75 years ago, in the spring and summer of 1948, during and because the Socialist Unity Party (SED) in eastern Berlin was exerting ever more repressive influence on the University of Unter den Linden, an initiative was formed to found a “free university” in western Berlin City.
It developed remarkable momentum: on July 23, 1948, the “preparatory committee for the founding of a free university” published its manifesto, and on November 4, the city council decided to found a free university. Matriculation opened on November 5th, lectures began on November 15th, and on December 4th, 1948 (there was previously no large hall available) the founding ceremony took place in the Titania Palace in Steglitz.
Günter M. Ziegler is President of Freie Universität Berlin and Professor of Mathematics.
The speech was given by Ernst Reuter, the elected mayor of Berlin and chairman of the founding committee of Freie Universität.
Today, after 75 years, the Freie Universität Berlin is a large comprehensive university, a campus university in the green southwest of Berlin. With its future concept as an “International Network University” it was awarded and promoted from 2007 as part of the excellence competition. Cooperation – within the university, but also regionally, nationally, European and globally – is a key concept.
In Berlin, Freie Universität is a driving force behind the Berlin University Alliance. Nationally, the FU appears in the German U15 network of fifteen strong full universities, European in the Una Europa network, globally with strategic partnerships and its network of offices abroad. Networking in the Global South is developed by the Berlin Center for Global Engagement of the Berlin University Alliance, which is based at the university.
However, the freedom in the name of the university is not Kris Kristofferson’s “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”, but it is the freedom of the Basic Law, which was written and negotiated at the same time as the founding process of Freie Universität.
The freedom of research and teaching is central to the freedom of the university, as it is guaranteed by the Basic Law (and literally by the Berlin Constitution). This is not an isolated privilege, but a building block of democracy, a major task for society as a whole, of which we at Freie Universität shoulder our share, to which we must contribute actively and with great responsibility.
Strengthen university autonomy
According to the Federal Constitutional Court, science is “an area of autonomous responsibility that is fundamentally free from external determination”. University autonomy must be secured and strengthened in various dimensions in the coming 75th anniversary year for Freie Universität as well as for the other Berlin universities.
As in many federal states, the right of appointment should lie with the university itself, and autonomy in the construction of the university should also be expanded for practical and financial reasons. The new university contracts to be negotiated must be designed as a development and responsibility framework, not as control instruments.
The world is changing and the FU with it
The autonomy of the universities must also be shown in the design of opportunities and career paths and in protection from detailed control. This is what we will and must work for. For Freie Universität, freedom means responsibility. It is needed to understand and shape the world, in its full thematic breadth and diversity, its excellence in research and teaching.
The world is changing – and Freie Universität is changing. It is entering its anniversary year with the motto “75 years of free thinking. form responsibility. shaping change”. What makes the FU special, how it is seen, how it wants to position itself in the future, all of this will be further developed in the anniversary year. But its name and its claim remain: We are and will remain Freie Universität Berlin.
