Monday, May 28, 2007

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

The Humboldt University of Berlin (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin (Universität zu Berlin) by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities. From 1828 it was known as the Frederick William University (Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität), later also as the Universität unter den Linden. In 1949, it changed its name to Humboldt-Universität in honour of its founder.

Can you imagine … this university has been home to many of the greatest thinkers of the past two centuries, such as the philosophers G.W.F. Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Friedrich Schelling, the physicists Albert Einstein and Max Planck. Founders of Marxist theory Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels attended the university, as did poet Heinrich Heine, German unifier Otto von Bismarck, Communist Party of Germany founder Karl Liebknecht and European unifier Robert Schuman. The university is home to 29 Nobel Prize winners.