Humboldt University of Berlin
public research university in Berlin, Germany
The Humboldt University of Berlin (German: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany.
The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humboldt, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher as the University of Berlin (Universität zu 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; German: Königliche Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin). During the Cold War, the university found itself in East Berlin and was de facto split in two when the Free University of Berlin opened in West Berlin. The university received its current name in honour of Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1949.
The university is divided into nine faculties, including its medical school 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 Unter den Linden boulevard in central Berlin. The university is known worldwide for pioneering the Humboldtian model of higher education, which has strongly influenced other European and Western universities.
It is generally regarded as having been the world's preeminent university for the natural sciences during the 19th and early 20th centuries; it is linked to major breakthroughs in physics and other sciences by its professors, such as Albert Einstein.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Humboldt University of Berlin” is public research university in Berlin, Germany. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Humboldt, University and Berlin, not as a finished interpretation.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q152087. VIAF identifies the subject as 103156009846449580564. The Library of Congress control number is n79148985. Authority coordinates are 52.518, 13.393. 1 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1809, 1810, 1828 and 1945.
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This entry incorporates text from “Humboldt University of Berlin” 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.