi Party, Na ...
(German "Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums") resulted in 250 Jewish professors and employees being fired from the university during 1933–1934, as well as numerous doctorates being withdrawn. Students and scholars, and other 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.
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'' square (now called the Bebelplatz
The Bebelplatz (formerly and colloquially the Opernplatz) is a public square in the central Mitte (locality), Mitte district of Berlin, the capital of Germany. Following World War II, the square was renamed after August Bebel, a founder of the So ...
) for a demonstration that was protected by the SA and featured a speech by Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician and philologist who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief Propaganda in Nazi Germany, propagandist for the Nazi Party, and ...
. 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 20,000 volumes, along with a plaque bearing an epigraph taken from an 1820 work by the great German-Jewish writer Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; ; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was an outstanding poet, writer, and literary criticism, literary critic of 19th-century German Romanticism. He is best known outside Germany for his ...
:
Cold War
During the Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
, the university was located in East Berlin
East Berlin (; ) was the partially recognised capital city, capital of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. From 1945, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. The American, British, and French se ...
. It reopened in 1946 as the University of Berlin, but faced repression from the Soviet Military Administration in Germany
The Soviet Military Administration in Germany (; ''Sovyetskaya Voyennaya Administratsiya v Germanii'', SVAG; , SMAD) was the Soviet military government, headquartered in Berlin- Karlshorst, that directly ruled the Soviet occupation zone in German ...
, including the persecution of liberal and social democrat students. Almost immediately, the Soviet occupiers started persecuting non-communists and suppressing academic freedom
Academic freedom is the right of a teacher to instruct and the right of a student to learn in an academic setting unhampered by outside interference. It may also include the right of academics to engage in social and political criticism.
Academic ...
at the university, requiring lectures to be submitted for approval by Socialist Unity Party
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (, ; SED, ) was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from the country's foundation in 1949 until its dissolution after the Peaceful Revolution in 1989. It was a Ma ...
officials, and piped Soviet propaganda into the cafeteria. This led to strong protests within the student body and faculty. NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...
secret police
image:Putin-Stasi-Ausweis.png, 300px, Vladimir Putin's secret police identity card, issued by the East German Stasi while he was working as a Soviet KGB liaison officer from 1985 to 1989. Both organizations used similar forms of repression.
Secre ...
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 missing for weeks, and some were taken to the Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
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 long regarded the social democrats as their main enemies, dating back to the early days of the Weimar Republic. During the Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, roa ...
, the Freie Universität Berlin
The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period a ...
was established as a de facto western successor in West Berlin
West Berlin ( or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin from 1948 until 1990, during the Cold War. Although West Berlin lacked any sovereignty and was under military occupation until German reunification in 1 ...
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
The "Free World" is a propaganda term, primarily used during the Cold War from 1945 to 1991, to refer to the Western Bloc and aligned countries. It was originally coined in the 1930s and used in the Second World War.
The term refers more bro ...
", in contrast to the "unfree" Communist world in general and the "unfree" communist-controlled university in East Berlin
East Berlin (; ) was the partially recognised capital city, capital of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. From 1945, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. The American, British, and French se ...
in particular.
Because the historical name, the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin, 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
The Humboldtian model of higher education (German: ''Humboldtsches Bildungsideal'') or just Humboldt's ideal is a concept of higher education, academic education that emerged in the early 19th century whose core idea is a Holism, holistic combina ...
.
Modern Germany
After the German reunification
German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic and the int ...
, 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 Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period a ...
.
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
Unter den Linden (, "under the Tilia, linden trees") is a boulevard in the central Mitte (locality), Mitte district of Berlin, Germany. Running from the Berlin Palace to the Brandenburg Gate, it is named after the Tilia, linden trees (known ...
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
Berlin Hauptbahnhof () (English: Berlin Central Station) is the main railway station in Berlin, Germany. It came into full operation two days after a ceremonial opening on 26 May 2006. It is located on the site of the historic Lehrter Bahnhof, ...
and is the home of the life science departments including the university medical center Charité
The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Charité – Berlin University of Medicine; ) is Europe's List of hospitals by capacity, largest university hospital, affiliated with Humboldt University of Berlin, Humboldt University and the Free ...
. 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
Faculties and departments
The university is divided ino 9 faculties:
Graduate schools
Graduate schools provide structured PhD programmes:
* Berlin Graduate School of Ancient Studies
* Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences
* Berlin-Brandenburg School for Regenerative Therapies
* Berlin School of Mind and Brain
* Berlin Mathematical School
* Graduate School of Ancient Philosophy
* Humboldt Graduate School
* SALSA - School of Analytical Sciences Adlershof
* Graduate School "Advanced Materials"
Central institutes
Furthermore, there are four central institutes (''Zentralinstitute'') that are part of the university:
* Centre for British Studies Part of Humboldt University of Berlin, the Centre for British Studies /Großbritannienzentrum (GBZ) is an interdisciplinary institute committed to teaching and research focused on the United Kingdom. In addition to interdisciplinary research project ...
(in German: ''Großbritannienzentrum'')
* Humboldt-Innovation (research transfer and spin-off service)
* ''Museum für Naturkunde
The Natural History Museum () is a natural history museum located in Berlin, Germany. It exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history and in such domain it is one of three major museums in Germany alongside Naturm ...
'' (Natural History Museum)
* Späth-Arboretum
Student parliament
Each year, students elect the student parliament (), which serves as the body of student representatives under German law (''AStA'').
In August 2021 the Humboldt Student Parliament passed a resolution endorsing a disciplinary complaint filed by the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) against both history professor Jörg Baberowski and the then University President Sabine Kunst due to her and the university’s inaction regarding a January 2020 physical confrontation between Baberowski and an IYSSE member that the former initiated after being recorded tearing down IYSSE election posters on campus. The resolution further expressed the solidarity of the student government with the IYSSE member and called on the Governing Mayor and State Secretary to “act quickly to immediately stop these attacks on students and the promotion of right-wing extremist positions at Humboldt University”.
Library
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
The Berlin State Library (; officially abbreviated as ''SBB'', colloquially ''Stabi'') is a universal library in Berlin, Germany, and a property of the German public cultural organization the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation ().
Founded in ...
.
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
The Nazi book burnings were a campaign conducted by the German Student Union (, ''DSt'') to ceremonially Book burning, burn books in Nazi Germany and First Austrian Republic, Austria in the 1930s. The books targeted for burning were those viewed ...
in 1933, no volumes from the university library were destroyed. The loss through World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
was comparatively small. In 2003, natural science-related books were outhoused to the newly founded library at the Adlershof
Adlershof (, literally "Eagle's Court") is a locality (') in the Boroughs of Berlin, borough (') Treptow-Köpenick of Berlin, Germany.
Adlershof is home to the new City of Science, Technology and Media (WISTA), located on the southwestern edge of ...
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.
The books of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft were destroyed during the Nazi book burnings, and the institute destroyed. Under the terms of the Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation, the government had agreed to continue the work of the institute at the university after its founder's death. However, these terms were ignored. In 2001, the university acquired the Archive for Sexology from the Robert Koch Institute, which was founded with a large private library donated by Erwin J. Haeberle. This has now been housed at the new Magnus Hirschfeld Center.
Academics
Rankings
According to the 2024 QS World University Rankings
The ''QS World University Rankings'' is a portfolio of comparative college and university rankings compiled by Quacquarelli Symonds, a higher education analytics firm. Its first and earliest edition was published in collaboration with '' Times ...
, the university ranked 120th globally and 7th at the national level. Additionally, in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings
The ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'', often referred to as the THE Rankings, is the annual publication of university rankings by the ''Times Higher Education'' magazine. The publisher had collaborated with Quacquarelli Symon ...
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
The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period a ...
claim to be the rightful successor of the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin – both do not appear in the Academic Ranking of World Universities
The ''Academic Ranking of World Universities'' (''ARWU''), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong Universi ...
(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.
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
The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded in 1965 as part of ...
, Princeton University, and the University of Vienna.
Notable alumni and faculty
File:Albert Einstein 1947.jpg, Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...
, theoretical physicist known for developing the theory of relativity and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics
File:Erwin Schrödinger (1933).jpg, Erwin Schrödinger, physicist who developed a number of fundamental results in quantum mechanics, quantum theory, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics
File:Max Planck 1933.jpg, Max Planck
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (; ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quantum, quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
Planck made many substantial con ...
, theoretical physicist and originator of quantum mechanics, quantum theory, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics
File:(UAZ) AB.1.0583 Laue.tif, Max von Laue, physicist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics
File:Paul Ehrlich. Photograph, 1915. Wellcome L0010139.jpg, Paul Ehrlich, physician known for curing syphilis and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
File:Albrecht Kossel nobel.jpg, Albrecht Kossel, biochemist who pioneered in the study of genetics and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine
File:Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff.jpg, Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, pioneering chemist and the first winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
File:Otto Hahn (1828 - 1904).png, Otto Hahn, chemist, pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry, and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize for Chemistry
File:RobertKoch cropped.jpg, Robert Koch
Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch ( ; ; 11 December 1843 – 27 May 1910) was a German physician and microbiologist. As the discoverer of the specific causative agents of deadly infectious diseases including tuberculosis, cholera and anthrax, he i ...
, physician and microbiologist, discoverer of anthrax, tuberculosis and cholera bacillus
File:Rudolf Virchow NLM3.jpg, Rudolf Virchow
Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow ( ; ; 13 October 18215 September 1902) was a German physician, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist, writer, editor, and politician. He is known as "the father of modern pathology" and as the founder o ...
, physician anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist, father of modern pathology
File:Theodor Mommsen 03.jpg, Theodor Mommsen
Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (; ; 30 November 1817 – 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician and archaeologist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest classicists of the 19th ce ...
, classical scholar and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature
File:Wegener Alfred signature.jpg, Alfred Wegener, polar researcher and geophysicist who originated the continental drift hypothesis
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-2005-0057, Otto von Bismarck.jpg, Otto von Bismarck
Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (; born ''Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck''; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898) was a German statesman and diplomat who oversaw the unification of Germany and served as ...
, 1st Chancellor of Germany
File:Bundesarchiv Bild183-R57262, Werner Heisenberg crop.jpg, Werner Heisenberg, theoretical physicist and pioneer of quantum mechanics
File:Karl Weierstrass.jpg, Karl Weierstrass
Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass (; ; 31 October 1815 – 19 February 1897) was a German mathematician often cited as the " father of modern analysis". Despite leaving university without a degree, he studied mathematics and trained as a school t ...
, mathematician, considered "the father of modern analysis"
File:Grimm1.jpg, Brothers Grimm, Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, best-known collectors of German and European folk tales
File:Heinrich Heine-Oppenheim.jpg, Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; ; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was an outstanding poet, writer, and literary criticism, literary critic of 19th-century German Romanticism. He is best known outside Germany for his ...
, poet best known for his early lyric poetry
File:Yeshayahu Leibowitz 1.jpg, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, public intellectual, scientist, and writer
File:Karl Marx 001.jpg, Karl Marx
Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
, philosopher, political theorist, and socialist revolutionary
File:Friedrich Engels portrait (cropped).jpg, Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ;["Engels"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political philosophy and t ...]
, idealist philosopher and one of the fundamental figures of modern Western philosophy
File:Johann Gottlieb Fichte.jpg, Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (; ; 19 May 1762 – 29 January 1814) was a German philosopher who became a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Ka ...
, philosopher, German idealism, German idealist
File:Walter Benjamin vers 1928.jpg, Walter Benjamin
Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( ; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Jewish mysticism, Western M ...
, philosopher, cultural critic and essayist
File:Max stirner.jpg, Max Stirner, philosopher and forerunner of nihilism and postmodernism
File:ErnstCassirer.jpg, Ernst Cassirer
Ernst Alfred Cassirer ( ; ; July 28, 1874 – April 13, 1945) was a German philosopher and historian of philosophy. Trained within the Neo-Kantian Marburg School, he initially followed his mentor Hermann Cohen in attempting to supply an idealistic ...
, idealist philosopher
File:Schopenhauer.jpg, Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer ( ; ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the Phenomenon, phenomenal world as ...
, philosopher
File:Jebens, Adolf - Leopold von Ranke (detail) - 1875.jpg, Leopold von Ranke, historian, founder of modern source-based history
File:Louise Seidler - Niebuhr - Uhde 222.jpg, Barthold Georg Niebuhr, historian, statesman, banker, father of modern scholarly historiography
File:Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Litho.jpg, Felix Mendelssohn, composer during the early Romantic period
File:Max Weber, 1918.jpg, Max Weber
Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German Sociology, sociologist, historian, jurist, and political economy, political economist who was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the social sc ...
, sociologist and influential figure in modern social theory and social research
File:Simmel 01.JPG, Georg Simmel
Georg Simmel (; ; 1 March 1858 – 26 September 1918) was a German sociologist, philosopher, and critic. Simmel was influential in the field of sociology. Simmel was one of the first generation of German sociologists: his neo-Kantian approach ...
, sociologist and philosopher
File:W.E. Burghardt DuBois.JPG, W. E. B. Du Bois, W.E.B. Du Bois, civil rights activist and academic
File:KLiebknecht.jpg, Karl Liebknecht
Karl Paul August Friedrich Liebknecht (; ; 13 August 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a German politician and revolutionary socialist. A leader of the far-left wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Liebknecht was a co-founder of both ...
, socialist politician and revolutionary
File:Gustav Stresemann.jpg, Gustav Stresemann, statesman during the Weimar Republic and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
File:Austen Chamberlain MP.jpg, Austen Chamberlain, statesman and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
File:2019-08-28-Gregor Gysi-Maischberger-7202.jpg, Gregor Gysi, politician, former President of the Party of the European Left, leader of the Die Linke, Left Party
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1987-074-16, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.jpg, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, theologian, pastor, anti-Nazi dissident, founder of the Confessing Church
File:Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher.jpg, Friedrich Schleiermacher
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (; ; 21 November 1768 – 12 February 1834) was a German Reformed Church, Reformed theology, theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Age o ...
, theologian, philosopher, biblical scholar, considered the "Father of Modern Protestant theology"
File:Emmanuelle Charpentier.jpg, Emmanuelle Charpentier, professor and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
File:Benedykt Dybowski ca 1910 (776305) (cropped).jpg, Benedykt Dybowski, professor of Zoology, pioneer of Limnology
See also
* History of European universities
* Friedrich Althoff
* List of split up universities
References
Further reading
*
*
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Humboldt University Of Berlin
Humboldt University of Berlin,
Educational institutions established in 1810
Universities and colleges in Berlin
Rebuilt buildings and structures in Berlin
1810 establishments in Prussia
Alexander von Humboldt
Frederick William III of Prussia