Humboldt University of Berlin

The Humboldt University of Berlin (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is the oldest of the four public universities in the German capital, founded in 1809 on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humboldt, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Schleiermacher, and it opened in 1810 with 256 students and 52 lecturers in four faculties柏林洪堡大学（Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin，简称 HU Berlin）是德国首都柏林四所公立大学中历史最悠久的一所，1809 年在威廉·冯·洪堡、约翰·戈特利布·费希特与弗里德里希·施莱尔马赫的倡议下创立，1810 年开学时有学生 256 人、教师 52 人，分设四个学院。

Its Latin motto Universitas litterarum means the university of letters or the totality of knowledge, it has nine faculties including the medical school it shares with the Free University of Berlin, and OpenAlex records 135,098 works and 11,539,816 citations学校拉丁文校训为「Universitas litterarum」，意为知识的总和；学校下设九个学院，其中医学院与柏林自由大学合办；OpenAlex 收录其学术成果 135,098 篇，总被引 11,539,816 次。

History

• The university was established by King Frederick William III on 16 August 1809 during the Prussian reform movement, at a time when the king had long resisted founding a university in his province, and it was given the Latin name Alma mater berolinensis1809 年 8 月 16 日，普鲁士国王腓特烈·威廉三世在普鲁士改革运动期间批准设立柏林大学，此前他一直不愿在本土设立大学；新校的拉丁文校名为「Alma mater berolinensis」。
• The premises were a palace built from 1748 for Prince Henry of Prussia, the younger brother of Frederick the Great, according to plans by Johann Boumann in the baroque style, and the first unofficial lectures were given there in the winter of 1809 after the royal family had moved out校址是 1748 年起为普鲁士国王腓特烈大帝之弟亨利亲王建造的一座宫殿，由 Johann Boumann 按巴洛克风格设计；王室迁出后，1809 年冬天学校在此举行了第一批非正式讲座。
• The first students were admitted on 6 October 1810 and the first semester began on 10 October 1810, with the university celebrating 15 October 1810 as its opening day, and the faculties of law, medicine, theology and philosophy started under the first rector Theodor Schmalz学校于 1810 年 10 月 6 日招收首批学生，10 月 10 日正式开课，并把 10 月 15 日作为建校纪念日；法律、医学、神学与哲学四个学院在首任校长特奥多尔·施马尔茨主持下开学。
• In 1810 the university created the first academic chair of history in the world, a decision that made historical scholarship an institutional subject rather than a literary amusement, and Wilhelm von Humboldt himself resigned from the committee in April 1810 and was absent when the school opened1810 年，学校设立了全世界第一个历史学教席，使史学成为一门制度化学科而不再只是文人雅趣；威廉·冯·洪堡本人已于 1810 年 4 月辞去筹建委员会职务，学校开学时他并未到场。
• From 1828 until its closure in 1945 the institution was named the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin, after the king who had founded it, and Ludwig Feuerbach, then a student, contrasted the thirst for work and silence he found here with the taverns of other universities自 1828 年起直至 1945 年，学校以创建者国王之名称为柏林腓特烈·威廉皇家大学；当时的学生路德维希·费尔巴哈曾对比写道，这里的勤勉与静谧是其他大学的酒馆难以比拟的。
• In 1850 the university was depicted as the intellectual bodyguard of the house of Hohenzollern by the physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond, and through the second half of the century it expanded by absorbing separate institutions in the city, among them the Pépinière and the Collegium Medico-chirurgicum1850 年，生理学家埃米尔·杜布瓦-雷蒙宣称这所大学是霍亨索伦王朝的精神近卫；世纪下半叶，学校通过吸纳柏林城内其他独立机构不断扩张，其中包括佩皮涅尔寄宿学校与外科医学院。
• Its medical campus on the site of the former quarantine house had been named the Charité by King Friedrich Wilhelm in 1727, became the university's medical campus by 1829 and remained so until the more modern university hospital was built in 1927其医学院所在的旧检疫所建筑由腓特烈·威廉国王于 1727 年命名为「慈善院」（Charité），1829 年前后成为学校医学院院址，并一直沿用到 1927 年更现代的大学医院建成。
• The university began a natural history collection in 1810, which by 1889 required a building of its own and became the Museum für Naturkunde, and it also absorbed a veterinary school founded in 1790, which in 1934 formed the basis of the veterinary faculty, while an agricultural college founded in 1881 was affiliated with its agricultural professorships学校自 1810 年开始筹建自然史收藏，到 1889 年已需专门馆舍并发展为自然博物馆；此外学校还接收了 1790 年创办的兽医学校，其于 1934 年构成兽医学院的基础，而 1881 年创办的农业高等学校则与学校的农业专业合作办学。
• Chancellor Otto Bismarck founded the oriental seminary in 1887 to train civil servants for service in the colonies, it had 115 students from several faculties in 1890, and in the 1920s and 1930s the Jewish orientalist Eugen Mittwoch directed the school before emigrating to London after the pogrom of November 19381887 年，宰相奥托·俾斯麦创办东方语讲习所，培养殖民地任职的公务员，1890 年学员达 115 人，学员来自多个学院；20 世纪二三十年代由犹太东方学者欧根·米特沃赫主持，1938 年 11 月的暴力事件后被迫流亡伦敦。
• The university admitted its first female students only in 1908, the physicist Lise Meitner taught there as an extraordinary professor from 1926, and women were not given regular chairs until after 1945直到 1908 年，学校才开始招收女生；物理学家莉泽·迈特纳自 1926 年起以特聘教授身份在此任教；而真正把教授席位授予女性，则是 1945 年之后的事。
• After 1933 the university was drawn into the Nazi regime, the rector during those years was Eugen Fischer, around 250 Jewish professors and employees were dismissed in 1933 and 1934 and nearly a third of all staff were removed, and some 20,000 books deemed degenerate were burned from the university library in the Opernplatz on 10 May 19331933 年以后，学校被纳入纳粹体制，这一时期的校长是欧根·菲舍尔；1933 至 1934 年间约 250 名犹太裔教授与雇员被解聘，近三分之一的工作人员遭到清除；1933 年 5 月 10 日，学校图书馆中约 2 万册被判定为「堕落」的书籍在歌剧院广场被焚毁。
• It reopened in 1946 as the University of Berlin but was immediately subjected to Soviet control, lectures had to be submitted for approval to socialist party officials, the secret police arrested students in March 1947, and a Soviet military tribunal in Berlin-Lichtenberg sentenced them to 25 years of forced labour as members of a resistance movement1946 年学校以柏林大学名义复校，随即受到苏联占领当局控制：讲课内容须经社民党官员审批，1947 年 3 月内务人民委员部特勤机关逮捕学生，柏林利希滕贝格的苏联军事法庭以组建抵抗组织为由判处其 25 年强迫劳动。
• During the Berlin Blockade the Free University of Berlin was established in West Berlin in 1948 with American support as a de facto western successor, keeping the traditions and some of the faculty of the old university, and its name referred to West Berlin's claim to belong to the free world柏林封锁期间，1948 年在西柏林、在美国支持下成立了柏林自由大学，作为事实上的西方继承者，它沿袭了老大学的传统与部分师资；「自由」之名指向西柏林自认属于「自由世界」的立场。
• Because the old name carried a monarchic reference, the university was officially renamed in 1949 as the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, after the two Humboldt brothers, a name that was acceptable in the East, uncontroversial in the West and capital on the fame of the Humboldtian model由于旧校名带有王权色彩，学校于 1949 年正式更名为柏林洪堡大学，以纪念洪堡兄弟；这个名字在东方为当局接受，在西方毫无争议，并借「洪堡模式」之名积累了声望。
• The main building on the boulevard had been damaged in the bombing of the Second World War and was rebuilt from 1949 to 1962, and in 1967 eight statues from the destroyed Potsdam City Palace were set on its side wings, a placement still debated today菩提树下大街的主楼在二战轰炸中受损，于 1949 至 1962 年重建；1967 年，已被拆除的波茨坦城市宫殿上的八尊雕像被安置于主楼侧翼，这一归属问题至今仍有争议。
• The two universities of Berlin remained separate institutions, but as budgets tightened they began to cooperate and even to merge in certain fields, and in 2003 the medical faculties of both were combined into the Charité, now the Universitätsmedizin Berlin, which is jointly run with the Free University柏林的两所大学长期各自独立，但在预算趋紧的情况下逐步在部分领域合作乃至合并，2003 年两校的医学院合并为柏林夏里特医学院，由两校共同举办。
• After German reunification the university was radically restructured under structure and appointment commissions presided over by professors from West Germany, most of the former East German staff were dismissed or allowed to take early retirement, and only about 10 per cent of the mid-level academics of the East German era still held a post in 1998两德统一后，学校在以西德教授为主导的结构与聘任委员会主持下被彻底改组，原东德时期的大多数人员被解聘或获准提前退休，到 1998 年原东德体系下的中层教师中仅有约 10% 仍在改革后的学校任教。
• Despite this upheaval the university kept its exchange links with institutions in Eastern Europe, and in the years after reunification it organised itself into the three campuses of Mitte, Nord and Adlershof, moving the natural sciences south-east to the Adlershof technology park from 1998 onwards尽管经历剧烈改组，学校与东欧机构的学术交流仍被保留；统一之后学校重组为米特、诺德与阿德勒斯霍夫三个校区，并自 1998 年起把自然科学迁往东南部的阿德勒斯霍夫科技园区。
• The university was selected as one of eleven German institutions of excellence in June 2012, and when the third round of the excellence programme was announced in July 2019 it applied together with the Free University and the Technical University under the name of the Berlin University Alliance and was again designated an institution of excellence2012 年 6 月，学校入选德国十一所卓越大学；2019 年 7 月第三轮卓越计划评选揭晓时，学校与柏林自由大学、柏林工业大学以「柏林大学联盟」名义联合申报，再次获得卓越大学称号。
• Recent institutional changes include a university library reorganised into a natural science library at Adlershof in 2003 and the Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Centre, which opened close to the main building in 2009 and took over the premises of the state library when it had to be cleared in 2005近年来的机构调整包括 2003 年在阿德勒斯霍夫设立自然科学图书馆，以及 2009 年在主楼附近启用的雅各布与威廉·格林中心，后者接收了 2005 年被腾空的州立图书馆馆舍。
• The Museum für Naturkunde, one of the largest natural history museums in the world, was founded alongside the university in 1810 but left it in 2009 to become an independent institution, and the university still keeps a tradition of holding a book sale at its gates facing the Bebelplatz, where the 1933 burning took place与学校一同创建于 1810 年的自然博物馆是世界最大的自然史博物馆之一，但已于 2009 年脱离学校成为独立机构；学校至今仍在正对贝贝尔广场的正门前举办露天书市，而 1933 年的焚书正发生在该广场。
• A visible sign of continuity is that the university still has no tuition-type collegiate structure of its own but a student parliament of 60 seats, elected annually, which in 2025 was split among lists ranging from the left wing grouping to the conservative student association延续性的一个明显标志是学校并无英式的学院制，而设有 60 个席位的法定学生议会，每年改选；2025 年各席位由从左翼学生组织到保守派学生协会等多个名单分配。

Academics

• The university is divided into nine faculties, of which the Charité is shared with the Free University of Berlin, and it offers degree programmes in some 171 disciplines from undergraduate level to the postdoctoral stage学校下设九个学院，其中柏林夏里特医学院与柏林自由大学合办；学校在本科到博士后阶段共提供约 171 个学科的学位项目。
• The nine are the faculties of arts and humanities, of economics and business administration, of humanities and social sciences, of law, of language literature and humanities, of life sciences including an institute of agriculture named after Albrecht Daniel Thaer, of mathematics and natural sciences, of theology, and the Charité medical faculty九个学院分别是艺术与人文学院、经济与工商学院、人文与社会科学学院、法学院、语言文学与人文学院、生命科学学院（含以 Albrecht Daniel Thaer 命名的农业与园艺研究所）、数学与自然科学学院、神学院，以及夏里特医学院。
• The faculty system is reinforced by a network of graduate schools that provide structured doctoral programmes, among them the Berlin Graduate School of Ancient Studies, the Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences, the Berlin School of Mind and Brain, the Berlin Mathematical School, the Humboldt Graduate School, the school of analytical sciences at Adlershof and the graduate school on advanced materials院系体系之外还由一批研究生院提供结构化的博士培养，包括柏林古代学研究研究生院、柏林社会科学研究生院、柏林心灵与大脑研究院、柏林数学研究院、洪堡研究生院、阿德勒斯霍夫的分析科学研究生院以及先进材料研究生院。
• The university counted 37,222 students in the most recent published figures, of whom 18,712 were undergraduates, 10,881 postgraduates and 2,951 doctoral candidates, served by 2,403 academic and 1,516 administrative staff, and its budget was 536.0 million euro in 2022按最新公布数据，学校有学生 37,222 人，其中本科生 18,712 人、研究生 10,881 人、博士生 2,951 人；教职工中有学术人员 2,403 人、行政人员 1,516 人；2022 年学校预算为 5.36 亿欧元。
• Physics is the field most closely associated with the university, which employed Albert Einstein from 1914 and Max Planck from 1917 and counted among its chairs Hermann von Helmholtz, Emil du Bois-Reymond and Gustav Hertz, and it remains Germany's strongest centre for the history of physics物理是与该校关联最紧密的领域，爱因斯坦自 1914 年、普朗克自 1917 年先后在此任教，亥姆霍兹、埃米尔·杜布瓦-雷蒙与古斯塔夫·赫兹等也曾担任讲席教授；学校至今仍是德国最强的物理学史研究重心。
• Life sciences are anchored in the north campus near the central station and in the Charité, with departments of biology, psychology, agriculture and horticulture, while chemistry, physics, mathematics, geography and computer science sit together at the Adlershof campus in the south-east生命科学以市中心火车站附近的诺德校区与夏里特医学院为重心，设有生物学、心理学、农业与园艺等系；化学、物理、数学、地理与计算机科学则集中在东南部的阿德勒斯霍夫校区。
• Philosophy, history, European ethnology, library and information science sit in the faculty of arts and humanities around the main building, while archaeology, art history, Asian and African studies, cultural history and theory, education studies, musicology, rehabilitation sciences, social sciences and sport sciences belong to the faculty of humanities and social sciences哲学、历史、欧洲民族学、图书馆与信息学等专业集中在主楼周边的艺术与人文学院；考古、艺术史、亚洲与非洲研究、文化史与理论、教育学、音乐学、康复科学、社会科学与运动科学等则隶属人文与社会科学学院。
• A named strength is the humanities and social sciences, where the university ranked first in Germany in the QS arts and humanities and social sciences tables of 2023 and second in Germany for law, psychology and social sciences in the 2024 THE subject ranking人文与社会科学是学校的具名优势领域，2023 年 QS 学科排名中该校在艺术与人文、社会科学两项均居德国第一；2024 年 THE 学科排名中，其法学、心理学与社会科学均居德国第二。
• Another named strength is the historical sciences, including the discipline of which the university held the world's first chair in 1810, and in the 2023 Shanghai subject ranking it placed first in Germany in geography历史科学是另一项具名优势，其中包括学校 1810 年设立全世界第一个教席的史学科；2023 年上海交大学科排名中，该校地理学位列德国第一。
• Medicine and dentistry are organised in the Charité, which in the QS subject tables of 2026 ranked eighteenth in the world for medicine and twenty-second for dentistry, both first in Germany, while psychology ranked fifty-third worldwide and also first at home医学与牙科由夏里特医学院承担，2026 年 QS 学科排名中该院医学全球第 18、牙科全球第 22，两项均为德国第一；心理学全球第 53 位，同样居德国首位。
• The university operates four central institutes, the Centre for British Studies, Humboldt-Innovation for research transfer and spin-offs, the Späth-Arboretum and until 2009 the Museum für Naturkunde, in addition to centres such as the Centre for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies学校设有四个中央研究所：英国研究中心、承担成果转化与衍生企业职能的 Humboldt-Innovation、施帕特树木园，以及 2009 年之前隶属校方的自然博物馆；此外还有跨学科性别研究中心等机构。
• The university library holds about 6.5 million volumes and 9,000 journals and periodicals and is among the largest in Germany, its collection contained 831,934 volumes in 1930 alone, and the library houses the archive for sexology founded with a private donation and a collection of books rescued from the destruction of the Institute for Sexual Science大学图书馆藏书约 650 万册，期刊与连续出版物 9,000 种，是德国规模最大的大学图书馆之一，仅 1930 年藏书就达 831,934 册；馆内还保存着性学档案及一批从性别研究所被毁中抢救出来的藏书。
• Students are organized through the legally established student parliament and the general students' association, and the university runs exchange programmes with partners such as the University of Oxford, Princeton University and Peking University, allowing students to spend a semester or a year abroad学生事务通过法定学生议会与学生会组织；学校与牛津大学、普林斯顿大学和北京大学等伙伴开展交换项目，学生可赴海外学习一学期或一学年。
• By the numbers of affiliated Nobel laureates the university stands first among German institutions, with 57 laureates recorded as alumni, faculty or researchers by 2020, and because the Free University also claims succession to the old university both have been absent from the Shanghai ranking since 2008 over the disputed counting of pre-war prize winners按关联诺贝尔奖得主的数量计算，学校在德国高校中居首，截至 2020 年共有 57 位奖主的校友、教师或研究者与之相关；由于洪堡大学与柏林自由大学对二战前获奖者的归属存在争议，自 2008 年起两者均未被上海排名收录。
• Recent national distinctions include the university's role in the Berlin University Alliance, which renewed its excellence status in 2019, and its participation in the European University Association and in the network of universities from the capitals of Europe近年来的国家级荣誉包括学校作为成员参与的柏林大学联盟于 2019 年续获卓越地位，此外学校也是欧洲大学协会与欧洲首都大学网络的成员。
• Administration is led by the president, who is Julia von Blumenthal, and the university is visited in the formal sense by the state of Berlin, which also appoints members of the senate and the board of trustees that oversee its finances学校由校长「Julia von Blumenthal」领导，柏林州在制度上担任学校的校监，并任命评议会的成员及负责财务监督的董事会成员。
• The university's structure is unusual in European context because the two state universities of the city, this one and the Free University, share a medical faculty while otherwise competing for students and research funding, a division that has persisted since the Cold War学校结构在欧洲语境中颇为特殊：柏林两所国立大学——本校与柏林自由大学——共享医学院，其余方面则长期在招生与科研经费上相互竞争，这种格局自冷战以来一直延续。

Campus

• The main building is the Prince Henry's Palace on the boulevard Unter den Linden in the historic centre of Berlin, erected from 1748 to 1753 for the younger brother of Frederick the Great to designs by Johann Boumann in baroque style, converted into a university building in 1809 and rebuilt after the war between 1949 and 1962主楼是菩提树下大街上的海因里希亲王宫，由 Johann Boumann 于 1748 至 1753 年为腓特烈大帝之弟按巴洛克风格设计建造，1809 年改建为大学校舍，战后于 1949 至 1962 年重建。
• The palace served as the seat of the university's faculty of arts and humanities, and eight statues from the destroyed Potsdam City Palace were placed on its side wings in 1967, while the adjacent old royal library now houses the faculty of law该宫殿曾是学校艺术与人文学院所在地，1967 年八尊来自已毁波茨坦城市宫殿的雕像被安置于其侧翼；邻近的老王家图书馆如今是法学院的院址。
• Three campuses organise the university's life, with the Mitte campus around the main building holding the humanities, law and business economics, the Nord campus near the central railway station holding the life sciences and the university medical centre, and the Adlershof campus in the south-east holding the natural sciences, mathematics and computer science in the technology park学校生活由三个校区组织：米特校区以主楼为中心，容纳人文学科、法学与工商经济；诺德校区紧邻中央火车站，承载生命科学与大学医学中心；东南部的阿德勒斯霍夫校区则集中自然科学、数学与计算机科学，位于科技园区内。
• Further named buildings include the Grimm Centre, which opened in 2009 as the new home of the central library and which renewed the relationship between the university and the street, and the Magnus Hirschfeld Centre, which since 2001 houses the archive for sexology in memory of the institute destroyed in 1933其他具名建筑包括 2009 年启用的格林中心，它成为总馆的新址并重塑了大学与街道的关系；以及马格努斯·赫希菲尔德中心，2001 年起在此保存性学档案，以纪念 1933 年被摧毁的性学研究所。
• On the library side, the royal library proved insufficient and a new library was founded in 1831, a building for it was designed by Paul Emanuel Spieker and built between 1871 and 1874, the collection moved to the building of the state library in 1910, the natural science stock was rehoused at Adlershof in 2003 and the whole system returned to a new building of its own in 2009在图书馆方面，由于王家图书馆容量不足，学校于 1831 年另建新馆，其馆舍由 Paul Emanuel Spieker 设计、1871 至 1874 年建成，1910 年藏书迁入州立图书馆馆舍，2003 年自然科学图书移至阿德勒斯霍夫，2009 年整套体系迁入自有新馆。
• The university also maintains the Späth-Arboretum, a historic collection of trees and shrubs south-east of the centre, and the Museum für Naturkunde, once its own museum, remains one of the largest natural history museums in the world next door in the Mitte district学校还管理着东南郊的历史树木园，而相邻的米特区自然博物馆虽已于 2009 年独立，仍是世界最大的自然史博物馆之一。
• Student housing in Berlin is organised by the state student services rather than by the university, and the three campuses are linked to the city by tram, underground and regional trains, with the Adlershof site connected directly to the ring railway and the sciences campus reached in a few minutes from the centre柏林的学生住宿由州级学生服务机构而非学校直接组织，三个校区通过有轨电车、地铁与城郊铁路与市区相连，阿德勒斯霍夫校区直接接入环线铁路，从市中心前往科学园区只需数分钟。
• The surroundings are of high architectural value, since the boulevard carries the Brandenburg Gate, the University Church, the opera and the former palace of the Prussian kings, and the book sale held at the gates facing the Bebelplatz has turned the square in front of the university into a regular open air market周边街区建筑价值极高，菩提树下大街沿线分布着勃兰登堡门、大学教堂、歌剧院与昔日普鲁士国王宫殿；正对贝贝尔广场的校门前书市，则使大学前广场成为固定的露天市集。

Reputation

• In the QS World University Rankings 2027 the Humboldt University of Berlin is placed 140th in the world with an overall score of 62.6在 2027 年 QS 世界大学排名中，柏林洪堡大学位列世界第 140 位，综合得分 62.6 分。
• The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2027 place it 91st, and the US News Best Global Universities ranking of 2026 to 2027 ranks it 47th, a steep rise for a university long considered primarily a home of humanities scholarship2027 年泰晤士高等教育世界大学排名将其列为第 91 位；2026 至 2027 年度《美国新闻与世界报道》全球最佳大学排名为第 47 位，对一所以人文学术传统著称的大学而言，这是显著的上升。
• OpenAlex records 135,098 works and 11,539,816 citations for the institution, and the volume of citation confirms the reach that its nineteenth century reputation established across the sciences as wellOpenAlex 收录该校文献 135,098 篇、总被引 11,539,816 次，引文规模印证了其在自然科学与人文科学两方面由 19 世纪声望积累而来的国际影响力。
• With 57 affiliated Nobel laureates recorded by 2020, the university has produced more prize winners than any other German university, including Albert Einstein for Physics in 1921, Max Planck in 1918, Emil Fischer for Chemistry in 1902, Robert Koch for Physiology or Medicine in 1905 and Theodor Mommsen for Literature in 1902截至 2020 年，学校共有 57 位诺贝尔奖得主与之相关，是德国产出诺奖得主最多的大学，其中包括 1921 年物理学奖得主爱因斯坦、1918 年物理学奖得主普朗克、1902 年化学奖得主埃米尔·费歇尔、1905 年生理学或医学奖得主罗伯特·科赫，以及 1902 年文学奖得主特奥多尔·蒙森。
• The scientific tradition of the school is documented by the chairs it has offered, with Planck and Einstein both teaching here in the years before the first world war, and with the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to the professor Emmanuelle Charpentier, who moved to Berlin and directs a research unit at the campus in Adlershof学校的科学传统可由历任讲席佐证：普朗克与爱因斯坦都在一战前在此任教；2020 年诺贝尔化学奖得主、教授 Emmanuelle Charpentier 也来到柏林，在阿德勒斯霍夫校区主持一个研究组。
• The university pioneered the model of the research university and its structure was copied elsewhere in the world, including at the Johns Hopkins University and at the universities of the United States that introduced graduate education on the German pattern学校开创了研究型大学的模式，其结构随后被世界各地仿效，包括美国约翰霍普金斯大学以及一批按德国模式引入研究生教育的美国大学。
• Because the Free University of Berlin also claims to be the successor of the old university, both universities have been excluded from the Shanghai ranking since 2008 over the disputed counting of pre-war laureates, and in the 2020 US News list the institution stood 82nd and climbed further afterwards由于柏林自由大学同样主张继承老大学，两校自 2008 年起因二战前获奖者归属争议而未被上海排名收录；在《美国新闻与世界报道》2020 年榜单中，学校位列第 82 位，此后继续上升。
• The university's standing also rests on its museums and libraries, since it runs two museums and a university library of about 6.5 million volumes, and on the discipline rankings, where in the QS tables of 2026 it placed fourteenth in philosophy, twenty-fifth in sociology and thirty-first in history worldwide, all first or second in Germany学校的声望也建立在其博物馆与图书馆体系之上，旗下有两座博物馆和一所藏书约 650 万册的大学图书馆；学科排名同样突出，2026 年 QS 榜单中其哲学全球第 14、社会学第 25、历史学第 31，三项均居德国第一或第二。
• In the German context the university remains among the oldest and most selective institutions, with a student body of more than 35,000 spread over three campuses and a research portfolio that keeps the classics of theology, philosophy and philology alive alongside quantum physics and modern genomics在德国语境下，学校仍是最古老、最具遴选性的大学之一，三校区学生总数超过 35,000 人，其科研版图在保持神学、哲学与古典语文学传统的同时，也覆盖量子物理与现代基因组学等前沿方向。

Student life

• The motto of the university is Universitas litterarum, the university of letters, which reflects Humboldt's idea that a modern university should be the totality of knowledge where teaching and research take place together and academic freedom is guaranteed学校校训为「Universitas litterarum」，意为知识的总和，体现洪堡的理念：现代大学应当是知识的整体，教学与研究在同一场所进行，并保障学术自由。
• The Humboldt model of unity of teaching and research is not only a slogan but an organisational rule, since professorial chairs are tied to research, students are expected to write dissertations under supervision, and the university holds a student parliament of 60 seats with legally defined rights洪堡倡导的教学与研究统一并非口号，而是组织原则：教授讲席与科研任务绑定，学生须在导师指导下完成学位论文，学校另设拥有法定权利的 60 席位学生议会。
• The Johns Hopkins University took the model to the United States, where the research university became the dominant type, and the German version travelled to Tokyo and to other universities in Japan, which shows how far the influence of a single founding idea reached美国约翰霍普金斯大学把这一模式引入美国，研究型大学由此成为主流类型；该模式还传往东京等地并影响了日本多所大学，可见一个创校理念的传播之远。
• Among the traditions of the university is the book sale held at the gates facing the Bebelplatz, a regular open air market that has been held for generations on the very square where 20,000 books were burned in 1933, which makes it both a place of sociability and a memorial学校的传统之一是在正对贝贝尔广场的校门前举办露天书市，这一活动已延续数代，而该广场正是 1933 年两万余册书籍被焚之地，兼具社交场所与纪念地的双重含义。
• Student culture has always been politically engaged, with the 1968 movement, later campaigns over reform of the universities and, in 2022, the occupation of campus facilities by climate and pro-Palestinian demonstrators, in one case a tent encampment that stood from 30 May to 9 June before the threat of police intervention学生文化历来带有强烈的政治介入色彩，从 1968 年运动到后来的高校改革抗议，再到 2022 年气候与声援巴勒斯坦学生占领校园设施，其中一次帐篷营地自 5 月 30 日坚持到 6 月 9 日，在警方可能干预的威胁下才结束。
• Because the university is a federal and state body of the city rather than a private foundation, its student housing is organised outside the university by the state student services, and the price of accommodation in Berlin has been a constant subject of student protest in the past years由于学校是市属与州属的公立机构而非私立基金会，学生宿舍由校外的州级学生服务机构统筹安排，柏林住房价格近年来一直是学生抗议的焦点。
• The university's own student facilities include the central library with its reading rooms, the museums on the campus, and a legally recognised general students' association that represents students before the senate and the board and organises cultural and social events学校自有学生设施包括设阅览室的总馆、校园内的博物馆，以及依法设立、在评议会与董事会面前代表学生的学生会，后者还组织各类文化与社交活动。
• Music and theatre have a strong presence in the city around the university, with the university church, the opera and the Philharmonic on the same boulevard, and the arts faculty of the university itself organises public lectures and exhibitions that are open to the city大学周边的柏林拥有浓厚的音乐与戏剧氛围，菩提树下大街上就有大学教堂、歌剧院与爱乐乐团；学校艺术学院本身也组织面向全城开放的讲座与展览。

Notable people

• Wilhelm von Humboldt, the Prussian minister who founded the university with Johann Gottlieb Fichte and the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, was also a linguist and the brother of the geographer Alexander von Humboldt, and his ideas on the unity of teaching and research shaped universities far beyond Prussia普鲁士教育部长威廉·冯·洪堡与约翰·戈特利布·费希特、神学家弗里德里希·施莱尔马赫共同创办了这所大学，他本人还是语言学家、地理学家亚历山大·冯·洪堡之弟，其关于教学与研究统一的理念影响了远超普鲁士范围的大学。
• Theodor Schmalz was the first rector of the university and presided over the opening semester of 1810, and he had earlier submitted the memorandum setting out the principles on which the new university was to be organised, including the independence of science from any direct utility特奥多·尔·施马尔茨是学校首任校长，主持了 1810 年的首个学期；他此前提交的备忘录提出了新大学的组织原则，其中包括学术不应为直接功利服务。
• Among the founding generation of teachers were Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, whose lectures on philosophy and religion were given here, the legal theorist Friedrich Carl von Savigny, the classical scholar August Böckh and the physician Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland, each of whom gave the faculty of his period its character创校一代的教师中，有在此讲授哲学与宗教的绝对唯心主义哲学家黑格尔、历史法学派的代表萨维尼、古典学家奥古斯特·伯克，以及医学家胡费兰德，他们各自塑造了所属学院的精神。
• Albert Einstein, professor at the university from 1914, developed the theory of relativity and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921, and Max Planck, who taught here from 1917, received the same prize in 1918 for his quantum hypothesis, his work having been completed at the close of the previous year in Berlin自 1914 年起在此任教的阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦创立了相对论，1921 年获诺贝尔物理学奖；自 1917 年起在此任教的马克斯·普朗克，因量子假说于 1918 年获同奖，而相关工作正是在前一年底于柏林完成的。
• The chemistry laureate Emil Fischer received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1902 for his work on sugar and purine synthesis, Robert Koch received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1905 for tuberculosis, and the physician Paul Ehrlich won the medicine prize in 1908 for his work on immunity, forming a medical and chemical tradition still visible in the Charité today化学家埃米尔·费歇尔因糖与嘌呤的合成工作获 1902 年诺贝尔化学奖，内科医生罗伯特·科赫因结核病研究获 1905 年诺贝尔生理学或医学奖，医学家保罗·埃尔利希因免疫学工作获 1908 年同奖——这些医学与化学传统至今仍能在夏里特医学院看到。
• Erwin Schrödinger was appointed professor of theoretical physics here in 1927 and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933 for the wave equation of quantum mechanics, Max von Laue, who held a chair here from 1919, won the same prize in 1914 for his work on the diffraction of X rays in crystals, and James Franck, professor here from 1921, received it in 1925 for the Franck and Hertz experiment on the excitation of atoms埃尔温·薛定谔于 1927 年在此获聘理论物理学讲席教授，因量子力学波方程获 1933 年诺贝尔物理学奖；自 1919 年起在此任教的马克斯·冯·劳厄因晶体 X 射线衍射研究获 1914 年同奖；1921 年起在此任教的詹姆斯·弗兰克则因弗兰克—赫兹实验获 1925 年同奖。
• Lise Meitner, who worked in Berlin and explained nuclear fission in 1939, was denied a chair at this university and became an extraordinary professor only in 1926, and she received the Enrico Fermi Award in 1966 together with Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, an exclusion that shaped the history of the school莉泽·迈特纳曾在柏林工作，并于 1939 年解释了核裂变，但学校始终拒绝给她正教授职位，1926 年只授予特聘教授头衔；她与奥托·哈恩、弗里茨·施特拉斯曼共同获得 1966 年恩里科·费米奖，这一不公待遇成为校史的重要一页。
• Theodor Mommsen received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1902 for his history of Rome, and the university's Nobel record also includes the 2020 chemistry laureate Emmanuelle Charpentier, a professor at the school, while the writer Walter Benjamin and the sociologist Georg Simmel taught here without ever receiving a prize特奥多尔·蒙森因《罗马史》获 1902 年诺贝尔文学奖；学校的诺奖名单还包括本校教授、2020 年诺贝尔化学奖得主 Emmanuelle Charpentier；而作家本雅明与社会学家齐美尔虽长期在此任教，却终身未获此奖。
• Politically the university educated Otto von Bismarck, the first chancellor of Germany, Karl Liebknecht, a founder of the communist party, Robert Schuman, a driving force of European integration, W. E. B. Du Bois, the American sociologist and civil rights campaigner, and Gustav Stresemann, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926政界方面，德意志帝国首任宰相俾斯麦、德国共产党创始人卡尔·李卜克内西、欧洲一体化推动者舒曼、美国社会学家与民权活动家杜波依斯，以及 1926 年诺贝尔和平奖得主古斯塔夫·施特雷泽曼，都曾在此就读。
• Among its Chinese alumni are Luo Jialun, historian and former president of National Central University, the sinologists Zong Baihua and Chen Yinke, the physicists Wang Ganchang and Zhao Jiuzhang, the geologist Ding Wenjiang, the educator Tian Peilin and Zhou Enlai, who studied in Berlin after the 1911 revolution and became the first premier of the People's Republic of China华人校友中，有中央大学老校长、史学家罗家伦，美学家宗白华，史学家陈寅恪，物理学家王淦昌与赵九章，地质学家丁文俊，教育家田培林，以及辛亥革命后赴柏林求学、后来成为中华人民共和国首任总理的周恩来。
• The school's standing rests not only on prizes but on the chairs it has offered, with Karl Weierstrass, regarded as the father of modern analysis, holding a chair of mathematics here and with Rudolf Virchow, the father of modern pathology, teaching at this university for more than four decades学校的地位不仅依靠奖项，也依靠它提供的讲席：被誉为「现代分析学之父」的卡尔·魏尔斯特拉斯曾在此担任数学讲席教授，「现代病理学之父」鲁道夫·菲尔绍也在此任教四十余年。
• Among later generations are Alfred Wegener, who studied here and proposed the continental drift hypothesis in 1912, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the theologian and pastor who founded the Confessing Church in 1933 in protest against the Nazi regime, and Wernher von Braun, an alumnus who became the leading figure of the European space programme在后辈校友与学者中，有在此求学并于 1912 年提出大陆漂移假说的地球物理学家魏格纳，反对纳粹政权并于 1933 年发起「认信教会」的神学家潘霍华，以及后来成为欧洲航天计划核心人物的火箭专家冯·布劳恩。