The Frederick William University (German: Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Latin: Alma Mater Berolinensis) was a university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded on 16 August 1809 by Frederick William III of Prussia as Berliner Universität.
The first semester at the newly founded Berlin university occurred in 1810 with 256 students and 52 lecturers in faculties of law, medicine, theology and philosophy under rector Theodor Schmalz. Since 1828 the university is officially called ″Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität″. The university has been home to many of Germany's greatest thinkers of the past two centuries, among them G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx, Heinrich Heine, Otto von Bismarck, Max Planck, Alfred Döblin and Albert Einstein. From 1933 to 1945, under Nazism, the university lost many of its Jewish scholars and students.
After World War II the authorities of West Berlin founded the Free University of Berlin (1948; FU Berlin). The old university, now in East Berlin, was renamed Humboldt University of Berlin (1949; HU Berlin).