Free University of Berlin

Lore & Background

The Free University of Berlin was established in West Berlin by faculty members and students on 4 December 1948. With American support, it was founded as the de facto Western continuation of the University of Berlin (before 1945 named the Friedrich Wilhelm University), which had reopened in 1946 in the Soviet sector of Berlin. In 1949, the University of Berlin, on its original site in East Berlin, was renamed the Humboldt University. The university came under increased communist influence and repression, leading to protests. At the end of 1947, students demanded a university free from political influence. The climax of the protests was reached on 23 April 1948. By the end of April, the governor of the United States Army, Lucius D. Clay, issued the order to legally examine the formation of a new university in the western sectors of Berlin. On 19 June 1948, the 'preparatory committee for establishing a free university' met. The Berlin City Deputies Assembly accepted the by-law on 4 November 1948. On 15 November 1948, the first lectures were held. The actual foundation ceremony took place on 4 December 1948 in the Titania Palace. The first elected president was the historian Friedrich Meinecke. In the late 1960s, the Free University of Berlin was one of the main scenes of the West German student movement of '68.

Reader's Guide

The Free University is one of thirteen leading German universities currently designated a 'University of Excellence' according to the German Universities Excellence Initiative. It was the first Berlin university to be awarded this distinction and one of only six universities nationwide to be so recognised in all three consecutive rounds of the Excellence Initiative in 2006/2007, 2012 and 2019, most recently as a member of the Berlin University Alliance. Former and current staff include five Nobel laureates. The FU Berlin has produced a total of 18 winners of the Leibniz Prize up to the year 2020. According to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the university is the most frequently preferred study location in Germany for leading international scientists and young academics. Since 2003, the FU Berlin has been regrouping its research capacities into interdisciplinary research focus areas called clusters. In 2003, the medical institutions of the Free and Humboldt Universities of Berlin merged to create a joint department, the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. In 2007, the Free University of Berlin dedicated a monument to the founding students who were murdered during the protests. The university presents its Freedom Award to personalities who have made a special contribution toward the cause of freedom.

Did You Know?

• It was the first Berlin university to be awarded the 'University of Excellence' distinction.
• John F. Kennedy was awarded honorary citizen status by the Free University on 26 June 1963.

Cold War Genesis and the Berlin Model

The Free University of Berlin was born from political crisis. In the late 1940s, the University of Berlin in the Soviet sector had become a site of increasing communist repression, with students beaten, arrested, and even executed by the NKVD between 1945 and 1948. The breaking point came in April 1948 when three students were expelled without trial, sparking a protest of roughly 2,000 students at the Hotel Esplanade. U.S. Army Governor Lucius D. Clay then authorized legal steps toward a new institution in the western sectors. On 4 December 1948, the founding ceremony was held in the Titania Palace, a film theatre, with attendees including Governing Mayor Ernst Reuter and representatives from American universities such as Stanford and Yale. The historian Friedrich Meinecke became the first elected president. The university's governance structure, known as the Berlin model, made it a statutory corporation not directly subordinate to the state, with a supervisory board that included student representatives—a degree of student influence unprecedented in Germany at the time. The name itself was a deliberate political statement, anchoring the institution in the Western Free World in opposition to Soviet-controlled East Berlin.

A Track Record of Academic Distinction

The Free University of Berlin has consistently placed itself at the apex of German higher education. It was the first university in Berlin to earn the University of Excellence designation under the national Excellence Initiative, and it stands among only six institutions in the entire country to have secured that recognition in all three consecutive rounds—2006/2007, 2012, and 2019. In the most recent round, it achieved the distinction as part of the Berlin University Alliance. The depth of its research output is reflected in its roster of distinguished scholars: five Nobel laureates have been associated with the university as either current or former staff, and by 2020 it had produced a cumulative total of 18 recipients of the Leibniz Prize, Germany's most prestigious research award. Perhaps most telling of its international draw, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation identifies FU Berlin as the single most preferred study destination in Germany for leading international scientists and young academics. This sustained excellence, maintained across decades and multiple evaluation cycles, underscores the institution's role as a cornerstone of the German research landscape.

The 1968 Movement and Political Turbulence

In the late 1960s, the Free University became one of the central stages of the West German student movement of 1968, a wave of protest that echoed global unrest. Students at FU rallied around a constellation of grievances: inadequate living and educational standards, the ongoing Vietnam War, the presence of former Nazi Party members in government—most symbolically in the Globke affair—and what they perceived as persistent institutional authoritarianism. The movement took a tragic turn with the assassination of student Benno Ohnesorg and an attempted killing of Rudi Dutschke, events that rapidly escalated protests into violence across West Germany. The university's earlier history of political struggle—its very founding as a response to Soviet repression—gave the 1968 protests a particular resonance. The GDR, meanwhile, had consistently dismissed the institution in official documents as the so-called free university until the fall of the Berlin Wall, underscoring how the FU remained a symbol of ideological division long after its 1948 birth.

American Ties and International Symbolism

From its earliest days, the Free University of Berlin was deeply intertwined with American political and academic life. U.S. Army Governor Lucius D. Clay's 1948 order to examine the formation of a new university in the western sectors was a critical enabling step, and the founding ceremony that December drew representatives from prestigious American institutions including Stanford and Yale. The university's connection to the Kennedy family became a defining chapter of its public life. On 26 June 1963, the very day he delivered his famous Ich bin ein Berliner address at Rathaus Schöneberg, President John F. Kennedy was granted honorary citizenship by FU Berlin and delivered a ceremonial speech before the Henry Ford building, addressing the future of Berlin and Germany. The audience included West Berlin's Governing Mayor Willy Brandt and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. Two years later, in June 1964, Robert F. Kennedy visited to receive his honorary degree from the Department of Philosophy, dedicating his remarks to his late brother. Before the Wall's construction in 1961, many students from the Soviet sector had attended FU, often supported through a senate-funded scholarship, making the university a rare bridge across the divided city.

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