Universität Berlin

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 1811
Budget	€ 397.8 million
President	Sabine Kunst
Academic staff	2,403
Administrative staff	1,516
Students	32,553
Undergraduates	18,712
Postgraduates	10,881
Doctoral students	2,951
Location	Berlin, Germany
Campus	Urban and Suburban
Nobel Laureates	40
Colors	Blue and white
Affiliations	German Universities Excellence Initiative UNICA U15 Atomium Culture EUA
Website	www.hu-berlin.de

The Humboldt University of Berlin (German: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is one of Berlin's oldest universities, founded on 15 October 1811 as the University of Berlin (Berliner Universität) by Frederick William III of Prussia, on the initiative of the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt. The Humboldt university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities.

From 1828 to 1945 it was known as the Frederick William University (Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität) and also (unofficially) as the Universität unter den Linden after its location in the former palace of Prince Henry of Prussia which his brother, King Frederick II, had built for him between 1748 and 1753 on the avenue Unter den Linden.

In 1949 (no personal name in the meantime), it was named Humboldt-Universität in honour of both its organiser Wilhelm and his brother, geographer Alexander von Humboldt. In 2012, the Humboldt University of Berlin was one of eleven German universities to win in the German Universities Excellence Initiative, a national competition for universities organized by the German Federal Government. The university has been associated with 40 Nobel Prize winners and is considered one of the best universities in Europe as well as one of the most prestigious universities in the world for arts and humanities.

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. 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 pessimist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, the objective idealist philosopher Friedrich Schelling, cultural critic Walter Benjamin, and famous physicists Albert Einstein and Max Planck.