The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 during the early Cold War period. The Free University's name referred to West Berlin's status as part of the intellectual continuum of the Western "Free World" in contrast to Soviet-controlled East Berlin. Its main campus is located in Berlin-Dahlem in the Steglitz-Zehlendorf district.
The Free University is one of thirteen leading German universities currently designated a "University of Excellence" according to the German Universities Excellence Initiative (Exzellenzinitiative). 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.Berlin und München am attraktivsten für ausländische Forscher, Forschung & Lehre. Retrieved 30 August 2026.
History 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.
Foundation (1948–2000) In January 1946, the formerly named Friedrich Wilhelm University, located in the Soviet sector of Berlin, was granted permission by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) to reopen as the University of Berlin. The university came under increased communist influence and repression, as it became a battlefield for the political disputes of the postwar period. This led to protests by students critical of the prevailing system. Between 1945 and 1948, more than 18 students were brutally beaten and arrested or persecuted, and some were even executed by the Soviet secret police (NKVD).
At the end of 1947, students demanded a university free from political influence. The climax of the protests was reached on 23 April 1948: after three students were expelled from the university without a trial, about 2,000 students protested at the Hotel Esplanade. 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" consisting of politicians, professors, administrative staff members, and students, met. With a manifesto titled "Request for establishing a free university in Berlin", the committee appealed to the public for support.
The municipal authorities of Berlin granted the foundation of a free university and requested the opening for the coming 1948/49 winter semester. Meanwhile, the students' committee in the German Democratic Republic protested against the formation; the GDR described the new university as the "so-called free university" in official documents until the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The Berlin City Deputies Assembly (Stadtverordnetenversammlung) accepted the by-law on 4 November 1948. The by-law achieved prominence under its alias "the Berlin model": The university was founded as a statutory corporation (Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts) and was not directly subject to the state, as it was controlled by a supervisory board consisting of six representatives of the state of Berlin, three representatives of the university, and students. This form was unique in Germany at that time, as the students had much more influence on the system than before. Until the 1970s, the involvement of the students in the committees was slowly cut back while adapting to the model of the Western German universities in order to be fully recognized as an equivalent university.Karol Kubicki, Siegward Lönnendonker: Die Freie Universität Berlin 1948–2007. Von der Gründung bis zum Exzellenzwettbewerb. (Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht V&R unipress, Göttingen 2008), ISBN 978-3-89971-474-6, pp. 32-35, 42
On 15 November 1948, the first lectures were held in the buildings of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science. The actual foundation ceremony took place on 4 December 1948 in the Titania Palace, a film theatre with the largest hall available in the western sectors of Berlin. Attendees at the event were not only scholars, politicians (the Governing Mayor Ernst Reuter amongst others) and students, but also representatives of American universities, including Stanford University and Yale University. The first elected president of the Free University of Berlin was the historian Friedrich Meinecke.Kubicki and Lönnendonker (2008), pp. 35-37
By 1949, the Free University had registered 4,946 students. Until the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, many students came from the Soviet sector, often supported through the Währungsstipendium of the senate.
On 26 June 1963, the same day he delivered his Ich bin ein Berliner speech at Rathaus Schöneberg, John F. Kennedy was awarded honorary citizen status by the Free University and gave a ceremonial speech in front of the Henry Ford building, in which he addressed the future of Berlin and Germany under the consideration of the motto of the FU.Andreas Daum, Kennedy in Berlin. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 156‒61. Amongst the attendant crowd are also the Governing Mayor of West Berlin, Willy Brandt, and the Chancellor of West Germany, Konrad Adenauer. His brother, Robert F. Kennedy, visited the university in 1962 for the first time and in June 1964 to receive his honorary degree from the Department of Philosophy. The speech he held at the event was dedicated to John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated the year before.
In the late 1960s, the Free University of Berlin was one of the main scenes of the West German student movement of '68, as a reaction to the global student protests during that time. Significant issues included better living standards and education at the university, the Vietnam War, the presence of former Nazi Party members in the government as epitomized by the Globke affair, and continuing institutional authoritarianism. After the assassination of student Benno Ohnesorg and the attempt on the life of Rudi Dutschke, protests quickly escalated to violence throughout West Germany. The events of the 68-movement provided the impulse for more openness, equality, and democracy in West German society.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the university became a "Massenuniversität" ("mass/mega university"), first exceeding 50,000 registered students in 1983. After Reunification, the Free University of Berlin was the second-largest university in Germany (after LMU Munich), with over 62,000 students registered in the academic year 1991/92. Shortly thereafter, as the Senate of Berlin decided to drastically reduce enrollment until 2003, the number of annually registered students was 10,000 less for the next ten years
Since 2000, the Free University of Berlin has revamped itself. The university's research performance increased markedly with regard to the number of graduates, PhDs granted, and publications.
Since 2000
Since 2003, the FU Berlin has been regrouping its research capacities into interdisciplinary research focus areas called clusters. Due to financial cutbacks and restructuring of medical schools in the same year, the medical institutions of the Free and Humboldt Universities of Berlin merged to create a joint department, the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.
The year 2007 was another crucial year for the Free University of Berlin as it was the university with the most approved funding applications in the German Universities Excellence Initiative, and it is now one of nine elite German universities to receive funding for its future development strategy. In the same year, 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. The university received a total of 108 million euros from the Excellence Initiative for its approved projects between 2007 and 2012.
Based on its founding tradition, the Free University of Berlin seal to this day bears the Latin terms for Truth, Justice, and Liberty. The designer of the seal was art historian and former president of the Free University of Berlin, Edwin Redslob.
Campuses
The main campus of the Free University is located in Dahlem, a neighbourhood in the district of Steglitz-Zehlendorf, in southwest Berlin. Additional institutes and subsidiary sites are situated in the Lichterfelde West and Düppel areas, as well as in the neighbourhoods of Steglitz and Lankwitz. Since its foundation, the main campus has been distinguished for modernist buildings designed by internationally renowned architects.
Campus Dahlem
Most of the facilities of the Free University are located in the residential garden district of Dahlem in southwestern Berlin. Around the beginning of the 20th century, Dahlem was established as a center for research of the highest caliber. Academic activity in Dahlem was supported by Friedrich Althoff, Ministerial Director in the Prussian Ministry of Culture, who initially proposed the foundation of a "German Oxford."
The first new buildings housed government science agencies and new research institutes of the University of Berlin. The Kaiser Wilhelm Society – forerunner of the present-day Max Planck Society – was founded in 1911 and established several institutes in Dahlem.
A dynamic group of researchers carried out pioneering research resulting in numerous Nobel Prizes. Since its foundation, the Free University of Berlin has been using buildings formerly belonging to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society and, in addition, has added numerous architecturally innovative buildings.