Misplaced Pages

#155844

75-694: While area studies had been taught at the Seminar for Oriental Languages of the Friedrich-Wilhelm University Berlin (now Humboldt-University ) since 1887, interdisciplinary area studies became increasingly common in the United States and in Western scholarship after World War II . Before that war American universities had just a few faculty who taught or conducted research on the non-Western world. Foreign-area studies were virtually nonexistent. After

150-449: A quarantine house for Plague at the city gates, which in 1727 was rechristened by the "soldier king" Friedrich Wilhelm: "Es soll das Haus die Charité heißen" (called Charité [French for charity ]). By 1829 the site became Friedrich Wilhelm University's medical campus and remained so until 1927 when the more modern University Hospital was constructed. The university started a natural history collection in 1810, which by 1889, required

225-508: A "resistance movement at the University of Berlin", as well as espionage, and were sentenced to 25 years of forced labor. From 1945 to 1948, 18 other students and teachers were arrested or abducted, many missing for weeks, and some were taken to the Soviet Union and executed. Many of the students targeted by Soviet persecution were active in the liberal or social democratic resistance against

300-643: A BA in economics in 1953 and an MA and a PhD in political science in 1957 and 1961, respectively. Both of his advanced degrees were from the University of California, Berkeley . Johnson met his wife, Sheila, a junior at Berkeley, in 1956, and they married in Reno, Nevada , in May 1957. During the Korean War , Johnson served as a naval officer in Japan. He was a communications officer on

375-416: A model for institutions like Johns Hopkins University . Further, it has been claimed that "the 'Humboldtian' university became a model for the rest of Europe [...] with its central principle being the union of teaching and research in the work of the individual scholar or scientist." In addition to the strong anchoring of traditional subjects, such as science, law, philosophy, history, theology and medicine,

450-687: A model, and their arguments faded from view as the Japanese economy stagnated in the mid-1990s and later. During that period, Johnson served as a consultant to the Office of National Estimates , part of the CIA , and contributed to analysis of China and Maoism . Johnson was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1976. He served as Director of the Center for Chinese Studies (1967–1972) and Chair of

525-630: A much larger number of permanent assistant professors, lecturers and other middle level academic positions. After reunification, these positions were abolished or converted to temporary posts for consistency with the West German system. As a result, only 10% of the mid-level academics in Humboldt-Universität still had a position in 1998. Through the transformations, the university's research and exchange links with Eastern European institutions were maintained and stabilized. Today, Humboldt University

600-540: A nation confront today, although I focused more on Asia – the area of my academic training – than on the Middle East. The Sorrows of Empire was written during the American preparations for and launching of the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq . I began to study our continuous military buildup since World War II and the 737 military bases we currently maintain in other people's countries. This empire of bases

675-405: A passion for work, such an interest for things that are not petty student intrigues, such an inclination for the sciences, such calm and such silence. Compared to this temple of work, the other universities appear like public houses." 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 ,

750-668: A separate building and became the Museum für Naturkunde . The preexisting Tierarznei School, founded in 1790 and absorbed by the university, in 1934 formed the basis of the Veterinary Medicine Facility (Grundstock der Veterinärmedizinischen Fakultät). Also the Landwirtschaftliche Hochschule Berlin (Agricultural University of Berlin), founded in 1881 was affiliated with the Agricultural Faculties of

825-473: A sharp critic of what he called “American imperialism.” His book Blowback (2000) won a prize in 2001 from the Before Columbus Foundation , and it was reissued in an updated version in 2004. Sorrows of Empire , published in 2004, updated the evidence and argument from Blowback for the post- 9/11 environment, and Nemesis concludes the trilogy. Johnson was featured as an expert talking head in

SECTION 10

#1732845014156

900-498: 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

975-487: Is a state university with a large number of students (36,986 in 2014, among them more than 4,662 foreign students) after the model of West German universities, and like its counterpart the Freie Universität Berlin . The university consists of three different campuses, namely Campus Mitte, Campus Nord and Campus Adlershof. Its main building is located in the centre of Berlin at the boulevard Unter den Linden and

1050-595: Is likely to lead. Specifically, I believe that to maintain our empire abroad requires resources and commitments that will inevitably undercut our domestic democracy and in the end produce a military dictatorship or its civilian equivalent. The founders of our nation understood this well and tried to create a form of government – a republic – that would prevent this from occurring. But the combination of huge standing armies, almost continuous wars, military Keynesianism , and ruinous military expenses have destroyed our republican structure in favor of an imperial presidency. We are on

1125-433: Is the concrete manifestation of our global hegemony , and many of the blowback-inducing wars we have conducted had as their true purpose the sustaining and expanding of this network. We do not think of these overseas deployments as a form of empire; in fact, most Americans do not give them any thought at all until something truly shocking, such as the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay , brings them to our attention. But

1200-536: Is the heart of Campus Mitte. The building was erected on order by King Frederick II for his younger brother Prince Henry of Prussia . All the institutes of humanities are located around the main building together with the Department of Law and the Department of Business and Economics. Campus Nord is located north of the main building close to Berlin Hauptbahnhof and is the home of the life science departments including

1275-545: Is used by the CIA to mean the unintended consequences of American policies and actions in the world. His book Blowback , which was first published in January 2001, predicted the events of 9/11 as being the result of American policy. He cites the combination of militarism, far-flung military bases around the world, unsustainable economic domestic policy, and a complacent voting population as being toxic to American democracy. The extras in

1350-568: The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) anymore since 2008. In the 2023 QS Subject Ranking, Humboldt University ranks first in Germany in the arts and humanities and the social sciences. In the 2024 THE Subject Ranking, Humboldt University ranks second in Germany in the arts and humanities, law, psychology, and social sciences. In the 2023 ARWU Subject Ranking, Humboldt University ranks first in Germany in geography. Measured by

1425-622: The Brothers Grimm . The main building of Humboldt-Universität is the Prinz-Heinrich-Palais (English: Prince Henry's Palace ) on Unter den Linden boulevard in the historic centre of Berlin . It was erected from 1748 to 1753 for Prince Henry of Prussia , the brother of Frederick the Great , according to plans by Johann Boumann in Baroque style . In 1809, the former Royal Prussian residence

1500-629: 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

1575-668: The Eugene Jarecki -directed film Why We Fight , which won the 2005 Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival . Johnson wrote for the Los Angeles Times , the London Review of Books , Harper's , and The Nation . Johnson believed that the enforcement of American hegemony over the world constitutes a new form of global empire. Whereas traditional empires maintained control over subject peoples via colonies,

SECTION 20

#1732845014156

1650-787: The Ford Foundation , the Rockefeller Foundation , and the Carnegie Corporation of New York convened a series of meetings producing a broad consensus that to address this knowledge deficit, the U.S. must invest in international studies. Participants argued that a large brain trust of internationally oriented political scientists and economists was an urgent national priority. There was a central tension, however, between those who felt strongly that, instead of applying Western models, social scientists should develop culturally and historically contextualized knowledge of various parts of

1725-587: The German reunification , the university was radically restructured under the Structure and Appointment Commissions, which were presided by West German professors. For departments on social sciences and humanities, the faculty was subjected to a "liquidation" process, in which contracts of employees were terminated and positions were made open to new academics, mainly West Germans. Older professors were offered early retirement. The East German higher education system included

1800-1031: The Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies for field-development workshops, conferences, and publication programs. Eventually, the SSRC-ACLS joint committees would take over the administration of FAFP. Other large and important programs followed Ford's. Most notably, the National Defense Education Act of 1957, renamed the Higher Education Act in 1965, allocated funding for some 125 university-based area-studies units known as National Resource Center programs at U.S. universities, as well as for Foreign Language and Area Studies scholarships for undergraduate students and fellowships for graduate students. Meanwhile, area studies were also developed in

1875-523: The Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies , which had long served as the national nexus for raising and administering funds for area studies, underwent their first major restructuring in thirty years, closing down their area committees, scholars interpreted this as a massive signal about the changing research environment. Some entire institutions of higher education (tertiary education) are devoted solely to area studies such as School of Oriental and African Studies or

1950-661: The Tokyo University of Foreign Studies in Japan. An institution which exclusively deals with Area Studies is the German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Germany. Humboldt University of Berlin 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

2025-578: The USS La Moure County , which ferried Chinese prisoners of war from South Korea back to ports in North Korea. He taught political science at the University of California from 1962 until he retired from teaching in 1992. He was best known early in his career for his scholarship on the subjects of China and Japan. Johnson set the agenda for 10 or 15 years in social science scholarship on China, with his book on peasant nationalism. His book MITI and

2100-530: The University of Bonn , the University of Berlin was established by King Friedrich Wilhelm III on 16 August 1809, during the period of the Prussian Reform Movement , on the initiative of the liberal Prussian philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt . The university was located in a palace constructed from 1748 to 1766 for the late Prince Henry , the younger brother of Frederick the Great . After his widow and her ninety-member staff moved out,

2175-460: The University of Vienna . Chalmers Johnson Chalmers Ashby Johnson (August 6, 1931 – November 20, 2010) was an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics , and professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego . He served in the Korean War , was a consultant for the CIA from 1967 to 1973 and chaired the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley from 1967 to 1972. He

2250-458: The 1920s to 1930s, renowned Jewish orientalist Eugen Mittwoch was director of the school, before being forced to emigrate to London after Kristallnacht in 1938. Friedrich Wilhelm University became an emulated model of a modern university in the 19th century. After 1933, like all German universities, Friedrich Wilhelm University was impacted by the Nazi regime . The rector during this period

2325-613: The American Republic in speeches titled Evil Empire . The books and lectures are a warning about the unintended consequences of US policy in the world. In June 2007, he gave a talk at a local Democratic Club in Fallbrook, CA which was filmed and released on DVD. It is produced and directed by Jon Monday for mondayMEDIA. Synopsis: Johnson traces the fall of the Roman Empire as a pattern he saw in American geopolitics. The term blowback

Area studies - Misplaced Pages Continue

2400-498: The American Republic . A former Cold Warrior , he notably stated, "A nation can be one or the other, a democracy or an imperialist, but it can't be both. If it sticks to imperialism, it will, like the old Roman Republic , on which so much of our system was modeled, lose its democracy to a domestic dictatorship." Johnson was born in 1931 in Phoenix, Arizona , to David Frederick Johnson Jr. and Katherine Marjorie (Ashby) Johnson. He earned

2475-594: The Empire is suggested reading for CIA personnel. In a 2007, during the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, Johnson gave a series of lectures titled, Evil Empire , as part of his American Empire Project, in which he summed up his trilogy, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire , The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic , and Nemesis:The Last Days of

2550-518: The Japanese Miracle , on the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry , was the pre-eminent study of the country's development and it created the subfield of what could be called the political economy of development. He coined the term " developmental state ." As a public intellectual, he first led the "Japan revisionists" who critiqued American neoliberal economics with Japan as

2625-535: The Oriental Seminary) to prepare public servants for posting to Kamerun (later Cameroon ), then part of the German colonial empire . Various Asian languages were taught there, and in 1890, there were 115 students, which belonged to various faculties, including law; philosophy, medicine and physical sciences; and theology (as part of their training to be missionaries). Teachers included Hermann Nekes  [ de ] (1909–1915) and Heinrich Vieter . In

2700-488: The Political Science Department at Berkeley, and he held a number of important academic posts in area studies. He was a strong believer in the importance of language and historical training for conducting serious research. Late in his career, he became well known as a critic of rational choice approaches, particularly in the study of Japanese politics and political economy. Johnson is probably best known as

2775-561: The Soviet Union. Since their inception, area studies have been subject to criticism—including by area specialists themselves. Many of them alleged that because area studies were connected to the Cold War agendas of the CIA , the FBI , and other intelligence and military agencies, participating in such programs was tantamount to serving as an agent of the state. Some argue that there is the notion that U.S. concerns and research priorities will define

2850-578: The Soviet-imposed communist dictatorship. The German communist party had long regarded the social democrats as their main enemies, dating back to the early days of the Weimar Republic. During the Berlin Blockade , the Freie Universität Berlin was established as a de facto western successor in West Berlin in 1948, with support from the United States, and retaining traditions and faculty members of

2925-574: The US accelerated its reliance on military solutions to problems both economic and political. The result of that militarism, as distinct from domestic defense, is more terrorism against the US and its allies, the loss of core democratic values at home, and the eventual crumbling of the American economy . Of four books he wrote on the topic, the first three are referred to as the Blowback Trilogy. Johnson summarized

3000-467: The US, since World War II, has developed a vast system of hundreds of military bases around the world. A longtime Cold Warrior , he applauded the dissolution of the Soviet Union : "I was a cold warrior. There's no doubt about that. I believed the Soviet Union was a genuine menace. I still think so." At the same time, however, he experienced a political awakening after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and noted that instead of demobilizing its armed forces,

3075-406: The area studies program in the U.S. In 1950, the foundation established the prestigious Foreign Area Fellowship Program (FAFP), the first large-scale national competition in support of area-studies training in the U.S. From 1953 to 1966, it contributed $ 270 million to 34 universities for area and language studies. Also during this period, it poured millions of dollars into the committees run jointly by

Area studies - Misplaced Pages Continue

3150-456: The center of the square. It consists of a glass panel embedded in the pavement that looks into a large, subterranean white room with empty shelf space for 20,000 volumes, along with a plaque bearing an epigraph taken from an 1820 work by the great German-Jewish writer Heinrich Heine : " Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen. " ("This

3225-556: The collection was relocated to the building of the Berlin State Library . During the Weimar Period the library contained 831,934 volumes (1930) and was thus one of the leading university libraries in Germany at that time. During the Nazi book burnings in 1933, no volumes from the university library were destroyed. The loss through World War II was comparatively small. In 2003, natural science-related books were outhoused to

3300-411: The cusp of losing our democracy for the sake of keeping our empire. Once a nation is started down that path, the dynamics that apply to all empires come into play – isolation, overstretch, the uniting of forces opposed to imperialism, and bankruptcy. Nemesis stalks our life as a free nation. Johnson outlines how the United States can reverse American hegemony and preserve the American state. Dismantling

3375-487: The date of its opening. In 1810, at the time of the opening, the university established the first academic chair in the field of history in the world. From 1828 to 1945, the school was named the "Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin", in honor of its founder. Ludwig Feuerbach , then one of the students, made a comment about the university in 1826: "There is no question here of drinking, duelling and pleasant communal outings; in no other university can you find such

3450-632: The first unofficial lectures were given in the building in the winter of 1809. Humboldt faced great resistance to his ideas as he set up the university. He submitted his resignation to the King in April 1810, and was not present when the school opened that fall. The first students were admitted on 6 October 1810, and the first semester started on 10 October 1810, with 256 students and 52 lecturers in faculties of law, medicine, theology and philosophy under rector Theodor Schmalz. The university celebrates 15 October 1810 as

3525-434: The intellectual terrain of area studies. Others insisted, however, that once they were established on university campuses, area studies began to encompass a much broader and deeper intellectual agenda than the one foreseen by government agencies, thus not American centric. Arguably, one of the greatest threats to the area studies project was the rise of rational choice theory in political science and economics. To mock one of

3600-477: The intent of the Blowback series in the final chapter of Nemesis . In Blowback , I set out to explain why we are hated around the world. The concept " blowback " does not just mean retaliation for things our government has done to and in foreign countries. It refers to retaliation for the numerous illegal operations we have carried out abroad that were kept totally secret from the American public. This means that when

3675-512: The most outspoken rational choice theory critics, Japan scholar Chalmers Johnson asked: Why do you need to know Japanese or anything about Japan's history and culture if the methods of rational choice will explain why Japanese politicians and bureaucrats do the things they do? Following the demise of the Soviet Union , philanthropic foundations and scientific bureaucracies moved to attenuate their support for area studies, emphasizing instead interregional themes like "development and democracy". When

3750-663: The national level. Additionally, in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2024, it was placed at 87th worldwide and 4th within the country. Because of an unresolved dispute over the counting of Nobel laureates before the Second World War – both Humboldt University and the Free University of Berlin claim to be the rightful successor of the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin – both do not appear in

3825-514: The newly founded library at the Adlershof campus, which is dedicated solely to the natural sciences. Since the premises of the State Library had to be cleared in 2005, a new library building was erected close to the main building in the center of Berlin. The "Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm-Zentrum" (Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Centre, Grimm Zentrum, or GZ as referred to by students) opened in 2009. In total,

SECTION 50

#1732845014156

3900-495: The number of top managers in the German economy, Humboldt-Universität ranked 53rd in 2019. In 2020, the American U.S. News & World Report listed Humboldt-Universität as the 82nd best in the world, climbing eight positions, being among the 100 best in the world in 17 areas out of 29 ranked. HU students can study abroad for a semester or a year at partner institutions such as the University of Warwick , Princeton University , and

3975-512: The old Friedrich Wilhelm University. The name of the Free University refers to West Berlin's perceived status as part of the Western " free world ", in contrast to the "unfree" Communist world in general and the "unfree" communist-controlled university in East Berlin in particular. Because the historical name, the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin, had monarchic origins, the school

4050-421: The people living next door to these bases and dealing with the swaggering soldiers who brawl and sometimes rape their women certainly think of them as imperial enclaves, just as the people of ancient Iberia or nineteenth-century India knew that they were victims of foreign colonization. In Nemesis , I have tried to present historical, political, economic, and philosophical evidence of where our current behavior

4125-652: The physicians Johannes Peter Müller , Emil du Bois-Reymond , Albrecht von Graefe , Rudolf Virchow , and Robert Koch , contributed to Berlin University's scientific fame. During this period of enlargement, the university gradually expanded to incorporate other previously separate colleges in Berlin. An example would be the Charité , the Pépinière and the Collegium Medico-chirurgicum. In 1710, King Friedrich I had built

4200-413: The retaliation comes – as it did so spectacularly on September 11, 2001 – the American public is unable to put the events in context. So they tend to support acts intended to lash out against the perpetrators, thereby most commonly preparing the ground for yet another cycle of blowback. In the first book in this trilogy, I tried to provide some of the historical background for understanding the dilemmas we as

4275-458: The staff were fired by the Nazis. It was from the university's library that some 20,000 books by " degenerates " and opponents of the regime were taken to be burned on 10 May of that year in the Opernplatz square (now called the Bebelplatz ) for a demonstration that was protected by the SA and featured a speech by Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels . A monument to this tragic event called The Empty Library can now be found in

4350-431: The theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher , the absolute idealist philosopher G.W.F. Hegel , the Romantic legal theorist Friedrich Carl von Savigny , the anti-optimist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer , the objective idealist philosopher Friedrich Schelling , cultural critic Walter Benjamin , and famous physicists Albert Einstein and Max Planck . The founders of Marxist theory Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels attended

4425-411: The university after its founder's death. However, these terms were ignored. In 2001, the university acquired the Archive for Sexology from the Robert Koch Institute, which was founded with a large private library donated by Erwin J. Haeberle . This has now been housed at the new Magnus Hirschfeld Center. According to the 2024 QS World University Rankings , the university ranked 120th globally and 7th at

4500-477: The university developed to encompass numerous new scientific disciplines. Alexander von Humboldt , brother of the founder William, promoted the new learning. The construction of modern research facilities in the second half of the 19th century aided the teaching of the natural sciences. Famous researchers, such as the chemist August Wilhelm Hofmann , the physicist Hermann von Helmholtz , the mathematicians Ernst Eduard Kummer , Leopold Kronecker , Karl Weierstrass ,

4575-404: The university library contains about 6.5 million volumes and 9,000 held magazines and journals, and is one of the biggest university libraries in Germany. The books of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft were destroyed during the Nazi book burnings, and the institute destroyed. Under the terms of the Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation, the government had agreed to continue the work of the institute at

SECTION 60

#1732845014156

4650-468: The university medical center Charité . The natural sciences, together with computer science and mathematics, are located at Campus Adlershof in the south-east of Berlin. Furthermore, the university continues its tradition of a book sale at the university gates facing Bebelplatz. The university is divided ino 9 faculties: Graduate schools provide structured PhD programmes: Furthermore, there are four central institutes ( Zentralinstitute ) that are part of

4725-473: The university, as did poet Heinrich Heine , novelist Alfred Döblin , founder of structuralism Ferdinand de Saussure , German unifier Otto von Bismarck , Communist Party of Germany founder Karl Liebknecht , African American Pan Africanist W. E. B. Du Bois and European unifier Robert Schuman , as well as the influential surgeon Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach in the early half of the 1800s. The structure of German research-intensive universities served as

4800-402: The university, requiring lectures to be submitted for approval by Socialist Unity Party officials, and piped Soviet propaganda into the cafeteria. This led to strong protests within the student body and faculty. NKVD secret police arrested a number of students in March 1947 as a response. The Soviet Military Tribunal in Berlin-Lichtenberg ruled the students were involved in the formation of

4875-488: The university. In August 1870, in a speech delivered on the eve of war with France, Emil du Bois-Reymond proclaimed that "the University of Berlin, quartered opposite the King's palace, is, by the deed of our foundation, the intellectual bodyguard of the House of Hohenzollern (das geistige Leibregiment des Hauses Hohenzollern)." In 1887, chancellor Otto Bismarck established the Seminar für Orientalische Sprachen  [ de ] (SOS), (usually known in English as

4950-414: The university: Each year, students elect the student parliament ( Studierendenparlament ), which serves as the body of student representatives under German law ( AStA ). When the Royal Library proved insufficient, a new library was founded in 1831, first located in several temporary sites. In 1871–1874 a library building was constructed, following the design of architect Paul Emanuel Spieker. In 1910

5025-424: The war, liberals and conservatives alike were concerned about the U.S. ability to respond effectively to perceived external threats from the Soviet Union and China in the context of the emerging Cold War , as well as to the fall-out from the decolonization of Africa and Asia . Area studies programs originated within the U.S. Office of Strategic Services , the predecessor agency to the CIA. In this context,

5100-414: The world by working closely with humanists, and those who thought social scientists should seek to develop overarching macrohistorial theories that could draw connections between patterns of change and development across different geographies. The former became area-studies advocates, the latter proponents of modernization theory . The Ford Foundation would eventually become the dominant player in shaping

5175-452: Was Eugen Fischer . The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service (German "Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums") resulted in 250 Jewish professors and employees being fired from the university during 1933–1934, as well as numerous doctorates being withdrawn. Students and scholars, and other political opponents of Nazis, were ejected from the university and often deported. During this time nearly one third of all of

5250-408: Was also president and co-founder with Steven Clemons of the Japan Policy Research Institute (now based at the University of San Francisco ), an organization that promotes public education about Japan and Asia. Johnson wrote numerous books, including three examinations of the consequences of what he called the " American Empire ": Blowback , The Sorrows of Empire , and Nemesis; The Last Days of

5325-453: Was but a prelude; where they burn books, they ultimately burn people"). During the Cold War , the university was located in East Berlin . It reopened in 1946 as the University of Berlin, but faced repression from the Soviet Military Administration in Germany , including the persecution of liberal and social democrat students. Almost immediately, the Soviet occupiers started persecuting non-communists and suppressing academic freedom at

5400-626: Was converted into a university building. Damaged during the Allied bombing in World War II , it was rebuilt from 1949 to 1962. In 1967, eight statues from the destroyed Potsdam City Palace were placed on the side wings of the university building. Currently there is discussion about returning the statues to the Potsdam City Palace, which was rebuilt as the Landtag of Brandenburg in 2013. Similar to

5475-500: 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 (German: Königliche Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin ). During

5550-805: Was generally regarded as the world's preeminent university for the natural sciences during the 19th and early 20th century, as the university is linked to major breakthroughs in physics and other sciences by its professors, such as Albert Einstein . Past and present faculty and notable alumni include 57 Nobel Prize laureates (the most of any German university), as well as scholars and academics including Albert Einstein , Hermann von Helmholtz , Emil du Bois-Reymond , Robert Koch , Theodor Mommsen , Karl Marx , Friedrich Engels , Otto von Bismarck , W. E. B. Du Bois , Arthur Schopenhauer , Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , Walter Benjamin , Max Weber , Georg Simmel , Karl Liebknecht , Ernst Cassirer , Heinrich Heine , Eduard Fraenkel , Max Planck , Wernher von Braun and

5625-567: Was officially renamed in 1949. Although the Soviet occupational authorities preferred to name the school after a communist leader, university leaders were able to name it the "Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin", after the two Humboldt brothers, a name that was also uncontroversial in the West and capitalized on the fame of the Humboldt name, which is associated with the Humboldtian model of higher education . After

#155844