70 years of Humboldt University : Humboldt-Tradition across all systems

the Humboldt-University in 1946, Was re-opened or re-established? This question was since 2003 in the center of the dispute between the Humboldt University and the Free University, on the Nobel prize winners of the old University of Berlin. Now, a significant chronicler of the HU, Elmar Tenorth has, once again, to the tradition of the question raised.

on the occasion of the official naming according to Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt on 8. February 1949, declared interview Tenorth in a video, after 1945, had to be decided: "we Stand in the Tradition of the University of Berlin, or we are a new start-up?"

In the tradition of the dispute between the Berlin universities, it comes to the Nobel prizes

the five Nobel laureates of the old Berlin University, Tenorth not. But his vote seems like a later comment on the dispute to the tradition's heritage. Nobel prizes mitausschlag are giving the placement of universities in the international Ranking of the University of Shanghai. First, the Chinese higher education researchers had hit the historic Nobel prizes, the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität for the FU.

The HU a put successful contradiction with the Argument that it is the "legitimate successor of the Berlin University of". The quality of the former FU-President Dieter Lenzen suggested that Nobel prize winners are two Unis. Shanghai, the rejected as well as the HU and disqualified both Unis.

Elmar Tenorth, Professor i. R. for historical education, decides now again for the tradition thesis. The ceremony to mark the restart of the University of on 29. January 1946, he called a "re-opening celebration". The already at that time, the favored Name Humboldt-Universität stress "has become a Tradition in the the University of all political systems always stood out," he says in the Interview, the the HU was on Wednesday on their website.

"the Socialist of the world of advanced science"

he was next to Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt for the name of the donor, be it the head of the administration for public education, Paul Wandel, managed "to can also the socialist view of the world of advanced science, namely, the natural Sciences, with the name Humboldt to connect".

"imperative" to connect with the name Humboldt, "to let only the validity of the criteria of science in the research," exercise "and not the policy, not ideologues to throw". That such a subjugation shaped the Humboldt-University in the first decades after the naming, in the GDR-time, says Tenorth.

anti-thesis: "re-establishment as a Soviet University"

The Thesis of the Re-establishment of the Humboldt's line of tradition to the old University in 2005, the FU had objected to-the chronicler victory ward Lönnendonker vehemently. "The policy of the Soviet occupying power, in conjunction with the German Communists in the SBZ" had it been "the re-establishment of Berlin University as a University of Soviet-type," wrote Lönnendonker in the "journal of the research Association SED-Staat" (the heritage of the Humboldt-University, ZdF 17/2005). This was "different from the Wilhelm von Humboldt", the feeling of the freedom of the Sciences and the "ongoing process of truth-finding" required.

Paul change language according to the Lönnendonker 1946 "of a new opening and not a re-opening of the University" – if, with respect to the "valuable traditions of the past". These, however, were the "re-establishment as a Soviet University," betrayed, so Lönnendonker. The naming of the "Humboldt University" was therefore "the biggest misnomer in the history of the German University".

excellence competition of the universities of Three sisters and a request

The positions are up today, incompatible side – by-side, in spite of the planned interconnection of the three major Berlin universities in the excellence strategy. As HU and FU are not listed in the Shanghai Ranking.