University of Freiburg
university in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
The University of Freiburg (colloquially German: Uni Freiburg), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (German: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), is a public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The university was founded in 1457 by the Habsburg dynasty as the second university in Austrian-Habsburg territory after the University of Vienna. Today, Freiburg is the fifth-oldest university in Germany, with a long tradition of teaching the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences and technology and enjoys a high academic reputation both nationally and internationally. The university is made up of 11 faculties and attracts students from across Germany as well as from over 120 other countries. Foreign students constitute about 18.2% of total student numbers.
The University of Freiburg has been associated with figures such as Hannah Arendt, Rudolf Carnap, David Daube, Johann Eck, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Friedrich Hayek, Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, Herbert Marcuse, Friedrich Meinecke, Edith Stein, Paul Uhlenhuth, Max Weber and Ernst Zermelo. As of October 2020, 22 Nobel laureates are affiliated with the University of Freiburg as alumni, faculty or researchers, and 15 academics have been honored with the highest German research prize, the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, while working at the university.
History
Foundation
Originally Albrechts University, the university started with four faculties (theology, philosophy, medicine, and law). Its establishment belongs to the second wave of university foundings in the German-speaking world in the late Middle Ages, like the University of Tübingen and the University of Basel (Switzerland). Established by papal privilege (papal bull), the university in Freiburg actually was – like all or most universities in the Middle Ages – a corporation of the church body and therefore belonged to the Roman Catholic Church and its hierarchy.
The public source identifies “University of Freiburg” as university in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around University, Freiburg and university.
Why this record matters
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q153987. VIAF identifies the subject as 124971473. The Library of Congress control number is n79144785. Authority coordinates are 47.994, 7.847. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1457 and 2020.
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This entry incorporates text from “University of Freiburg” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.